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

It’s really interesting how many people mention behaviour doesn’t matter so long as they’re good surgeons…. behaviour can make a big difference to outcomes because the wider team are more likely to make mistakes when someone’s being a twit - the ‘civility saves lives’ movement recognises the impact that ‘difficult’ behaviour has and is aiming to improve that.

Are you a trainee paramedic by any chance?! I was in hospital with my son last week and overheard this exact complaint from a trainee paramedic to a doctor she was shadowing. To be fair, I overheard the surgeons conversation beforehand and he did sound unbelievably arrogant!

Any job that’s high powered with money tend to attract a higher percentage of psychopaths and narcissists. It’s a studied fact, I can’t remember the percentage but it made a lot of sense when the article

Surgeons rate highly for the dark triad traits ; Narcissism; Machievellianism and sociopathy

it’s by and a large what gives them the ‘god complex’ which in turn makes them hyper focused, driven, perfectionists, ambitious and able to sustain consistently high performance under pressure

I guess the bed side manner may take a hit but hey ho , on that table I want excellence not a sympathetically disposition!

Anaesthetist here - as in any profession there are the good, the bad and the ugly. But spending nearly all of my working life with surgeons (I do a bit of time gassing for the medics) I see the stereotypes at play but mostly that isn’t the case. Some of the best surgeons technically I know care really deeply about their patients and are passionate about providing the best care possible. Some of the best surgeons technically are people I admire for their skills but don’t have the same empathy.

There are stereotypes which some surgeons seem to think they have to live up to and sometimes it is hard when you see the residents in those specialities try and emulate that. But a lot of the time that gets broken down by other team members who try to stop any arrogance or god complex developing further.

Do I have days when they annoy me? Yes. But that is the same with some of my anaesthetic colleagues too. Broadly I work with great people trying to do their best each day and I will take that.

I try in the teams I work with to instil the golden rule - don’t be a dick.

That was my non-professional-but-informed-by-40+years-of-teaching take on the neurosurgeon who did my spinal surgery.

except a teacher doesn't hold your life in their hands

A friend of mine is a social worker, she says she has quite a few surgeons and consultants from the local main hospital on her caseloads.

Hope you’re ok op xx

This can be applied to anyone, at any level.
Nothing quite like being a teacher with a teaching assistant who yells at you in front of the class they are a teaching assistant not a teacher assistant so they won’t do the photocopying!😂
Oh, and before there is any pylon, the headteacher was clear that this was the teaching assistance job as she did not pay her teachers to photocopy but to use the skills for which they were paid the higher salary.

I bet it is. I went to a high performing grammar and we were told we were the "creme de la creme".

Some are nice, some aren’t. I think a lot of the less nice ones get away with it because being nice isn’t the most important thing in surgery. The most incompetent surgeon I ever worked with was really nice and one of the scariest surgeons was really good and actually kind of a nice person if you caught her at the end of the shift.

Ever met a partner at a city law firm?

Attention to detail, perfectionist, high performing. Also inability to relate to people and their own families. Inhuman in some cases.

You have to have a God complex to climb the greasy ladder and kick others down as you claw your way up.

I'm not that fussed about the bedside manner of a surgeon providing they have steady hands and know what they are doing. They can be as cocky as they like providing they keep me alive 🤣

I have had a few major surgeries. Like a 10 hour brain surgery. Surgeons are a different breed of human, they have to be in order to do what they do. Sometimes they are like after dinner speakers who like to fill the room with laughter and feel the admiration, sometimes they are almost non-verbal geniuses who just like to solve the problem in front of them.

What they are like as people really is completely irrelevant unless they're doing direct harm. It's what they can do as surgeons to help you, that matters and that is all.

The biggest assholes in hospitals tend to be anesthesiologists, hands down.

This.

All of that said - and I fully acknowledge the difficulty and risk associated with this - you do have the option to call them out of they are behaving aggressively/abusively. I did that once and he backed down (was NOT expecting that!). If face to face is too much, complain, complain, complain.

I appreciate in making it sound easier than it is. Worth a thought though.

100% guarantee none of this is true!

I am very good friends with a consultant haematologist. She is genuinely the nicest, kindest person you could ever wish to meet. There isnt a single bad bone in her body. Her team would follow her off a cliff and her patients refuse to see anyone else. She's exactly the same at home. A truly exceptional human being.

There’s a higher than average incidence of psychopathic personality traits in surgeons, so yes. This can be advantageous in high pressure environments where a cool, clinical head is necessary. It may not make for a ‘nice’ person, but it can make for an excellent surgeon.

Possibly a by-product of putting an entire profession on a pedestal

I wonder if it's the same brain surgeon my mum had, as he was lovely!

They're taught it from the first day at university. Not to be not nice people but that they're autonomous...yes, God like almost.
I suppose to have the absolute courage of your convictions, to 100% believe in your own skill as you're wielding that scalpel you do need to have a massive amount of self confidence.

News. People are not all the same.

“I’ve heard stories “ is a bullshit reason to tar a whole group with the same brush. And it’s hearsay.

You’ve been watching too many old Carry On films.

Exactly this, you need to be able to emotionally detach from the patient (or you wouldn't be much use to the next one etc.) and be pretty cock sure of your abilities, steady of hand and confident. That comes across as arrogance in many cases, although I know surgeons who whilst they have that are also nice people. Its a special job that takes a special kind of person to do it, maybe not the most socially grateful, but I'm glad they do their thing!

I'm in Australia and go private. Two stories.

The surgeon who did my late husband's quadruple bypass came to the room to talk it over. He was very tall, very confident in manner and utterly reassuring.. What caught my eye was that he stood exactly like a superhero throughout; legs unnaturally wide apart. He has great reviews online.

As a note, when you go private here you get to choose your surgeon. I'm not convinced how the average Joe can make such choice.

The neurosurgeon who operated on my spine was a doozie but I knew it beforehand having looked up his reviews and was prepared for briskness, which I got in the pre-op meeting.
On the day of surgery I was waiting for hours on a bed then trolley and overheard one of nurses saying "This brain op may well run over as Mr X says they take as long as they take". This was the one before me and I was comforted by his care.

The next day Mr X came round to see how I was. He talked very fast and barely made any eye contact.

I mentioned this later, not in a complaining way, to the rheumatologist who'd referred me who laughed and apologised for the lack of warning about Mr X's bedside manner. My GP sniggered and said so many surgeons were like that, especially the men. A fellow volunteer and ex-consultant knew Mr X well and said yes, he was like that all the time.

I didn't mind as I'm psychologically robust and went in forearmed, but can see it wouldn't work for everyone.

My son's favourite anaesthetist pretended to be a magician with a few little magic tricks and then had my son hide under his blanket with the mask because he'd had a hickman line infection and it meant with his surgeries, he'd always had the 'sleepy medicine' in his line for previous surgeries (in this case, he was getting a new hickman line) so he was really nervous about the mask as he hated having it on his face. He was smiling as he drifted off completely relaxed.

He was really great.

My mum is a retired theatre nurse and told me a story of a surgeon that she worked with who she had a run in with. She had moved into theatre work from another area and was still not as slick as I guess she was to become. She was assisting on a mastectomy and the surgeon had removed the breast and wanted the dish to put it in. Because my mum wasn’t ready with it he threw the breast across the theatre. My mum was obviously horrified and wouldn’t let anyone else there pick it up. Eventually the surgeon went and got it. God knows what would happen if a surgeon tried that nowadays.