# Is Medical School Tough on Strong Feeling Types?



## SharpestNiFe (Dec 16, 2012)

The reason why I ask is because I was in the OR the other day watching a CABG. There were two students there, and the anesthesiologist was letting them have it PRETTY badly. She even said things like "no way you two are going to make it. How can you be so stupid?" I thought maybe that was because the anesthesiologist was harsh, but the head surgeon shook his head as if he agreed with her. It seems, to me, that you got to have thick skin in order to get through residency.

Any doctors have any thoughts on this?


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## wormy (Feb 14, 2013)

I'm not a doctor, but my roommate is currently in medical school. We were actually talking about this the other day; she said generally that the older a doctor is, the more difficult they are to deal with. Apparently they can be especially abusive towards the nurses. She seems to be sticking it out alright, though.

I think if you don't go in thick-skinned, you learn to be that way. Any time you enter a field with a business hierarchy, you're likely to experience similar treatment. That's life.


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## amethyst_butterfly (Mar 14, 2011)

I will say yes. You do have to have tick skin. It can also be more difficult for other professionals who work in the medical field with doctors. You need to work under pressure and deal with drama once in a while.


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## nevermore (Oct 1, 2010)

You know, I read an article once where they hypothesized that the most successful surgeons have mildly sociopathic traits. It makes sense, when you consider all the shit they have to go through (not suggesting that most doctors are actually sociopaths, of course...)


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## Helios (May 30, 2012)

My mother is a doctor. You have to be a bit of a hard-ass with thick skin to survive, pretty much. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?


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## Infermiera (Mar 2, 2012)

I'm not a doctor but this is a pretty common in hospitals. Doctors are really hard on med students. 

There was this one time when I assisted on a major surgery in the OR. I was a still a student then as well and our instructors are hard on us as well so I studied really hard for that surgery because I know that I will be asked questions. Two med students also assisted in that surgery but they weren't able to study because they weren't informed about that surgery until that morning. 

So we were there and the surgeon was spewing out questions to them but they weren't able to answer. The surgeon became more and more irritated and the anesthesiologist was really amused by the whole thing. Finally, he asked me a question and I debated for a moment not answering but I didn't want to get kicked out of the OR so I answered correctly. He became really angry after that and kicked the med students out of the OR. Apparently, it's humiliating when a nurse can answer his questions and and his med students cannot. 

I apologized to the students afterwards and they understood why I did it. They know that If I don't answer correctly, I'll get into trouble as well.


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## belis (Feb 17, 2013)

I am an INFJ. Survived medical school and enjoed most of it. I can't say that I got along with everyone along the way but it is just life. There is a scope for any type to enjoy medicine as there are so many different specialities to choose from. During surgical attachments I would usually suggest to my 'wonna be surgeon' collegues that they go to theater and hold retractors for 'Mr Grumpy I am king of the world orthopod surgeon' whilst I can talk to Mrs Anxious in Bed 7 about her feelings. Smiles all around. 

I was initially considering going into anaesthetics but I was put off by the atmosphere in theaters and found it hard to get along with most surgeons. I am now training in psychiatry and I love it.


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