Possible to be a doctor with OCD?

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MessyM

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I know of one person who has it and is now in practice. They did have some pretty significant struggles along the way through training though, and I'm not sure how severe their illness is/was, but they were able to get through it. You will definitely want to be very careful in what field you select and where you decide to train. For example, if stress or sleep deprivation are huge triggers, then maybe avoid fields where training and practice will mean both of those things.
 
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If by MD3 you mean you're a third year MD medical student, then clearly you've been able to compensate for your issues. You've passed two years of medical school and you're in your clinical clerkships (or perhaps started those awhile ago, if going to one of the schools with the newer accelerated curricula). If you did well on preclin and now are doing well on clinical rotations, then it seems you can do whatever you want.

As mentioned, some fields might be more or less of a challenge. In all cases, getting better control of your illness would be best.

if MD3 means something else, my advice might be different.
 
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I've treated a number of medical students with OCD. It's quite common, and I imagine your local academic medical center with a psychiatry department will have extensive experience treating such patients with the gold standard of meds plus therapy, as well as understanding the rigors of medical training.
 
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OCD spans a wide spectrum. There are people with devastating cases who basically can't function outside of group homes but there are also people with mild symptoms that respond quickly to relatively low doses of medication despite the reputation OCD has for requiring higher doses of antidepressants. Many of the patients I have seen with mild-moderate OCD are able to maintain demanding jobs. Sometimes they do struggle with symptoms that interfere with their work but, by and large, I'd say that the treatment is effective. There are also definitely practicing physicians with OCD. It is most certainly not a death knell for a medical career.
 
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With most mental illnesses, you can probably still be a physician if whatever you have is treated. I imagine that schizophrenia and severe bipolar are kisses of death, but otherwise, you can succeed if you find a strategy that works, stick with the treatment, develop insight, and make cognitive/behavioral adaptations.

I may or may not have had to make adaptations myself to survive in medical school, lol. This thing we're doing has a habit of waking you up if you come into it with issues that still need addressing areas of growth.
 
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LOTS of physicians have at least mild OCD. As long as you are able to manage your illness, you will do fine. As others have said, know what your triggers are and find ways to work around them or avoid them. For me, I find that symptoms are LEAST intrusive when I am the busiest and have plenty of important stuff to focus on, so med school and residency were no problem at all.
 
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"My psychologist has explained that while recovery is possible, I will likely always have OCD in some form or another."

I suggest working with an anxiety/OCD specialist psychologist who aims to help you not only manage OCD, but also overcome it.
 
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I had pretty bad ocd all my life, still have some. I actually first noticed it when I was a paper boy in high school and I’d always forget if I threw a paper on a porch so I’d go back and check. Some houses I’d prolly check 3 times. In med school it was locking my apartment, I’d double check the door sometimes 4 times. Eventually things like this pissed me off so much I just said f it and if I didn’t lock it people can just steal my ****.

I actually focus my OCD on things that make me a better doctor. I have a routine where I review all the labs/studies before I discharge patients. I routinely wash my hands so frequently my staff make fun of me. I always ask if a patient has any questions when I see a door frame (ie leaving the room). There’s probably others.

In terms of intrusive thoughts, yeah they happen even at times I wish they wouldn’t, when they do I just smile as a reflex. Seems to work. Hope that helps.
 
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Most people I know of in medical school has at least mild OCD.
 
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Most people I know of in medical school has at least mild OCD.
Most people in med school have obsessive-compulsive personality traits. This is different from OCD.

As I mentioned above, OCD varies in severity. What I didn’t mention in the previous post is that I also have a mild-moderate case of OCD. Since others have shared their experiences, I’ll share mine.

I’ve probably always had some obsessions and compulsions, but they never seriously bothered me until residency. When I was a kid, I had some weird stuff about not wanting to step on the cracks in the sidewalk and a fixation on even numbers. I think my parents told me that, if I was eating cookies, I always had to eat an even number of them. Either that or a multiple of 5. Still, it wasn’t very interfering and I never really sought treatment for it.

In residency, I started experiencing two phenomena that really bothered me. The first was that my compulsive checking behaviors were getting worse. At a few points, I had to walk all the way back to the garage from my office to check that I locked my car (this was not an insignificant walk).

The second is somewhat related and is that I started having intrusive thoughts related to the welfare of my cats. I would have thoughts that I knew were completely irrational but I worried that, if I didn’t attend to them, my cats would be harmed. For instance, I would have repetitive thoughts that I may not have closed the bottles to my medications or closed the night stand I kept them in and that, if I hadn’t, the cats might eat my medicine and overdose. As a result, I had to ritually check my medication cabinet every morning. I would also have to directly visualize each of my cats before I left the apartment every morning because I worried that, if I didn’t, the cats could have run past me and gotten out. This also made no sense because I live in a high rise apartment with an elevator, so I would see them in the hallway even if they did get out. If I forgot or just doubted whether I had done either of these rituals, I would have to go back and do them. Many times I would get all the way to my car to go to work and then have to go back to the apartment to check these things.

These last few things became giant nuisances, so I asked to try an antidepressant and it has helped a lot. I still have some checking urges but they’re much improved. I also have some obsessive-compulsive personality traits, but those I try to channel productively.

So, yes. There are people who do just fine in medicine despite OCD.
 
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Most people in med school have obsessive-compulsive personality traits. This is different from OCD.

As I mentioned above, OCD varies in severity. What I didn’t mention in the previous post is that I also have a mild-moderate case of OCD. Since others have shared their experiences, I’ll share mine.

I’ve probably always had some obsessions and compulsions, but they never seriously bothered me until residency. When I was a kid, I had some weird stuff about not wanting to step on the cracks in the sidewalk and a fixation and with even numbers. I think my parents told me that, if I was eating cookies, I always had to eat an even number of them. Either that or a multiple of 5. Still, it wasn’t very interfering and I never really sought treatment for it.

In residency, I started experiencing two phenomena that really bothered me. The first was that my compulsive checking behaviors were getting worse. At a few points, I had to walk all the way back to the garage from my office to check that I locked my car (this was not an insignificant walk).

The second is somewhat related and is that I started having intrusive thoughts related to the welfare of my cats. I would have thoughts that I knew were completely irrational but I worried that, if I didn’t attend to them, my cats would be harmed. For instance, I would have repetitive thoughts that I may not have closed the bottles to my medications or closed the night stand I kept them in and that, if I hadn’t, the cats might eat my medicine and overdose. As a result, I had to ritually check my medication cabinet every morning. I would also have to directly visualize each of my cats before I left the apartment every morning because I worried that, if I didn’t, the cats could have run past me and gotten out. This also made no sense because I live in a high rise apartment with an elevator, so I would see them in the hallway even if they did get out. If I forgot or just doubted whether I had done either of these rituals, I would have to go back and do them. Many times I would get all the way to my car to go to work and then have to go back to the apartment to check these things.

These last few things became giant nuisances, so I asked to try an antidepressant and it has helped a lot. I still have some checking urges but they’re much improved. I also have some obsessive-compulsive personality traits, but those I try to channel productively.

So, yes. There are people who do just fine in medicine despite OCD.
I know where you are coming from! I watch the garage door close all the way to the ground to be sure there is no dog being squashed—even though there are two closed doors between the house and the garage door.
I find that allowing myself a few small obsessions/compulsions seems to keep the bigger ones at bay. YMMV
 
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Also: avoid caffeine. It can really exacerbate symptoms.
 
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Most people in med school have obsessive-compulsive personality traits. This is different from OCD.

As I mentioned above, OCD varies in severity. What I didn’t mention in the previous post is that I also have a mild-moderate case of OCD. Since others have shared their experiences, I’ll share mine.

I’ve probably always had some obsessions and compulsions, but they never seriously bothered me until residency. When I was a kid, I had some weird stuff about not wanting to step on the cracks in the sidewalk and a fixation on even numbers. I think my parents told me that, if I was eating cookies, I always had to eat an even number of them. Either that or a multiple of 5. Still, it wasn’t very interfering and I never really sought treatment for it.

In residency, I started experiencing two phenomena that really bothered me. The first was that my compulsive checking behaviors were getting worse. At a few points, I had to walk all the way back to the garage from my office to check that I locked my car (this was not an insignificant walk).

The second is somewhat related and is that I started having intrusive thoughts related to the welfare of my cats. I would have thoughts that I knew were completely irrational but I worried that, if I didn’t attend to them, my cats would be harmed. For instance, I would have repetitive thoughts that I may not have closed the bottles to my medications or closed the night stand I kept them in and that, if I hadn’t, the cats might eat my medicine and overdose. As a result, I had to ritually check my medication cabinet every morning. I would also have to directly visualize each of my cats before I left the apartment every morning because I worried that, if I didn’t, the cats could have run past me and gotten out. This also made no sense because I live in a high rise apartment with an elevator, so I would see them in the hallway even if they did get out. If I forgot or just doubted whether I had done either of these rituals, I would have to go back and do them. Many times I would get all the way to my car to go to work and then have to go back to the apartment to check these things.

These last few things became giant nuisances, so I asked to try an antidepressant and it has helped a lot. I still have some checking urges but they’re much improved. I also have some obsessive-compulsive personality traits, but those I try to channel productively.

So, yes. There are people who do just fine in medicine despite OCD.
I forgot about the cracks! I have to put the middle of my foot in cracks. I’ve done that since a kid. I dunno why.

One thing that actually helped me with locks that I developed on my own because I hate drugs is inventing a password that I say out loud when I would lock my door. Mine was “peanut butter.” I’d just say that out loud and then when I walked away it was in my mind so I didn’t have to recheck it. Eventually I no longer needed it.

True story, I was locking my apartment in med school and said “peanut butter.” Then I turned and someone was staring at me. I was like: “uhhh I forgot the peanut butter…”
 
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You’ll be fine. I’ve dealt with severe OCD since I was 3 years old, my parents told me they noticed me counting tiles on walls and having to fill every single hole in a ego waffle with syrup since I was a toddler and eventually you just get used to it.

Is there any point in counting every step, breathe, blink or tongue movement to 20 over and over every second of every day? Or balancing the size of cracks I step on with my feet or taking the last step in a stairway in a jump if the number is uneven? Nope. Sadly I don’t even have the useful OCD of organizing because it’s paired with a big fat ADHD so I’m
a disorganized mess. But I’ve dealt with it for so long that it hardly bothers me anymore.

First step is realizing it bothers you, and then doing something about it like you are, you will be just fine.
 
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"My psychologist has explained that while recovery is possible, I will likely always have OCD in some form or another."

I suggest working with an anxiety/OCD specialist psychologist who aims to help you not only manage OCD, but also overcome it.
Thanks for this advice. My current therapist doesn't know much about OCD, so I think it will be a good idea to find someone more specialised. I asked if she's seen someone like me before, and she hasn't so not sure how much she can help.
 
You’ll be fine. I’ve dealt with severe OCD since I was 3 years old, my parents told me they noticed me counting tiles on walls and having to fill every single hole in a ego waffle with syrup since I was a toddler and eventually you just get used to it.

Is there any point in counting every step, breathe, blink or tongue movement to 20 over and over every second of every day? Or balancing the size of cracks I step on with my feet or taking the last step in a stairway in a jump if the number is uneven? Nope. Sadly I don’t even have the useful OCD of organizing because it’s paired with a big fat ADHD so I’m
a disorganized mess. But I’ve dealt with it for so long that it hardly bothers me anymore.

First step is realizing it bothers you, and then doing something about it like you are, you will be just fine.
Thanks for the reply! Do you find you're able to control how much your OCD 'shows' to others when at work? Are you able to overcome it when needed in emergencies or critical situations?
 
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Hi, thanks for taking the time to reply. I appreciate you making the distinction between an obsessive compulsive personality and actual OCD. I find people often assume I'm talking about the former and don't understand where I'm coming from. I also have intrusive thoughts about my cats coming to harm! Do you find now with meds if they pop up at work you're able to leave the thought and move on? I'm also worried about my checking behaviors taking up so much time and making me inefficient at work - is this something you've been OK with?
I find that I still have the intrusive thoughts but they are less frequent and I’m better able to resist them. I could honestly stand to try a higher dose but it has not been a huge issue so I didn’t really bring it up. I’m also temporarily between doctors right now because my insurance changed when I went from residency to fellowship.

For instance, I’ll still have the intrusive thoughts about my cats and the medications. I will also, admittedly, still check the drawer if I have these thoughts and am still in the apartment. But once I leave the apartment, I’m generally able to let it go if I have those thoughts. Maybe once every 2-4 weeks, I will still have the thought that the cats got out or that I didn’t close my medications as soon as I leave the apartment and will unlock the door and go back in to either check the drawer or visualize my cats. Still, it’s been a long time since I’ve allowed it to be more interfering than that. It’s probably been at least 4-6 months since I’ve actually gone so far as getting all the way to my car and taking the elevator back to the apartment to check things.

With the car-lock checking, if I have the thought that I might not have locked the car, I’m now generally always able to just let it go.

Honestly, I could probably be doing even better than I am if I had pursued formal ERP, but I’m busy and it honestly just seemed like more time and energy than it was worth. If my symptoms were more interfering, though, I would have definitely done it.
 
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Thanks for the reply! Do you find you're able to control how much your OCD 'shows' to others when at work? Are you able to overcome it when needed in emergencies or critical situations?

I sent you a DM to follow up but tldr no, it doesn’t affect my work and only my closest friends notice my quirks. Honestly if you push good product nobody cares if you are a little odd.
 
I find that I still have the intrusive thoughts but they are less frequent and I’m better able to resist them. I could honestly stand to try a higher dose but it has not been a huge issue so I didn’t really bring it up. I’m also temporarily between doctors right now because my insurance changed when I went from residency to fellowship.

For instance, I’ll still have the intrusive thoughts about my cats and the medications. I will also, admittedly, still check the drawer if I have these thoughts and am still in the apartment. But once I leave the apartment, I’m generally able to let it go if I have those thoughts. Maybe once every 2-4 weeks, I will still have the thought that the cats got out or that I didn’t close my medications as soon as I leave the apartment and will unlock the door and go back in to either check the drawer or visualize my cats. Still, it’s been a long time since I’ve allowed it to be more interfering than that. It’s probably been at least 4-6 months since I’ve actually gone so far as getting all the way to my car and taking the elevator back to the apartment to check things.

With the car-lock checking, if I have the thought that I might not have locked the car, I’m now generally always able to just let it go.

Honestly, I could probably be doing even better than I am if I had pursued formal ERP, but I’m busy and it honestly just seemed like more time and energy than it was worth. If my symptoms were more interfering, though, I would have definitely done it.
I'm glad to hear you're doing well. Thanks for sharing your experience, its good to know there is a possible light at the end of the tunnel.
 
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