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

Orthopaedic surgeons in my long career are the ultimate example of arrogance!
Genuinely cannot think of a positive experience with any of them .
Caught up with one recently and he is a retired arsehole …absolutely no eye contact and socially awkward,wife lovely !

As I said the whole team.

Yes, but they can only do that because of the other people in the theatre too.
Everyone has a vital role to play.

Medical consultant. I know some lovely surgeons! Vascular surgeons are all sweethearts, and urologists and orthopods are all generally pretty nice too. Our transplant surgeons are excellent.

The biggest prick I have ever met was a radiologist. Absolute arsehole with a huge chip on his shoulder. Not reflective of most radiologists at all, but I guess there is always one.

When you think that some spend many hours in theatre doing a complicated procedure on one patient. That level of concentration is somewhat mind blowing.

Actually I include the whole team in that.

DD is an ODP and she says that not all of the surgeons are like that but ones she knows that are are all 1) men and 2) not anywhere near as good at their jobs as the others. The best surgeons she works with are all quietly competent and respect the rest of the team as they realise that they cant work without a good team. She prefers by far to work with women surgeons.

The arseholes think that its all on them if something goes well, but if it goes wrong its the "crap" team and not their own incompetence.

I worked in theatres as a scrub nurse. Generally the orthopaedic surgeons were the worst. One was extremely rude to me, I reported him. There was an exception who was kind to everyone. One time the senior scrub nurse had to go home sick. I apologised to the surgeon, that as a hurried replacement I didn’t really know what I was doing. Very kindly he replied, ‘don’t worry, my dear, I do know what I’m doing’.

Almost without fail the anaesthetists were absolutely lovely people.

Not read every reply, but I think you’d need to have a certain amount of bravado and arrogance to do what a lot of surgeons do. I’m a Christian so I believe that God have given these people a special and wonderful gift to have the knowledge and the bravery to cut into someone’s skull or wire a new heart into a persons chest. It’s some amount of responsibility they have on their shoulders. I appreciate that this can sometimes make surgeons difficult to work beside but I do admire their skill and dedication.

One of my neighbors is a pathologist. She’s v. nice and quite self-effacing. She must see some awful sights, and I’m sure that she’s v. respectful and sympathetic.

Obviously that’s different to performing surgery on a living person but she must have a certain inner strength to do her job.

I know three surgeons. One is lovely and two are very difficult people.

It's not arrogance, it's psychopathology or at best sociopathology.

TBH the doctors I have met have been some of the most disturbingly weird people I have ever met, but some of them have gone extraordinary lengths to save lives. Maybe we need them, this is not simple!

I was thinking about this the other day - I had double jaw surgery a few months ago and I just can't imagine casually turning up to work on a Monday morning, sawing someone's jaw off and putting it back together again. My surgeon was very nice, but very loud and so sort of almost aggressively cheerful I couldn't get a word in! It takes a special type of confidence to be sure

I have recently been working with a consultant surgeon, and he is one of the loveliest people I know. He makes everyone in the room feel on equal footing, despite being an expert in an additional field to his surgeon's work. So pleased to be able to challenge the stereo type!

My spinal surgeon is lovely 😊

Wow....hope you're ok x

Similarly a lot of GPs. I remember at one time you would never question a GPs judgement or diagnosis, but recent experiences with family members have made me realise they’re not infallible and I would certainly go for a second opinion more, based on gut feelings. I think possibly the quality has gone down - not sure if it’s training that’s not as good as it used to be?

I’ve had many surgeons and consultants over the years. When I think back, I’m amazed at how MANY. At least three of them became professors under my watchful eye! Almost all of them have been professional and charming. I can’t think of an arsehole although there must have been.

You can say you didn't like how they spoke to you without making sweeping, and untrue statements, about how their job is just at tech job that a RN could do.
They specialise after med school like any other doctor...

It certainly the reputation they’ve always had.

On the other hand, when dd needed surgery as a baby (two occasions), the ones we actually met seemed really lovely. They were the more junior ones as I remember.

The anaesthetists seemed even nicer - I think that’s also their reputation?

The surgeons did seem to have running “banter” with the other areas of surgery as I remember.

@Flyswats actually not semantics at all. I take a huge amount of pride in what I do and the immense responsibility it involves.

I’m sorry that you have had bad experiences but I think it is really important to stress that we don’t just leave during an operation, we are there the whole time.

if anyone is about to have an operation please don’t be scared reading such things.

Isn’t surgery one of the top 5 professions that attracts the most psychopaths?

I also think surgeons shift personality between out patients and ward setting to theatre settings. Some of them are utterly charming until they are scrubbed and operating and turn into absolute knobs with no patience and understanding that it take an entire team to ensure that surgery goes well and not just them

@Flyswats What did they do? I’ve only had one major surgery (last year) and mine asked me a few questions pre-op and that was it. I don’t remember her really after that-guess the GA worked quickly :-)