Off hand comment by stranger

[LiJo2015]

Ill keep it short. I met a friend yesterday for coffee. As i was stood there with my 8 month old in a sling jigging her to sleep, another mum with a baby in a sling came to sit down, with i presume her mum and dad. I said hello and acknowledged her baby in the sling - we talked a little and her mum commented about her daughter (the mum with a baby in the sling) was a doctor at the local hospital. As an ex-trainee doc myself i asked which med school she went too. I then responded i was no longer training. Her mum commented what a waste of tax payers money.... it is this last comment that stuck with me and has upset me and made me angry.

Leaving medicine was one of the hardest decisions i have ever had to make and the decision was forced really owing to a complete lack of empathy and support from the medical school owing to ongoing mental health difficulties i was facing. All 'support systems' they put in place only made matters worse for me. In my penultimate year, i pulled the plug.

So aibu and just overthinking this off-hand comment or was this stranger just thoughtless? Or both perhaps?

Brush it off, OP. You sound like a caring and thoughtful mum who is just trying to do right by herself and her DD and you have no-one to apologise to.

@ChairmansReserve I can't find the source but I've read the data I think the OP is referring to.

They've done studies on reasons people complain about, or sue, their doctors - globally. Overwhelmingly, it turns out people will sue doctors they felt didn't connect to them, or listen, at a much higher rate than ones who were clinically negligent. Basically, if you have a bad outcome, whether you sue or pursue a formal complaint is entirely based on whether you felt the doctor was a decent listener rather than whether they were objectively at fault. Its fascinating.

Tbh I think it says as much about people's inability to make objective judgments as it does about doctors' need to be better communicators, but it is a real thing.

OP, its been said a lot, but I think you need to let go of what wasn't to be. Hopefully when you're qualified and practising in your new role you'll let that be your identity, but it sounds like you need to do more work moving past the disappointments that happened and focusing on the positive.

It was a waste of taxpayers money but not because you were at fault. If they had supported you better you may well have completed your training.

This woman was clearly showing off about her daughter’s profession and gets a kick out of putting other people down. She’s an unpleasant individual and best ignored. Don’t let her occupy any more of your thoughts op.

@ChairmansReserve

I am purposely ignoring your questions because your questions come across intentionally goady and not very nice.

Medical training makes you harsh and critical and ironically boots out any sense of empathy or compassion.
^
Don't agree with your statement; as my experience is the exact opposite.

Other than that, the woman was rude but you overshared. It was none of her business. Smile and wave is the way forward with this type of person.

Ignore Op. The woman was showing off in the first place about her daughters profession. Why would that need to be bought up anyway? Sounds like she's living through her daughters achievements a bit too much. She nothing to you and has no idea of what you've been through. Don't let it cloud your day

@ChairmansReserve

Another poster has also given a good summary. If you want to read it. I just dont have the inclination to do the work for you because the research is out there. But i feel this provably wont be enough for you?

With regards to me tarring the profession with the same brush (which isnt a nice one owing to my personal experience) - yes i do this. And everyone who has pointed this out, you are right and i need to reflect on this. I know this comes from my own bitterness and anger, which isnt nice or fair.

Op you’ve clearly got some deep unresolved issues about your situation and unless anyone totally agrees with you you are lashing out.

It’s sad your identity is still so wrapped up in this to the extent you wanted to tell some stranger but I’d try to look at ways to try to move past it, 💐

Fwiw - i went to Southampton and bristol medical school. I found the latter less supporting and punitive for mental health issues and generally anything that got in the way of medical training. I sincerely hope other medical schools are better.

But you're as bad as each other. She wants you to know that her daughter's a doctor. You admit that you want people to know that you were nearly a doctor. If you insist on telling them, no point complaining if they have an opinion on why you dropped out.

@katy1213 and @Bluntness100

You're absolutely right - i do need to reflect and untie my literal tie and identity with my past.

'It is a waste of tax payers money' this comment puts the blame on the trainee

I don't think the statement in itself puts blame on anyone. It's simply a fact. Whether a medical student dropped out due to illness, couldn't make the grade, won the lottery or dropped dead… it's still a waste of money from a taxpayer's point of view.

Maybe this is goady, but I am not sure that medicine would be better at dealing with mental health issues if it supported people more. I think it's one of a few career paths where you really want people who are very mentally resilient and grounded.

This isn't to say that there is something wrong with not being cut out for it - there are all kinds of reasons that people may not be cut out for all kinds of work. But any kind of work that includes giving a lot of interpersonal support can be very hard on people who are in high need of supports themselves.

There's just a lot of very rude people out there who live vicariously through others - detach yourself from this scene and all will be well.

I think especially if you're youngish looking and pretty and maybe project a bit of vulnerability there's lots of nutcases who will pick up on this vibe and target you? She wouldn't have said this to a big bloke.

Get some big headphones and wear black and sunglasses more and don't make eye contact.

Congratulations on selecting your forthcoming career - it's clearly a very "growing industry", and an important one for human wellbeing.

We're more fucked up in our heads now then physically.

I'm imagining you all chilled out like Dr Rivers in Regeneration in a big chilled out office piecing together broken minds, how cool are you!

@SmokedDuck

Maybe this is goady, but I am not sure that medicine would be better at dealing with mental health issues if it supported people more. I think it's one of a few career paths where you really want people who are very mentally resilient and grounded.

This isn't to say that there is something wrong with not being cut out for it - there are all kinds of reasons that people may not be cut out for all kinds of work. But any kind of work that includes giving a lot of interpersonal support can be very hard on people who are in high need of supports themselves.

There is something in this to be fair.

It's an opinion. Why on earth did you ask such personal questions and share so much information about yourself? This was a stranger.

If somebody told me that they'd left a career that far into training I would privately think 'what a waste', but I wouldn't voice it, it's none of my business.

I'm sorry that you're upset but I disagree with the poster saying 'she's a bag of shit' or similar. She was blunt and shared her opinion. You have your reasons and they're good enough. Stop oversharing with people you don't know as they don't know your circumstances.

[quote ChairmansReserve]**@LiJo2015* I also know that the number one reason for litigation is because of lack or good and empathic communication. This is by no coincidence and i believe occurs directly because of how and what docs are treated and trained.*

Sorry, what? In what sense is 'litigation' (strange word to use in the UK) primarily caused by 'lack of empathic communication'?

You posted a thread appearing to be about a conversation you had with a stranger. But as the thread continues, you seem to be more and more concerned with pursuing a vendetta against the medical profession.

There's something very strange about all of it.[/quote]
Er, you may know something about the medical profession@ChairmansReserve, but you clearly know nothing about the legal profession- “litigation” is precisely what we call it in the U.K! It’s not a US-specific term. The umbrella term is “Dispute Resolution” and under that you have arbitration and litigation as the two ways to obtain an adjudication of your dispute. Arbitration is private, confidential and the parties agree by contract to use that method. Litigation is when you go to the public courts and have your claim heard by a judge. It is overwhelmingly how medical negligence cases are brought.

(And yes, it is called “litigation” in both the England & Wales and Scottish systems).

@SmokedDuck

Maybe this is goady, but I am not sure that medicine would be better at dealing with mental health issues if it supported people more. I think it's one of a few career paths where you really want people who are very mentally resilient and grounded.

This isn't to say that there is something wrong with not being cut out for it - there are all kinds of reasons that people may not be cut out for all kinds of work. But any kind of work that includes giving a lot of interpersonal support can be very hard on people who are in high need of supports themselves.

I also agree with this.

Some careers are just not suitable for everybody and special arrangements/support being needed would just negate their effectiveness.

It's not an indictment of anybody's worth or value, we're all different and that's ok, there's room for everybody.

I have never done anything to please or impress others, not even my own parents.
I have pursued a legal career which I enjoy.
However, I intend to give up my legal career next year and do something completely different.
I don’t give a hoot about anyone’s opinion.

Op, this woman was extremely rude. However, I do think that you are not entirely comfortable with your decision to leave the medical profession which is why you are probably a bit sensitive to the views of others.

@SmokedDuck

Maybe this is goady, but I am not sure that medicine would be better at dealing with mental health issues if it supported people more. I think it's one of a few career paths where you really want people who are very mentally resilient and grounded.

This isn't to say that there is something wrong with not being cut out for it - there are all kinds of reasons that people may not be cut out for all kinds of work. But any kind of work that includes giving a lot of interpersonal support can be very hard on people who are in high need of supports themselves.

I think there's a lot of truth in that. When I was a doctoral student, I had a PT admin job in the medical school of the university, which meant I dealt on a day to day basis with lots of medical students at different stages in their studies. There were some I was unsurprised to see drop out as despite their hunger for the job and their obvious academic ability, they already needed a lot of support, before they even got into the more challenging parts of their route to becoming fully qualified. It was hard to see how, even with the MH support provided for doctors, those people would have been able to deal with how gruelling the job is, particularly in certain specialisms. I have a senior psychologist friend (so, not a medic, but in a hospital setting) who deals with terminally ill children, and she couldn't do her job without robust MH.

Speculating for fun, 'cos that's what people do, however wrong they get things; I think the woman was determined to 'one up' you about her dd. She'd played her trump card, you'd neutralised it, which put her nose out of joint (and will have felt rude to her, however silly that seems), so she lashed out at you.

I think your chatting about training to her dd was lovely, a proper everyday human connection. I read that as you connecting on a level with her, not as you feeling a compulsion to bring up your own former status. I suspect that connection may have made the mother feel excluded. (Maybe, probably, she has unresolved career frustration issues of her own. Her dd has a baby and a good career and that is a big thing to her).

What I would say to you, is please sort out your own issues before you go much further with psychotherapy. I suspect you'll be forced to as part of the training. But bitterness has no place in therapy. Nor does a sense of superiority over different forms of treatment (if you were to apply your 'no empathy' schema to your future patients' GPs and psychiatrists, for example).

My own lazy prejudice about psychotherapists, so far borne out via extremely limited experience, is that half of them go into it because they are genuinely interested in other people and have the capacity to learn to help them constructively. The other half do it because they're psychologically fucked up themselves and wish to create a career path out of exploring and indulging their own problems, via imposing them on other people.

@SmokedDuck

And yet medicine has a problem with retaining people combined with the fact that docs suffer a higher rate of physical and psychological issues. Is it because these people arent resilient enough? This is far too simplistic and stigmatizing, putting the problems inherent in the training path on the trainee - tgis is analogous to gaslighting - 'the problems not us, its you' type thing.

I would argue that instead mental health issues and burn out is instead heavily stigmatised and as such docs suffer needlessly. Doctors are told 'its just part of the job?' And as such are given no let down or appropriate get out. I don't profess to have all the answers but the system as it is now inadequately supports trainees AND the evidence would support this.

Bearing in mind we havent even started the discussion on the negative consequences that docs face on goimg part time or having children.

[quote ChairmansReserve]**@LiJo2015* I also know that the number one reason for litigation is because of lack or good and empathic communication. This is by no coincidence and i believe occurs directly because of how and what docs are treated and trained.*

Sorry, what? In what sense is 'litigation' (strange word to use in the UK) primarily caused by 'lack of empathic communication'?

You posted a thread appearing to be about a conversation you had with a stranger. But as the thread continues, you seem to be more and more concerned with pursuing a vendetta against the medical profession.

There's something very strange about all of it.[/quote]
Agreed