Stigmas abound across the wonderful world of medicine. All are absolutely true and may never be argued against: (I'll recite some of those medical specialties recognized by the SNOBS) [
SDN
Network
Of
Board-certified
Specialties]
The following is satirical:
Anesthesia: lazy, good for nothing work-skirters that couldn't hack a surgical residency. You probably have a best-friend anesthesiologist or gas resident. They love to smoke pot, will often give you some for free, and never seem to be concerned with life in general...except making sure they grab the lastest edition of Car & Driver to read while they nap behind the paper napkin that separates them from a more prestigious career. Their dark side is dark indeed, however, as they will actually kill a nurse anesthetist on sight.
Dermatology: Depending if you're male or female, you're either a pretty-boy silver-spooned wuss or a stuck-up "Clueless" inspired vain female looking to make as much money with as little work as possible. Dermatologists are an interesting lot, as they conceivable know the most about medicine, as entrance to their specialty takes a combination of highest grades and most frequent delivering of sexual favors to those in power. Yet, they amazingly have only 2 treatments in their entire medical arsenal. They can be found in their white labs on weekends, working on their personal zit-cream product line saleable to hysterical pre-prom borderlines and neurotics.
Family Medicine: Bottom 1/25th of the class, unable to match into absolutely any other specialty, including interventional parasitic radiooncology. Family practitioners are resourceful folks, unabashingly working for an average salary of $18,249. They don't mind
driving AMCs, and take delight in the exhaustiveness of their extensive specialty-referral database, which allows them to refer with surprising success, any disease or condition that they are unqualified to treat themselves.
Neurology: Intellectual elitist, "know everything but do nothing" suit-wearing stiffs. Neurologists take pride in not knowing how to write prescriptions. In the rare instance that they decide to actually just treat a migraine complaint instead of sending for MRI, CT with and without, PET, fMRI and SPECT scans, they have to walk next door to the family practice clinic to remind them how to write the damned thing. Never mind the fact that they can virtually reverse the symptoms and potential life-stealing pathogenesis of your Aunt Elsie's stroke. They really do treat nothing....ever. Sad, really. When you think about it - All that work in medical school for nothing. As catharsis for their ineptitude in treating medical conditions, they engage in the sadistic practice of sticking dozens of tiny teflon-coated needles into people's skin in an attempt to measure "nerve conduction velocity" or some such mumbo-jumbo nonsense; the results of which, if abnormal, they can do absolutely nothing about. Thus the viscious cycle continues.
Neurosurgery: Those who simply don't mind doing 18-year residencies. The money sure is great though! You'll have the nicest Porsche of any other 70 year-old on the block!
OB/GYN: Females, or questionable males that have no seemingly apparent problem giving 4/5ths of their salary to malpractice premiums and who, were it not for 3:30am deliveries, enjoy watching Law & Order, since it gives them tips on how to defend themselves in court. Contrary to popular belief, OB/GYNs spend 4/5ths of their time in malpractice defending why they delivered that shoulder dystocia to a jury of below 90 IQ unemployed people on welfare.
Ortho: They're not as narrow-minded or "hoo-RA!" for ortho as people make them sound. Sure, they invented the "sweet spot" (that central secret location on the mediastinum that allows you to simultaneously listen to heart sounds, hear murmurs, lung sounds, and bowel sounds without moving the stethescope). But, they have the benefit of forgetting virtually any medical knowledege they obtained throughout medical school!
Pathology: Ah, yes. They are borne in the fiery pits of Mordor...slaving over their microscopes at all hours, arguing amongst both themselves and the other bridge trolls whether that is a normal variant of a fruiting body. They are completely unable to interact with any of the "above grounders" and have the pale drow skin and knurled hand bones to prove it.
Pediatrics: Perhaps the most altruistic of all medical professionals. They have an uncanny ability to deal with the most annoying people on the planet: neurotic mothers. Known to be able to get blood from a stone, (ask about the heel-prick-and-squeeze technique), they are in actuality the blackest-hearted unsympathetic souls in medicine. This is due in no small part to having the dubious distinction of the lowest paid residency of them all. Of course, they are simply happy to be there at all, considering they were unable to match into any other specialty.
Psychiatry: By far the oddest and most bizarre of all medical specialists. Their behavior, mode of dress, chosen hobbies and misshapen children cause many to wonder if psychiatry and psychiatrists are part of the medical establishment at all! Brilliant yet inept at the same time, they are both fascinating and incredibly annoying at the same time. They are often compared to the prototypical "mad scientist" bent on world domination. Never taking a breath from constant analysis of all their spouses friends, and even their loved ones themselves, they are always on the search for eternal enlightenment. Ironically, they appear to lack any ability whatsoever to have introspection into their own horrid selves.
To answer the poster's original question, there is a joke: How do you tell the difference between a psychiatrist and a psych patient? The psychiatrist is the one with the keys!
Radiology: What can we say that hasn't been said? Radiologists are one of the few specialties that realized early enough in their medical careers that patients are subhuman creatures that should not be approached, talked to, or thought about at any time - ever. As such, they are content to resign themselves as overpaid dark-room denizens that have actually been seen running in terror from patient contact. The medical world wonders what will happen when teleradiology destroys the comfortable infrastructure that radiologists are used to. Will they be force to provide floor consults for radiology study approval? The thought has already put many in therapy with the mad-scientist psychiatrists described above.
Surgery: Everyone is familiar with the surgeon subtype. More interesting is the surgeon who exists in
bizarro world. There, they are actually cute and approachable creatures, known for their altruism, patience, and their warm and approachable personalities. They can be found in homeless animal shelters, donating their time and energy nursing abandoned kittens to health, and in soup kitchens dressed in raggy clothes, so as not to reveal their true identities.
Studies indicate that the longer you medicate someone, the longer the period of euthymia. The sooner you stop the medication, the sooner the relapse. This is a complicated topic, however, as one must consider all depressive and anxiety disorder variants, such as bipolar depression vs. unipolar, and variations of anxiety disorders themselves, and the severity of each.
