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Original poster

Are doctors healthier than the rest of the population?

126 replies

GreenLight23 · 19/12/2023 20:21

I don’t mean particularly in terms of leading a healthy lifestyle. I am thinking more that they can diagnose themselves if they’ve got an ache or a twinge or an unusual symptom. They know if it’s serious or not and they know what treatment they need. For example, can they avoid strokes and heart attacks more than the general population?

Is there anyone here who is a doctor or has one in the family? What do you think?!

OP posts:
housethatbuiltme · 19/12/2023 21:43

Not really.

My friend works for a cervical cancer charity, is a HUGE promoter of smear tests and does the lab testing of cervical smears for a living... never had one herself because its too 'embarrassing' and 'no one but my husband can go down there'.

The hypocrisy in medicine is rife. Most of us very much bury our head in the sand when faced with our own mortality, its much easier to boss others around.

ghlily · 19/12/2023 21:45

No, we are not. We ignore all symptoms until
they are serious. We don’t drink water for 12 hours + when on call, also don’t eat during this time. Terrible sleeping patterns as a result of shift patterns & not being able to leave work at work (mentally), very self critical (especially when mistakes are made, no matter how small). So no, definitely not.

Needhelpsupport · 19/12/2023 21:46

BubbleBubbleBubbleBubblePop · 19/12/2023 21:20

Would a doctor necessarily have easier access to drugs? Surely only nurses and pharmacy professionals have access to the drugs on the ward?

Edited
Show quote history

HCP professionals do not have easy access to any medication! Yes we prescribe and dispense but every tablet ie even paracetamol is counted and accounted for .

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General health
Original poster
GreenLight23 · 19/12/2023 21:57

I can imagine that re ignoring and playing down symptoms.

OP posts:
RMNofTikTok · 19/12/2023 21:59

GreenLight23 · 19/12/2023 20:21

I don’t mean particularly in terms of leading a healthy lifestyle. I am thinking more that they can diagnose themselves if they’ve got an ache or a twinge or an unusual symptom. They know if it’s serious or not and they know what treatment they need. For example, can they avoid strokes and heart attacks more than the general population?

Is there anyone here who is a doctor or has one in the family? What do you think?!

Having worked with doctors, hahahaha NO. They are not healthier. Not by far.

RMNofTikTok · 19/12/2023 22:04

HCP professionals do not have easy access to any medication! Yes we prescribe and dispense but every tablet ie even paracetamol is counted and accounted for.

Where on earth are nurses working that they have time to count the paracetamol?!??

Dingdongdog · 19/12/2023 22:07

I worked on a ward where the thoracic surgeon would go out for fags. I don't think doctors are known for health. They deliver drug therapies not lifestyle coaching I guess!

housethatbuiltme · 19/12/2023 22:10

Needhelpsupport · 19/12/2023 21:46

HCP professionals do not have easy access to any medication! Yes we prescribe and dispense but every tablet ie even paracetamol is counted and accounted for .

Show quote history

I worked nearly 20 years ago in a vets an honestly I think had I been so inclined I could easily have made pills disappear and claimed it was a simple mistake. I don't remember anyone ever checking on what I was doing (but maybe they where and as I never made any mistakes nothing was ever mentioned).

In home health care I totally could have helped myself to peoples drugs though. I worked with morphine, fentanyl, insulin and all sorts. I would collect loads of prescriptions no questions asked (except maybe patient DOB, Name and Address).

For patients who had capacity I would give them to them as many managed their own medication. They would often lose things (misplace whole boxes, forget which bag something in, leave used patches lying around) so things lying around was not 'rare' if I nicked some I doubt anyone would have really noticed.

Good job I'm not remotely interested in abusing drugs (I don't even enjoy taking my own meds lol).

I do know a 'carer' (not qualified professional just a family friend who was hired by family to live with the patient) who died after trying the patients insulin.

HotMummaSummer · 19/12/2023 22:10

I heard about a female Dr training in surgery, apparently it's very competitive so which pregnant and suffering morning sickness she'd swallow her vomit to keep working. Grim😖

LadyGaGasPokerFace · 19/12/2023 22:12

My old GP was a smoker and heavy drinker. The drinking thing I knew about as I’d bring him whiskey back from duty free and perfume for his wife. He was going to get me a nose job, not sure why?, I really like my nose 🥴 I was in my 20’s and cabin crew. He was trying to hook me up with various doctors 😂

Saschka · 19/12/2023 22:13

GreenLight23 · 19/12/2023 20:37

@BerriesNutsConkers I’ve always thought it would be useful to be a doctor when your child is ill.

Ha, tell that to DS. He has to be literally dying to get a day off, otherwise he gets dosed up with Calpol and packed off to school (or swimming, or anywhere else he is meant to be). I tried to get DH to “walk off” a shattered femur (to be fair, his orthopaedic consultant couldn’t believe he’d broken it as badly as he had just by falling over skiing on the nursery slope).

Doctors are very unsympathetic parents where illness is concerned. My two settings are “needs admission” and “nope, you’re fine”. Nothing in between where you need a Lemsip and a duvet day. I have a similar attitude to my own health, it would be a cold day in hell before I called in sick, unless I was literally incapacitated. TBF DM is the same and she isn’t a doctor, so possibly I get it from her, not from work.

tatyr · 19/12/2023 22:13

You might have heard the phrase "the cobblers children have no shoes", well neither does the cobbler.

This is a good read, if you somehow missed "This is going to hurt" by Adam Kaye

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Also-Human-Inner-Lives-Doctors/dp/0099510790/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?adgrpid=117904642036&hvadid=498373387635&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=9045360&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=12999041864146381829&hvtargid=kwd-489706318059&hydadcr=13722_1757466&keywords=also+human+book&qid=1703023672&sr=8-1

MargaretThursday · 19/12/2023 22:16

I had a GP friend who had her first child when my youngest was about 5yo.

I remember well the desperate phone call I got at about midnight when her dc was about a year old. It went something like this:

GP: Sorry for phoning you, but I don't know what to do. Dc's really ill. Should I go to A&E?
Me: What's wrong?
GP: She's been sniffing for the last two days and her temperature is nearly 37.5. It's gone up from 37.2 four hours ago, and she's coughed at least three times. Do you think it might be whooping cough? She's crying too, and it's high pitched so maybe I should get them to check for meningitis?
Me: Let me just have a think about it. Maybe I can come over if you like. But can I ask you a medical question first?
GP: <suddenly business-like> Sure. I'd love to help.
Me: My friend is worried about her baby. She's coughed a few times and is a bit snuffly, but her temperature's coming up now.
GP: Ah! Tell her it's just a cold. give Calpol if she wants, but not to worry.
Me: Just like your baby...
GP: <silence> Hmm. Yes... I guess so.

We did have a laugh about it a few days later, but she was never good at assessing her own dc despite being very confident with others.

ellecf21 · 19/12/2023 22:16

Dad's a doctor and never takes any symptoms seriously. Attitude has always been very matter of fact with an element of "get on with it". Doctors are no holier when it comes to health than the next person, and agree with other posters, definitely some of the most unhealthy people in terms of looking after themselves!

Saschka · 19/12/2023 22:16

RMNofTikTok · 19/12/2023 22:04

HCP professionals do not have easy access to any medication! Yes we prescribe and dispense but every tablet ie even paracetamol is counted and accounted for.

Where on earth are nurses working that they have time to count the paracetamol?!??

If you have robotic dispensing, which our wards have just brought in, you have to scan a barcode for the drawer to open. And it won’t open if that med isn’t prescribed for that patient. Seems very fiddly, but does at least ensure that stuff can’t easily go missing.

GeorgeBeckett · 19/12/2023 22:31

Potassium and lidocaine would be common drugs of choice and they used to be a bit of a free for all when I was a junior on the wards rather than in a drug cupboard.

This study is not without its flaws - based on obituary data. But it would seem to suggest that working in A&E is spectacularly bad for you:

Death by specialty

Are doctors healthier than the rest of the population?
AgeingDoc · 19/12/2023 22:32

Needhelpsupport · 19/12/2023 21:46

HCP professionals do not have easy access to any medication! Yes we prescribe and dispense but every tablet ie even paracetamol is counted and accounted for .

Show quote history

HCPs can and do steal drugs from their workplaces unfortunately. I have had several colleagues over the course of my career who have sadly committed suicide with drugs obtained from work and I am aware of, though don't personally know, a number of doctors and nurses who have been dismissed for drug theft.
Exactly what kind of drugs can be obtained and how easily they can be accessed will obviously depend on the department and the HCP's role but it's quite naive to believe that procedures are so tight everywhere that they cannot ever be bypassed by someone determined.
Most anaesthetists for instance wouldn't find it particularly difficult to get their hands on something they could kill themselves with should they be so inclined as we're handling such substances pretty much all day every day.
It might not be easy for HCPs to obtain toxic drugs but it's obviously going to be easier than it would be for the general public who don't work in environments where such substances are kept. It's not common, but certainly not unheard of.

RMNofTikTok · 19/12/2023 22:37

If you have robotic dispensing, which our wards have just brought in, you have to scan a barcode for the drawer to open. And it won’t open if that med isn’t prescribed for that patient. Seems very fiddly, but does at least ensure that stuff can’t easily go missing.

Robotic dispensing sounds very privileged.

XenoBitch · 19/12/2023 22:41

I have seen lots of accounts of people (both on MN, and real life) get a "telling off" for being obese by their even more obese HCP/GP.

During training, there is a thing called 'medical student syndrome', where medical students and even HCPs come to think they have everything they are learning and reading about. At some point, this anxiety stops, and they just stumble into life like everyone else... the scary health stuff always happens to other people.

marmaladeandpeanutbutter · 19/12/2023 22:41

I don't think this is true for younger medics. Most I know are health conscious, eat carefully and try their best exercise whenever they can.

Fairyliz · 19/12/2023 22:46

Doctor? What is this thing you call a doctor?
Think the have gone the way of the dodo around here.

RMNofTikTok · 19/12/2023 22:47

marmaladeandpeanutbutter · 19/12/2023 22:41

I don't think this is true for younger medics. Most I know are health conscious, eat carefully and try their best exercise whenever they can.

You tell that to the young prison doctor that tried to give me disco biscuits and suggested that I could compensate for a hangover by having an IV the next morning so I should neck tequila with him 🤷‍♀️

Saschka · 19/12/2023 22:47

RMNofTikTok · 19/12/2023 22:37

If you have robotic dispensing, which our wards have just brought in, you have to scan a barcode for the drawer to open. And it won’t open if that med isn’t prescribed for that patient. Seems very fiddly, but does at least ensure that stuff can’t easily go missing.

Robotic dispensing sounds very privileged.

Our trust has pretty much bankrupted itself to bring it in (as part of a whole IT package), so I assume they think there is some cost saving somewhere. It definitely isn’t that we are awash with money, we’re in financial special measures.

jersems · 19/12/2023 22:49

Most of the doctors I know socially (old uni mates) are functioning alcoholics or are abusing drugs of some kind. It's a high stress occupation with long hours and good enough pay to keep a drug habit.

Joeylove88 · 19/12/2023 22:55

From a psychological POV im very interested to know why/how doctors wouldnt be able to even do the basics like eating and drinking during shifts. Is it situational i.e if your called into emergency surgery or you see patients back to back, would there be no time to grab and quick cup of water or 5 mins to go into a quiet roon/toilet just to be in silence and breathe/down a quick snack. Is it a guilt thing that keeps people going despite their own basic needs being met? I just feel sad about the amount of comments on here on how it seems impossible to achieve the very basic of things when how are people supposed to do their jobs properly if they arent even able to take care of thekselves in the most basic sense? I know I probably sound nieve here!