Doctors...

I would quite like to be a doctor. The reason I cannot be a doctor is clear already. No doctor ever got to where they are by 'quite liking' the idea. So I am told, they worked and they worked, and they work and they work, and they all have a terrible time of it*.

From what I hear, doctors require the three following character properties:
- Arrogance
- An inability to listen
- Terrible handwriting
Anything else - a knowledge of anatomy for example - is optional and extra.

Hence, here follows a comic with no artistic merit whatsoever.

(If you click it with your mouse it will magically grow to a more legible size)



Patient: I seem to have joint pain...
Rheumatologist: Of COURSE you have joint pain! You're 3 POUNDS OVERWEIGHT!
-
Rheumatologist: You need to give your body time to recover. Just because you're within normal range it doesn't mean you're not still FAT!
-
Rheumatologist: With all due respect, it's not at all surprising that your joints hurt. Look at you! You're severely underweight!
Patient: >:[

Admittedly, it's not just doctors. My mother was convinced for years that my joints hurt because I didn't eat enough (well, that's what she thought when she believed my joints hurt at all). But you do expect doctors to be a little less ignorant, don't you? Of course you do. That's their job. To be knowledgeable about diseases. If I wanted the opinion that I could get from Joe Bloggs down the pub, I'd go to Joe Bloggs down the pub. But I don't. I want a professional opinion by someone who has undergone extensive education. So why can't they offer us anything more useful than "You don't weigh right"?
It is worth mentioning that my rheumatologist is pretty good and has never suggested that I don't actually have anything wrong with me or that it'd all be fixed if I weighed a little more or a little less or a little more sideways; but there are enough out there that will and it's simply unacceptable.

Another doctor musing I have is that Doctors should not blog unless they're going to blog something medically and scientifically useful. I've seen really good MD blogs. Dr. Rob at Musings of a Distractible Mind tells us (patients) what to do and expect at the doctor's office, and tells them (doctors) how best to treat patients. He shows us the other side of the coin and helps us to understand and be better patients. How positively delightful! How useful! How instantly bookmarked!
However, whilst I was perusing blogs earlier this afternoon I did come across a thoroughly disappointing MD blog. It was, really, a personal blog, but advertised as an MD blog. Were it an essay, it would begin with "This blog aims to explore the various medical stuff a doctor comes into contact with..." However, it turns out just to be some disturbingly self-indulgent ramblings from a very unhappy person. That's the sort of blog that I would run a mile from at the best of times, but as a doctor it just seems to be... stupid. If one of his patients stumbled upon that blog, I don't think any of them would ever make another appointment with him. I'm not naming any URLs here, for obvious reasons, but not least because there are probably numbers of these blogs scattered hither and thither throughout cyberspace. He is not unique. I'm not suggesting that doctors shouldn't have personal blogs, or that some self-indulgent rambling is a bad thing... But it should be fairly anonymous if your profession is caring for people. One cannot choose to turn on and off MD status; as soon as MD status is lost, it can never be regained with those people who witnessed the lapse.

*I've got to say that I was only told that by someone who always regretted not studying medicine and who likes to try to make sense of her lack of MD-status. Or PhD status. Or MSc status. Really, she can't have wanted it too badly...