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

If they do their best to save Iives and not trying to commit murders instead, I'll let then get away with a character murder

Only came into contact once with a cardio surgeon. Horrible person. Arrogant, rude and egotistical.

Physios are so incredibly underrated.

My son was in hospital for 10 months and needed intense physio after 7 weeks in intensive care, compartment syndrome in his right leg and septic shock which almost cost him his right leg.

He was discharged in January this year and I'm still in touch with his main hospital physio who loves getting updates about him. Always ready to give my son a massive hug if she sees him when we're at clinic too.

The loveliest surgeons I have ever met as a group are the ENT surgeons. I asked a group of them once who they thought the cleverest doctors were, and they said the nephrologists.

Most of the surgeons I would drop behind a desk to avoid interacting have been lovely to patients.

I’ve only ever met heartwarmingly wonderful oncologists, but I’ve never met a haematologist I find easy to talk to.

I think all of this is much more about me than them…

This. I think surgeons have to be arrogant - without that confidence, how could they do what they do?

The way to deal with it to make sure there are other people as part of the surgical team who can keep that arrogance in check.

You need lots of different people with different skills to save/improve a life. The surgeon may have the most skilled job in that team, but they're not the only person in that team.

I have worked in all capacities around Drs and I can tell you 100% all of them are narcs. The worst offenders Orthopaedics, Gastro the most paycho and sexist (men).
The nicest are Anesthetists although they are auper chill and bit rialy in theaters.... Sat reading the paper and liatening to classical music while someone has GA 😱 i never got used to that. Watching surgeons earing jelly beans from a sick bowl in theaters. Watching an Orthopod having a tantrum and kicking all sterile equipment across theaters while a patient was under GA. The list goes on......

I completely agree that anaesthetists are much nicer to work with.

Out of curiosity @XenoBitch, are you still an ODP? Im one and currently looking to get out.

Married a pilot - have also divorced said pilot! He was controlling, self centred and narcissistic. Doesn’t mean that they all need to be tarred with the same brush though

Just like any other profession, good ones and bad ones.

I've dealt with many surgeons unfortunately as my son last year had many surgeries. At the first hospital, before he was transferred to a different hospital, a surgeon declared him to not be a surgical case and continued to insist that he had gastroenteritis despite nurses putting down a NG tube and clearly getting fecal matter out of it as well as poo smelling vomit. He refused to listen and by the time he did listen, septic shock set in and my son had a cardiac arrest.

Fortunately, he survived and he was then transferred to the hospital he would spent 10 months at. There because he was such a complex case, I met gastro surgeons, plastic surgeons, cardiac surgeons etc and I had a good experience with all of them. The cardiac surgeon definitely had a 'god complex' and he gave me an unsolicited opinion about a plastic surgery matter (which turned out to be wrong) but he later came to me and apologised just saying that he was worried about my sons heart and considering he was on ecmo support at the time, I understood his concern.

Overall, I have an incredibly high opinion of surgeons. My son wouldn't be here today without them. He was given such a low chance of surviving and they gave it their all. I'm incredibly grateful for the fantastic work they did.

I’m a physio - most of the spinal surgeons that I work with are absolutely lovely! DD had the misfortune of needing scoliosis surgery when she was 16 and we honestly couldn’t have asked for two nicer, more down to earth consultants who made her feel so comfortable in an otherwise scary time. Of course there’s exceptions but these tend to be the older surgeons - I find the younger consultants easier to talk to and a bit more humble.

The fact is though that in order to operate on somebody’s brain/spine you need to have an air of self confidence that most people do not possess. This often translates as ignorance

Some of my surgeon colleagues are absolute wankers tbh. Truly arrogant, unpleasant people who get off on making others small, just really unpleasant people to work with

Many have been lovely though. And are often forgotten about among the massive egos.

I've found it hard as a lot of the arrogant, egotistical consultant have absolutely no concept of their juniors ability, and often favour similar personalities. Basically you just have to tell them your good and they believe it, and I've seen juniors who are completely incompetent get favoured because they were also arrogant. So unless you display similar traits you lose out on experience and respect from your seniors. It can be really challenging to change that culture, egos breed egos. (But hopefully it is changing)

Remember surgeon is one of the occupational groups with the highest concentration of psychopaths.

They need to cut themselves off, emotionally, from what they have trained to do.
How would you rate pilots, who also have hundreds of people's lives in their hands every day?

at what point does it tip over into being dismissive or difficult to work with?

Somewhere between the second and third year of surgical training, I believe.

Worked in nhs for many years and would say in my experience medical consultants are far more needy and precious than surgeons!

I personally believe most of the male surgeons are autistic. With how skilled they are yet still struggle with communication and lack of empathy... it really makes sense to me. I could be well wrong. That's just what I believe.

I trained as an ODP, and yes a lot of surgeons were as you describe. I found anaesthetists a lot more pleasant to work with.

Having been an anaesthetist for over 30 years I have worked with a lot of surgeons and in my experience, they're just people. Some of them are arseholes, some of them are lovely. Some are arrogant, some very humble.Despite the stereotypes I'd say I've met as wide a range of personalities amongst surgeons as any other specialty, and probably any other profession. In fact the two most obnoxious colleagues I ever had were both cardiologists and not surgeons at all, but I don't judge the entire specialty on that basis.

I have only ever known one brain surgeon. He was utterly wonderful, had an exceptionally good bedside manner.

I've met women surgeons who are just as scary as the men.

Yes. I imagine that it would be difficult.

No… surgical culture is changing.
There are increasing numbers women in surgery … there is strong evidence that they are better.. less complications, decreased mortality… if you have a choice use a woman every time.
I have just had eye surgery with a fantastic woman ophthalmologist.
Where I work ( medic) the surgeons are lambs and the paediatricians have a reputation of being utter pricks !

I read somewhere most surgeons are psychopaths . It’s the risk element they’re drawn to .

It's well known many surgeons have a god complex.