Is medicine a good choice?

[Runninghat]

It seems the bright kids at schools drift to medicine as my dd is being steered towards and has an interest in. But doctor friends are so negative about the career at the moment saying they wish they had chosen a different path if they had really realised what a life commitment to stress and studying it was. I would love to hear others views as there is no arguing with an idealistic teen.

@goodbyestranger

Had to tell a mother whose child had come in for a minor operation that he had died, totally out of the blue

I've just read back and noticed this. 'Out of the blue' is probably not likely to be an explanation which would persuade a court (or anyone with any degree of common sense, and I hope not the poor mother in question). Somewhere in this situation a doctor or other HCP did something or omitted to do something which cost the child in question his or her life. I know it happens but it's still not great and even worse when there's an attempt at a cover up by the medical personnel or admin in question.

Teenager died with no previous known medical issues and no one making a mistake. It was genuinely out of the blue. But it's the "someone must have done something wrong" mentality from people who think they know what they are talking about but are actually ignorant that puts an extra strain on the job. Everyone has been to a doctor and therefore thinks they understand what medicine is about somehow. Then they write a complaint, it takes a doctor 3 hours to write a response (because you have to go through every little thing) and then the next complaint is they can never see a doctor

I should add - there is an explanation for the death. There always is. But it doesn't stop it coming from out of the blue. If someone has a life threatening allergy to penicillin but they've never had it before then that would be an example. I know someone (not a patient) who died in their GP surgery because of a typhoid vaccine for travel - no one could possibly have known that they would have an anaphylactic reaction. Despite immediate treatment they did not recover.

HoppingPavlova the phrase 'out of the blue' was used whereas a specific cause wasn't, so obviously was would assume negligence. If there was a cause, don't say 'out of the blue'. It's not hard to use accurate language. Anyhow, we're not a court and one thing is very clear and that is that not all doctors are infallible and a fair few seem to be overly pleased with themselves - not usually the good ones either. Doctors need to be treated like ordinary professionals in terms of responsibility, not gods.

Chilldonaldchill my mentality is that if a doctor told me something happened 'out of the blue' I would think 'pull the other one'. If a doctor explained a cause, and it was plausible, obviously fair.

But then my mentality is possibly slightly altered by the very bad case of practice that I've been at the receiving end of, where medics had to be sacked for endangering life, other cases where medics just handled things extremely poorly and in one case seriously unethically.

one would assume not was

And just for the record I have never lodged a formal or even an informal complaint.

goodbyestranger - the phrase 'out of the blue' was used whereas a specific cause wasn't, so obviously was would assume negligence.

No, it’s not an obvious assumption. Except to you. Deaths with no negligence attached do indeed occur ‘out of the blue’. You can’t tell someone the cause in these instances because sometimes you just don’t know at that point, it’s yet to be worked out, or you have an extremely good idea what it is but common sense says you need to have that confirmed before relaying it. But keep going with your odd narrative.

Wow. Odd to assume that doctors make errors and cover up? Checked out any enquiries recently?

I mean obviously most won't - but too many do.

I’ll give an example, an acquaintance performed serious and complex surgery on a child. They came through surgery well, appeared to be recovering well and then died extremely suddenly. The surgeon was absolutely gutted, compounded by the fact the child was the same age, sex and similar in looks to one of their own. God knows everyone tried to solve the mystery, PM didn’t throw anything up, it genuinely came up blank. Obviously the parents were devastated and lack of an answer compounds that but don’t think it’s a walk in the park for everyone else involved either. That’s an extremely rare example but even that happens. Otherwise ‘out of the blue’ can remain ‘out of the blue’ for a while until the cause is ascertained or confirmed.

No - extremely odd to assume that ‘out of the blue’ automatically means negligence and cover ups though.

It is not odd at all, it's perfectly rational. You are reacting quite oddly to that though - or defensively if you prefer.

I do hope that no doctor ever uses the phrase 'out of the blue' to a bereaved relative.

Out of the blue as in unexpected, which is not uncommon, but not necessarily fatal.
Every year several operations have to be halted because out of the blue patients turned out they were allergic to anaesthetic agent. None of them died, but would still say out of the blue we had to halt the operation.

I do hope that no doctor ever uses the phrase 'out of the blue' to a bereaved relative.

So, you just want another word that means exactly the same thing? What you really want is everyone to have a rock solid exact answer at the time and you can’t seem to accept that it’s not always the case (vs negligence).

Out of the blue is a phrase most would know, you could swap it for completely unexpected and unforeseen but I don’t see the difference. I’m sure these are much preferred by bereaved relatives versus ‘well, we’re all shock as we don’t understand what has happened and why, no fucking idea really, but don’t worry we will have them down to the morgue and hopefully get to the bottom of it asap, as much for our sake as yours’. Or, ‘we are 90% sure we know what’s occurred but in the odd event it’s something in the other 10%, we’d like to make sure we are right before communicating it so you’ll have to wait to have our theory confirmed’.

I would think that with an unexpected adverse event, including death, you are likely one of the only people who have such a problem with the honest conveyance of out of the blue or associated synonym.

Thanks sendsummer, I'm all good now.

HoppingPavlova as I said, I've never submitted a complaint in spite of ample cause for a full legal case. I simply could never be bothered.= to inflict the hassle on myself.

The defensiveness here is absurd. Are you really totally oblivious to the thousands of cases of clinical negligence which prove to be well founded each year, or the shocking reports of incompetence and systemic cover up from recent independent enquiries? No doubt the vast majority of doctors are fine at their job, and a large minority are no doubt very good, but lets not pretend that they are all excellent in terms of the science with appropriate people skills. The evidence in terms of successful litigation would suggest otherwise.

Don't know where .= came from.

if you are not someone particularly drawn to medicine It is quite likely that applicants to medicine do know that it's a tough job, poor relative pay, bad conditions, etc., and yet they still apply. In huge numbers. Why?

Lots of mistakes are made and luckely most are picked up in time to cause harm. But it is the assumption straight away that unexpected events must be a mistake that annoyed some people.

It's like when parents of my dc classmate would not let the two boys play with eachother. First reaction of DH was "they are racists". Yes, maybe it was, and yes he has experienced racisms. But don't jump to conclusions.

My medic friends all love their jobs.

Your child should consider what they enjoy and follow that path. If they like science and are interested in medicine then encourage them but if they are just doing that cause they think they should then support them to make another choice.

Like any career though if you find later in life you no longer enjoy then do something else. Those who remain in jobs they hate chose to do so. The only person making them do that is themselves.

I'd much rather have an exciting job where I help people and deal with the stresses than have another stressful job that is also mind numbing and with no sense of purpose. I am not a medic, wish I were, GP would have been my dream job. I am in another job that is very, very stressful, where I have to deal with crap all the time, how I wish I could say I helped people at the end of the day.

to all the medics on this thread who have shared their views you really are doing something special for your fellow people.

No-one should go into medicine if they don't actually feel enticed by being a doctor. There are many other jobs that are prestigious if that rocks their boat.

I've just read back and noticed this. 'Out of the blue' is probably not likely to be an explanation which would persuade a court (or anyone with any degree of common sense, and I hope not the poor mother in question). Somewhere in this situation a doctor or other HCP did something or omitted to do something which cost the child in question his or her life. I know it happens but it's still not great and even worse when there's an attempt at a cover up by the medical personnel or admin in question.

I'm not going to comment on the exact circumstances, as they were so unusual that it might identify the patient. No cause for the death could be established. There was - as there always is in the case of an unexpected death - an inquest and post-mortem. The coroner could not establish the cause of death.

It is totally and utterly wrong to assume that a sudden unexpected death necessarily implies negligence. For example, patients can have severe allergic reactions to a drug the first time that they are given it, and die despite attempts to resuscitate them. There is no way of predicting this.

Only a small percentage of medical accidents are as a result of negligence. If you don't understand something that basic, you'll forgive us for not taking your views on what will or won't persuade a court too seriously. . You might as well claim that every car accident - even if it's caused by a tree falling unexpectedly on the car, or the car being struck by lightning- is the fault of the driver.

Flapjack I understand completely that medical accidents and medical negligence are closely aligned. Those are the two words that you yourself have just used. I also know that there are shocking cases of clinical negligence in the courts on a daily basis. I also know, from more than one personal experience, just how poor some doctors are at what they do (or are supposed to do) and at the same time how strangely bossy and pleased with themselves some of them they can be. Lawyers in this field are well versed in how far the medical profession and hospital trusts tend to close ranks rather than hold their hands up when something goes wrong. Despite all the outrage when I picked up on the phrase that you used, you haven't succeeded in changing my mind that 'out of the blue' is a very poor choice of language when there's a serious incident. You have succeeded in being unnecessarily patronising though.

Fortunately I have, over the years, been treated by several really excellent doctors, but all of those were significantly brighter than the bossy patronising ones who really have no place in the system except for the fact that the NHS is woefully understaffed so in many departments have to take who they can get.

@goodbyestranger

Flapjack I understand completely that medical accidents and medical negligence are closely aligned. Those are the two words that you yourself have just used. I also know that there are shocking cases of clinical negligence in the courts on a daily basis. I also know, from more than one personal experience, just how poor some doctors are at what they do (or are supposed to do) and at the same time how strangely bossy and pleased with themselves some of them they can be. Lawyers in this field are well versed in how far the medical profession and hospital trusts tend to close ranks rather than hold their hands up when something goes wrong. Despite all the outrage when I picked up on the phrase that you used, you haven't succeeded in changing my mind that 'out of the blue' is a very poor choice of language when there's a serious incident. You have succeeded in being unnecessarily patronising though.

Fortunately I have, over the years, been treated by several really excellent doctors, but all of those were significantly brighter than the bossy patronising ones who really have no place in the system except for the fact that the NHS is woefully understaffed so in many departments have to take who they can get.

You seem to perceive it as patronising when someone points out you are talking out of your arse.

Given your posts on this thread, you must feel patronised a lot.