To think that surgeons, while obviously skilled, often have a certain arrogance that makes them difficult to work with?

Too funny - I posted then read comments. Anaesthetists have been discussed! Interesting. Muchly so. The anaesthetist who held my hand during my emergency c section was an absolute treasure.

As a surgeon I’m biased but I would say you have to have a certain type of personality to do our job and to venture into unknown territory.

However. I like all the team I work with and I respect my colleagues I treat everyone I work with, with respect and will always speak up for my colleagues.

Having said that; I have shouted (once and only once) before. It was a really really tricky bit where I had to attach a bit of bowel to another piece after removing a section with a tumour in situ but the patient’s anatomy was very different and the tissue was extremely fragile for some reason, so I had to use lots of different types of sutures and it was really hairy for a short period where I really couldn’t stop the stitches from tearing through the tissue paper thin bowel. It was extremely stressful and I asked for the music to be turned off because I really needed to focus (I usually work with a nice playlist on Spotify). Music was turned off and I decided to give it one more go before giving the patient a stoma that would not have ever been reversible because of the anatomy, so this was life changing surgery.

I was very stressed and all I could hear was 2 people talking so loudly about how irritating and unfair it was the music was turned off. So yes, I did say very loudly ‘please can everyone be quiet I need to concentrate and because I never ever tell people to be quiet, it went instantly silent and afterwards I apologised for speaking loudly and turning the music off because if you’re not operating and can see the wound it really is quite boring without music.

some of my colleagues are genuinely awful to operate with because of the way they talk to the theatre staff, but they’re not liked and no one loves staying late for them, whereas I know I am respected and liked. All of the theatre staff are essential and I couldn’t do my job without them, so I treat them as I’d like to be treated and it probably doesn’t hurt that I chuck a couple hundred quid behind the bar at the Christmas do 😜.

Also I am female. I have no issue telling my colleagues to wind their neck in (surgeons) just because I’m a consultant gastro surgeon doesn’t mean for 2 seconds I can act like an overgrown toddler

I’m an NHS manager for a surgical specialty so I’ve worked with a lot of surgeons. Most of them are absolutely lovely, a few of them are horrors as a colleague but still fantastic with patients and utterly dedicated to their care. The most difficult surgeon I’ve ever worked with professionally is the one with the best bedside manner with his patients, I was gobsmacked when I first saw him interacting with them when shadowing his list, he was like a different person

I've encountered an abrupt, clueless surgeon for one abdo surgery and several years later, a female surgeon who was an absolute legend. I reacted badly to morphine, he came to see me the following morning and told me to get up, there was nothing wrong with me, and showed me photos of my insides mid operation with no warning. I'm a fairly robust person thankfully, it was an ectopic pregnancy surgery. I'm not fazed by medical images unless they're brutal. I found him mildly hilarious in his social stupidity but I knew he was going to garner many complaints in his career. He was a prize bellend. The second came to see me after her shift was done to go through everything with me, clearly knackered after a day of operations, told me she tried really hard to get all the gas out to minimise gas pains, listened to me and was just right in tone and level of explanation. That was another ectopic.

Can we talk about anaesthetists tho? I've met some brilliant ones. In all different ways. Human, funny, warm, sweet. Why are they so good?

Our neighbour was a highly renowned anaesthetist adored by patients and staff alike. His wife on the other hand 🙈

I feel that you need a degree of arrogance in order to be able to confidently cut people open every day, honestly! Nothing I could ever do and am in awe of those who can. I have been on the receiving end of an overly sure-of-himself surgeon however, he’d done a surgery relatively new to the UK and he was the only surgeon in the UK carrying out that procedure and recommended we try it.

Sadly, I experienced a lot of complications and he was extremely reluctant to remove the metalwork he’d put in, as he told me he had a 100% success rate with it! I was like cool, that’s really nice, but I can put weight on neither of my legs though and I’m sorry it ruins your certainty in this op as a solution!

He did eventually try another fix and reverse what was done, but not until I’d done several rounds of steroid injections into my ankle joints (shudder) to try and make it work. He did a fantastic job on the last procedure and the others he did for me, but his refusal to accept I was in agony for months and months really soured things.

Well I'm not an anaesthetist I'm a midwife but going under an anaesthetic is essentially a medically induced coma. An anaesthetist explained it like this to a patient who was very anxious about her procedure.

You won't feel pain and you won't have any memory of what has happened whilst you were under the anaesthetic and you will be unable to move during the procedure. It is most definitely not the same as being asleep.

They are qualified doctors who have then gone on to specialise in anaesthetics. They are I would imagine the lynchpin in ITU where the majority of the patients are unconscious.

Psychopaths and narcissists can make good surgeons. You have to be able to look at a living breathing human as just a machine to be mended, and also cope with the inevitability of sometimes getting it wrong and the patient dying at your hands. As such, it's going to attract a particular type of person who may not be big on empathy and people skills.

It depends on the specialty. Orthopaedic surgeons often have a swagger, it's almost cultural, they have to acquire it.

Then there are those surgeons who are part of a multidisciplinary team in which everyone is equal, whose attitude often seems to be, 'when in doubt, cut it out', when other consultants in the team advise more conservative treatment.

However, whatever the specialty, where there are three doctors there will be four opinions.

It’s a fairly common joke, what’s the difference between god and a surgeon, god doesn’t think he’s a surgeon.

My best mates mum needed a hip op and I knew the surgeon doing the op.He cancelled on her twice because he’d booked a last minute holiday, was rude and dismissive and my freind was going to complain and get a different surgeon until I took him to one side to explain that the surgeon was utterly brilliant, by far the best man for the job. Horrible human being but stunning surgeon.

Surgery requires huge levels of confidence and concentration and a fair amount of surgeons are quite far along on the psychopath scale. Hence the bad reputation.

I said YABU because it’s a certain personality type that can do the job, and yes it probably does include some dark triad traits, not always.

Whatever works for them, even if it is a God complex.
If I'm ever in surgery, the more experienced arrogant the better.
DS ENT surgeon was a gentleman.

I’ve come across a fair few surgeons - some were foul with god complexes and not actually good enough to have any sort of ego. (One in particular missed a fist sized pancreatic tumour of mine for a good few months!)

The pancreatic surgeon who saved my life by performing my whipples procedure to remove the cancer is one of the most kind, humble and all round lovely humans I’ve ever met. He is world renowned for his skill and gets quite embarrassed if you compliment him on his gift.

I’m intrigued, if it’s not sleep - then what is it?

That's so sad. I've had a few ops and work with and know anaesthetists and all of them have been wonderful.

I read the title of this thread, and my mind immediately went to the Irish surgeon on Ch4s 24hrs in Police Custody! He exuded a new level of arrogance, and I can’t imagine he would be easy to work with.

Please note, I’m not labelling all surgeons as being like this individual! There are some lovely surgeons, and some not so lovely surgeons, as in all professions.

we had this discussion at work a few months ago as it was thought for many years that many surgeons showed to have anti social personality disorder traits

recently a number of medical professionals have been diagnosed with ASD and leaning learning to mask their difficulties when communicating and appearing not to show empathy may have been misjudged by others as arrogance/uncaring

podcast on the subject

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hwwq

gulps

I'm looking to get in. Been a TSW for long enough. Assuming there's any jobs to have post qualification I'll be staying with my home department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (hopefully more of the former than the latter).

I doubt PP would be happy with a technician putting them to sleep and monitoring them.

@countbackfromten It is utterly weird yes!! What actually is it? What are you doing to me? Where have I gone? Why is it so instant? If I'm not asleep, am I infact awake?

What a load of rubbish! Anaesthetics is complex, demands a high level skill and understanding. Anaesthetists are generally the cleverest person in the theatre.

And in other news:

• The Pope is a Catholic.
• Bears shit in the woods.

Medical drs - glasses, geeky, cream trousers.

Surgeons - god complex good looking assholes

These stereotypes are tedious. I know many autistic people including one of my own children. None of them are without empathy/poor communicators etc.