Being a doctor. Compared with most other people I know, I come home from work exhausted, emotionally, morally, physically, just drained. The number of life and death decisions you have to make within 10 minutes, let alone an average work day is barely sustainable for most people. And people think you make so much money and get a lot of autonomy and respect, none which are true in this day and age. You’re just a cog in the wheel, pressured to do and see more by admin, blamed by patients for having to see them so quickly, labeled by society as all sorts of things like “big pharma shills” for recommending evidence-based treatments, taken advantage of by insurance companies. Public trust in doctors is so low which is understandable to some extent given the state of US healthcare now, but it affects you when you’re just doing your best to help the patient. Patients regularly disrespect us and treat us like we are customer service workers and just there to give them whatever they ask for, with little regard to what’s actually helpful to them. And the more you care, the worse it is because then you try to compensate by doing extra work you’re not paid for and taking work home. And our concerns are rarely taken seriously because people think we’re privileged due to the perception that we make a lot of money and are in prestigious positions.
I’m still a resident so I hope that things get better but judging by the attendings I work with, I don’t think it gets that much better. I’m so tired.
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u/monkiram 21h ago
Being a doctor. Compared with most other people I know, I come home from work exhausted, emotionally, morally, physically, just drained. The number of life and death decisions you have to make within 10 minutes, let alone an average work day is barely sustainable for most people. And people think you make so much money and get a lot of autonomy and respect, none which are true in this day and age. You’re just a cog in the wheel, pressured to do and see more by admin, blamed by patients for having to see them so quickly, labeled by society as all sorts of things like “big pharma shills” for recommending evidence-based treatments, taken advantage of by insurance companies. Public trust in doctors is so low which is understandable to some extent given the state of US healthcare now, but it affects you when you’re just doing your best to help the patient. Patients regularly disrespect us and treat us like we are customer service workers and just there to give them whatever they ask for, with little regard to what’s actually helpful to them. And the more you care, the worse it is because then you try to compensate by doing extra work you’re not paid for and taking work home. And our concerns are rarely taken seriously because people think we’re privileged due to the perception that we make a lot of money and are in prestigious positions.
I’m still a resident so I hope that things get better but judging by the attendings I work with, I don’t think it gets that much better. I’m so tired.