Midget doctors

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Adapt

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Yep that's right people. I was watching this special some time ago about midgets. Anyways, they did a story about this one midget doctor and showed a day in his life at work.

He said that at his med school interviews, some interviewers flat out told him he could not be a doctor since he would get no respect. Anyway, he ended up actually getting in and succeeding.

First discrimination against URMs, than nontrads, and now midgets. WHEN WILL IT END?

This just goes to show, if a midget could get into medical school, then anyone can.

MIDGETS RULE!!!!!!🙂
 
Originally posted by Slickness
Yep that's right people. I was watching this special some time ago about midgets. Anyways, they did a story about this one midget doctor and showed a day in his life at work.

He said that at his med school interviews, some interviewers flat out told him he could not be a doctor since he would get no respect. Anyway, he ended up actually getting in and succeeding.

First discrimination against URMs, than nontrads, and now midgets. WHEN WILL IT END?

This just goes to show, if a midget could get into medical school, then anyone can.

MIDGETS RULE!!!!!!🙂
Click to expand...

I can't express how funny this post was.
 
That was a good story at the site posted!
 
Interesting that Albany gave him a chance at Medical school and residency but one he was done then Hopkins hired him.
 
thanks for the link, skypilot! The guy's story is simply amazing.

there's a story of persistence for all those who whine about this process being hard....man.

🙂
 
Originally posted by skypilot
Maybe you are talking about this guy. It is an inspiring story.

http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/0499web/ortho.html
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Thanks, skypilot. It was exactly that same guy. I guess there wouldn't be that many midget doctors. It was on an HBO special talking about the lives of different midgets and he was one of them.

For what it's worth, I don't know about midget doctors. If I went to see a doctor and while waiting a midget walks into the room, I might start laughing, which wouldn't be good. I've seen a couple of midgets in my time and they make me smile. Thoughts of weeman from Jackass come to mind. It's not because I'm prejudiced against them but I think they look cool.

Part of what his interviewers were saying is right. It would be hard to take him seriously and respect him the same way as you would any other doctor. I guess after you get to know him but still.
 
Thats awsome!

I never would have even considered a midget doctor. I think its great but it shows you that we do have stereotypes in our heads. I NEVER would have expected to see a midget doctor.
 
It's great that JHU hired him after he graduated, but it would suck if they were one of the schools that rejected him initially and waited for him to succeed so they could snatch him up as a "trophy doctor" so to speak.

Anyway, truly inspiring, mad props go out to this guy and anyone like him.
 
Originally posted by Gleevec
It's great that JHU hired him after he graduated, but it would suck if they were one of the schools that rejected him initially and waited for him to succeed so they could snatch him up as a "trophy doctor" so to speak.

Anyway, truly inspiring, mad props go out to this guy and anyone like him.
Click to expand...

Hopkins did reject him:

"Ain sent out 20 to 30 applications to medical schools all over the country including Hopkins. On the advice of a guidance counselor, he noted in the personal letter each school required that he was a dwarf. "Because I am," Ain says simply. "It shaped me."

At first he thought he had a good chance of getting into medical school. But then his optimism began to fade. During several of his admissions interviews, officials told him he'd have great physical difficulty performing the duties of a physician. When Ain pressed them to explain, they told him he would not be able to reach his patients' bedside. To Ain, the solution seemed obvious. He would use a footstool. Others worried that he wasn't strong enough. Ain, who had been lifting weights and working out regularly, fired back, "I'm stronger than anybody you're interviewing today." He suggested he could match any of them in the weight room. What about gaining the respect of his patients? asked some interviewers. Ain thought that was a lame excuse. His classmates at Andover had chosen him to receive the coveted "End of the Year Award," signifying their respect and admiration. He had proved his leadership skills time and again. "You don't have to be intimidating to be respected," Ain says.

But Ain's fears were confirmed. One by one, the thin envelopes bearing rejection notices arrived, until eventually Ain had received one from every medical school to which he had applied."
 
Wow I guess I should have read the whole article, thanks a lot for pointing that out Kashue.

Man, its nice that schools like Hopkins dont have to take any risks on students for med school, they can just hire them once they overcome their main obstacle in life and then give the appearance that they saw beyond that very shortcoming the whole time.

Quite brilliant PR... 🙄
 
Originally posted by Gleevec
Wow I guess I should have read the whole article, thanks a lot for pointing that out Kashue.

Man, its nice that schools like Hopkins dont have to take any risks on students for med school, they can just hire them once they overcome their main obstacle in life and then give the appearance that they saw beyond that very shortcoming the whole time.

Quite brilliant PR... 🙄
Click to expand...

I guess it's "no hard feelings" when it comes to medical school decisions. Then again, who said life was fair?

Major props go out to Ain. Tough guy. :clap: :clap:
 
Originally posted by Kashue
I guess it's "no hard feelings" when it comes to medical school decisions. Then again, who said life was fair?

Major props go out to Ain. Tough guy. :clap: :clap:
Click to expand...

Yeah, the real point of this story is how Ain still triumphed over all this BS that was trying to stop him. Truly inspiring. :clap:
 
Maybe he was rejected at some schools because of the technical requirements.
 
Originally posted by LUBDUBB
Maybe he was rejected at some schools because of the technical requirements.
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How can there be technical requirements for entry into medical school, but no such technical requirements for residency, fellowship, and faculty?
 
The whole discrimination he faced during the admission process rather bothers me. As he mentioned himself, using a foot stool will solve the problem of his height along patient's bedside; and the whole respect argument is just lame...patient can disrespect a doctor b/c of race, gender, etc (Patients can be racist or sexist). Should admissions reject people of certain race or gender b/c of that? Heck no.

This story is inspiring, but at the same time, tells me how conservative the health care field still is.
 
in the article they reference how he got married and had a beautiful "small" child.... i guess they didn't do a amniocentesis PCR or RFLP test to screen out the 50% chance of passing the mutation on. dwarf pride i guess!

i wonder if ALL the appendages are smaller on dwarves.....

i think i'd put money that they aren't
😉
 
I believe the term "midget" is derogatory. Just what I heard.
 
At the juncture when they could do a genetic screening test, it would already be too late to do anything about the baby. I'm sure that he was fully aware that there was a good chance his child would be a dwarf, since he DID go to medical school.

Originally posted by nuclearrabbit77
in the article they reference how he got married and had a beautiful "small" child.... i guess they didn't do a amniocentesis PCR or RFLP test to screen out the 50% chance of passing the mutation on. dwarf pride i guess!

i wonder if ALL the appendages are smaller on dwarves.....

i think i'd put money that they aren't
😉
Click to expand...
 
Hey, would you guys say midgets were deformed. I had this big argument with my roommates a while ago. They said that midgets are deformed but I didn't think they were.

Also, they said that being a midget must make them sad and they probably weren't as happy as normal people. I thought that was messed up, and I thought that they probably could be just as happy as normal people.

I asked my roommate what he thought about midget doctors and he said he didn't see anything wrong with that. However, when I asked if he would allow a midget to operate on him he had second thoughts because he thought they had bad hand/eye coordination. I don't think that's true but he said he had heard it from somewhere.

I don't know. Do you guys think it's bad to be happy when you see a midget. For some reason they make me smile. Some would say that's messed up but I don't think so. I'm not putting them down. In fact I like them.
 
For those of you who see midgets, and *smile* - just think about this, if you were in the middle of the locker room of the Utah Jazz, you would be a midget too....

The guy's story is amazing. Talking of amazing stories, I read another one where this Asian kid lost both his hands in a tragic accident, and his *father*, an Army surgeon couldn't find a doctor because it was a national holiday or something. So his dad spent 9 hours operating on his son and reattaching his hands!!!! The operation was a success - and 15 years later, the son is doing an orthopedic surgery residency, and wants to become a hand surgeon.

These stories make most others seem so mundane...
 
Originally posted by Slickness

I asked my roommate what he thought about midget doctors and he said he didn't see anything wrong with that. However, when I asked if he would allow a midget to operate on him he had second thoughts because he thought they had bad hand/eye coordination. I don't think that's true but he said he had heard it from somewhere.
Click to expand...

What?! I want a black female midget working on me...the more hardships they had to overcome to get to where they are shows they obviously know what they are doing.
 
http://www.lpaonline.org/

I think that people who are height-challenged like to be refered to as 'little people.' It's like the Seinfeld episode, where Micky keeps yelling: 'it's little people you big idiot,' to Kramer. :laugh:

Seriously, I know a couple and they are like the coolest people. They have their own business and whenever I am in there I am constantly confronted with how incredibly cool they are - and what my preconditioning is telling me. They use stools sometimes, and when you hand over money at the counter they guy will let you know if you need to hand it over further, I mean he'll say my arms are short, could you reach over farther. Totally awesome !

I have had to really rethink my understanding of little people and to overcome my predjudices.

Yea, about JHU - I agree, nice they snatched him up AFTER Albany (bless their heart) gave him his chance to succeed. 🙄 It must have been hard not telling them to f*ck off, but then JH is JH and professionally it is a great experience.
 
Originally posted by nuclearrabbit77
actually, abortion is a viable and legal option.
Click to expand...

at first, i, too, thought it was odd that ain and his wife didnt screen for the gene, but i realized after he had "God" in half his quotes that his religion probably objects to abortion.
 
I am going to sound like the obnoxious premedy premed, but I was JUST thinking the other day that maybe I would get rejected post-interviews because I'm short and really, who wants a short girl as their doctor? The last doctor I went to was abnormally tall.

Sorry guys I'm really sleep deprived and really can't think about anything other than collisions and angular momentum....the semester is ALMOST OVER!
 
I don't think that should matter being a short woman, didn't Efex101 say she was only about 5' tall? PM her and ask, but she got into like, 15 schools 😱
 
Originally posted by nuclearrabbit77
actually, abortion is a viable and legal option.
Click to expand...

I think Dr. Ain would be glad his parents never had this mindset.

While I'm pro-choice, abortion should NEVER be a method of weeding out the "undesirables" in society.

I don't see ANY reason a midget would not have a happy, fulfilling life. Aborting fetuses because they will not be accepted in society is the first step in a very dangerous direction.
 
Yeah, maybe Dr. Ain and his wife didn't screen for genetic abnormalities because they didn't care if their child was a dwarf...why should they? Are you seriously suggesting they should have aborted their child because it would be very short? Like Optimist, I'm pro-choice but would never consider or condone aborting fetuses based on appearance issues. I mean, I'm 5'3", my mom's barely 5'; if you think we don't have a place in the world because of our short stature, you can seriously munch my butt, nuclearrabbitt. I think you're going to be damn disappointed when your kids don't pop out of the womb as 6'5", blond haired blue eyed supermen/women gifted with superior intellect and athletic ability. 🙄

Anyway, I think Dr. Ain is a pretty amazing and dedicated human being. It's sad that there is still so much prejudice in the medical profession, where of all places logic and knowledge should triumph over pre-conceived stereotypes about someone with a given medical condition. He deserves praise for what he has managed to overcome and achieve despite this.
 
While it is true that Dr. Ain overcame many odds to get where he is at, many of you are being too harsh on the adcoms. I mean, after all, if any of you had a life threatening illness and needed to have a surgery done, how many of you would be more than happy to let a dwarf doctor perform the surgery on you if there were other capable normal doctors available.

I am sure some would have second thoughts about allowing it especially if there are other available surgeons that can perform the surgery. In other words, although he may be a good surgeon, if it was your child or you that needed to have an important surgery done and a dwarf comes into the room and tells you that he will do the surgery, I am almost positive many of you will question his skills and competency compared to that of a normal surgeon.

The adcoms must have recognized this and were a bit apprehensive in accepting him as such.
 
Originally posted by Slickness
how many of you would be more than happy to let a dwarf doctor perform the surgery on you if there were other capable normal doctors available.
Click to expand...

I honestly don't see how this could possibly make a difference for me.

If medical schools start shunning people because they have unusual physical characteristics, they are simply perpetuating the stereotype.
 
I'm not here to argue about when you should or shouldn't use abortion, i'll leave decision for the potential parents and physician.
Don't get rightous and holy on me, i simply pointed out the obvious, that we have the techinical ability to do genetic screening "before it's too late" as somebody tried to point out. Obviously, this person doesn't understand current technologies in amniocentesis and molecular techniques such as FISH, cytogenetics, PCR, RFLP.

Whether you like it or not, abortions are being performed for many situtations in cases that would produce a VIABLE progeny.
Such an example is, trisomy 21.

Because i point out such facts, doesn't mean that i support what medical options patients exercise. I intend to provide all the medical options to my patients, informed and cogently. You need to be able to differentiate between information, and opinion.

If you are hesitant to perform such procedures, my answer is, don't do them. My father who is an ob/gyn, doesn't perform abortions, he's an avid catholic, that's fine with me. Again, i digress, this isn't supposed to be a moral argument. I simply am stating what is a LEGAL and VIABLE medical option.

furthermore, don't pretend you are pro-choice, if you don't understand the concept between legal option vs. belief.
 
I stand corrected. We should abort all fetuses that will give rise to human beings that will have any kind of problems in society: short people, people with high risk of heart disease, people with blond hair, Democrats, etc. All such questionable pregnancies must be terminated immediately.
 
I'm a big fan of sarcasm. When used appropriately, of course. implying that i'm a 1984/gattaca/hitler eugenics supporter, because of what i previously posted, is a ridiculous assumption.

or i could resort to your level:

Go bomb another abortion clinic, you pro-life freak.
 
Originally posted by nuclearrabbit77
Go bomb another abortion clinic, you pro-life freak.
Click to expand...

This is a remarkable stretch from anything I have stated. As I mentioned before, I am pro-choice.

It is one thing to acknowledge the legality of this use of abortion, and the fact that it does indeed occur in the world.

However, it is another to personally believe that it is a VIABLE option. You may believe this. I do not. In fact, it is this kind of thinking that has pro-lifers convinced of the frivolity of abortion in the first place.

Also, you mentioned trisomy 21. The discussion was about midgets. There is a big difference. One is a disability, the other is not.
 
Originally posted by Slickness
I am sure some would have second thoughts about allowing it especially if there are other available surgeons that can perform the surgery. In other words, although he may be a good surgeon, if it was your child or you that needed to have an important surgery done and a dwarf comes into the room and tells you that he will do the surgery, I am almost positive many of you will question his skills and competency compared to that of a normal surgeon.

The adcoms must have recognized this and were a bit apprehensive in accepting him as such.
Click to expand...

You obviously have a point Slickness. I am sure this is true for some people. But this is prejudice plain and simple. For some people if a Chinese doctor walked into the room they would make a big stink and ask for another doctor.

But if you give in to this type of prejudice it has defeated you. When you become a doc you should treat all your patients equally too whether they are deformed or normal, rich or poor, fat, smelly whatever 😉

Remember that a lot of your patients will be scared and in pain and want very much to be able to trust you. They will hope that you see them as a human being not just a case with no hope.

If I were a patient with an embarrassing deformity or sickness I think I might be happy to see Dr. Ain because I might assume that he would not devalue my life just because I am not normal.
 
Originally posted by skypilot
You obviously have a point Slickness. I am sure this is true for some people. But this is prejudice plain and simple. For some people if a Chinese doctor walked into the room they would make a big stink and ask for another doctor.
Click to expand...
Your example of a Chinese doctor cannot really be compared to a dwarf doctor. There are many Chinese doctors around whereas more than likely Dr. Ain is one of the only dwarf doctors around.

Furthermore, being Chinese is not a disability. However, being a midget can be considered a deformity (as my roommates have argued), and perhaps his hand/eye coordination isn't as good as any other doctor because of his condition. Thus, I don't think it would be "prejudiced" to have this line of thinking, but rather it would be showing a sincere concern for the surgical abilities of the dwarf doctor because of his condition.
 
Originally posted by Slickness
Thus, I don't think it would be "prejudiced" to have this line of thinking, but rather it would be showing a sincere concern for the surgical abilities of the dwarf doctor because of his condition.
Click to expand...

Ok, I guess you might have some legitimate doubts at first. But if he was a surgeon at Hopkins you could check his record of success as you should any doctor.
 
Originally posted by skypilot
Ok, I guess you might have some legitimate doubts at first. But if he was a surgeon at Hopkins you could check his record of success as you should any doctor.
Click to expand...
Of course. I am sure Dr. Ain is an excellent surgeon seeing as how he works at Hopkins.
 
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