Why do Orthopedic Surgeons have less personality than your average flea?

[KitchenWitch]

I am sure the doctor my daughter saw today is a perfectly serviceable clinician, but damn, he was a jackass.

[Ellen Forradalom]

1. Surgeons: We don't just cut you up, we cut you down!

Surgeons fancy themselves God. I suppose you must to do a job like that. Ah well, so long as he does the job right...

[KitchenWitch]

9. He totally acted like my daughter and I were not worth his time

Even though he is getting paid handsomely to lower himself to see us.

[FloridaJudy]

18. Know how many surgeons it takes to change a lightbulb?

Just one...















































He/she just stands there holding the bulb, while the world revolves around him.
Sorry. Old nurses' joke.

[Parche]

2. Wait Till You Meet The Lobotomist

[TZ]

3. Yeah surgeons tend to be the more book oriented scientist types

In other words..poor social skills..You don't really need to have a good bedside manner to be a surgeon....Most of the surgeons I have met are pretty full of themselves.Doesn't mean they aren't good but not the nicest people..

[KitchenWitch]

4. Exactly. Surgeons are the mavericks of medicine.

Keeping surgeons following rules is like herding cats.

[kath]

20. Actually, they usually tend to be the fratboy egotistical types, often jocks. Ortho especially

attracts the jock types. Surgeons tend to be very full of themselves, and not good at all in the people-skills department. I would NOT say that they're book-oriented OR scientist types, nor are they very intellectual or well-rounded. It's not that they're bad with people because they're bookish and shy, they're bad with people because they think they're God, and they don't want to take the time to interact with their patients. Bookish, shy types don't go into surgery. IME, neurosurgeons are the worst with people.

There are exceptions, of course. My daughter's orthopod is a very nice, gentle, kind of soft-spoken guy, and he's been good at explaining things to us and answering questions. One of the very nicest guys in my med school class (who I would (and should) have gone after aggressively, only I had a boyfriend at the time -- current DH) went into surgery, which shocked me. The other classmates who went into surgery were pretty much the biggest jerks in the class.

[LiberalEsto]

5. Mine is incredibly nice

and interesting to talk with. And drop-dead handsome.

[KitchenWitch]

6. The one I used to see in MN was good and personable too.

But most of the other ones I have encountered have been downright rude.

[AlCzervik]

7. i really like mine, he's really young, like Doogie Howser young or it looked that way to me

but he helped me out big time.

If you aren't comfortable with the one your daughter has maybe could switch, i did that with my primary care physician because he totally creeped me out.

[KitchenWitch]

8. We will only see this jackass one more time.

I was just totally taken aback by his manner, and frankly the manner of most of the staff there. It is like they are rubbing our faces in the fact that they are bringing in millions of dollars a month there.

[Deep13]

10. Because it's not a social visit.

I used to go to an A-1 asthma doctor. He was a real scientist/physician who wanted to find answers and would happily throw his preconceptions into the wood chipper to do it. Well, apparently I was the only one who liked him. He was plain spoken, blunt, direct etc. I overheard him tell a patient in the next room with frustration in his voice that "obstructive disorder" is just another word for emphesyma, that it was from smoking and that the tools available to the doc were pretty limited. I mentioned jokingly that I was too fat (not as bad as now) and he just said "yes" in atone that indicated he wasn't kidding. And he treated amateur theories as if they were the most idiotic things he ever heard. "Who told you that? No, it's not true!" But like I said, I was making real progress with him. Well, he left (I suspect he was fired) and I ended up with some nit-wit in his 20's.

[KitchenWitch]

11. I have no problem with matter of factness, but being downright rude is inexcusible

[Ellen Forradalom]

31. Especially where the patient is a child

[KitchenWitch]

32. Yes.

Thank you...

[triguy46]

12. Kind of a broad brush approach there. The two who have cut on me...

were very, very nice guys. As was the surgeon who removed my cancerous kidney and is now a friend. People are people. Physicians are very smart and that is what counts, I'll take competency over personality any day. This raises the question of how does the average health care consumer judge the quality of physician?

[ThomCat]

13. As a profession, it seems like Orthopedic doctors

and surgeons are often less friendly than other doctors. I get the impression that if you aren't an athlete, and didn't get hurt playing football, then you're scum and you're waisting their precious time.


Well fuck them for their bad attitudes.

Did he at least give your daughter the care she needs (no matter how poorly delivered)?

[KitchenWitch]

26. He did

I am still fuming about his demeanor though.

[Scooter24]

14. I'm sorry KW, but I'd consider trying to find another surgeon if possible

I know many surgeons seem to have big egos, trust me, my mother is one haha. But really if you're in a position to find another one, I'd do so.

My mother on the other hand is a pediatric surgeon and doesn't have the luxury of being a jerk to her patients or to their parents.

[kath]

21. Pediatric surgeons are quite different from other surgeons - they generally have to be good at

talking with parents, answering all their questions, calming their fears, etc. And they tend to like and be good with kids. Peds surg doesn't tend to attract the jocko frat boy assholes I mentioned in my previous post.

on edit -- read about this peds surgeon - one of the most kickass, wonderful people I've ever met:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/locallegends/Biographies/Ternber...

She got into a surgery residency by mistake - they thought her name was "Jesse" (male), not "Jessie" and were surprised when a woman showed up!

(on edit, again - perhaps I didn't get that story *quite* right:
During her internship at Boston City Hospital in 1954, Jessie L. Ternberg decided that she wanted to be a surgeon. But she could not find a surgical residency program that would even consider an application from a woman. In desperation, she wrote to Carl Moyer, the head of surgery at her own medical school, Washington University in St. Louis. "I told him I thought it was a bum rap they wouldn't take women," Ternberg says. "He agreed—and he accepted me."

But when she arrived in St. Louis and attempted to check in, she was told there were no women on the list of surgical residents. Ternberg wondered if Moyer had told anyone else that he had accepted her. "It was hot as hell and I was standing there with all my belongings in a suitcase. I thought, 'Now what'll I do?'"

She was, in fact, on the list. The name "Jessie" had caused the confusion. This would continue to be an annoyance, because with each milestone in her career at Washington University, she would be the first of her gender to get there: first woman chief resident, first woman surgeon on the faculty, first woman to head the medical school faculty council. She took a leading role in establishing the Division of Pediatric Surgery and was named its chief in 1972." http://magazine.wustl.edu/Fall02/JessieTernberg.html

[khashka]

15. My orthodenist did a good job

But I always wanted to know why a 16 year old boy needed a protate exam before geting braces,

Can we say "perv", boys and girls?

Khash.

[ThomCat]

25. Wow.

Yes. Unfortunately, I can say "perv." There are a hell of a lot of them out there, and they get away with being pervs far too often.

[kineneb]

16. then there was my podiatrist...

I had to have a ligament re-build on my right ankle...one too many sprains... also had what looked like a small bone chip...

sooo... go through surgery, back in recovery, in pain, looking at cast on leg thinking, "why in hell did I do this?"...Dr. Cheerful bounces into my room, and with great enthusiasm says, "I took a bone chip the size of my thumb* out of your ankle"... He then bounces out, extremely pleased with himself... if looks could kill...

*indicating the thumb down to middle of nail.

[SPKrazy]

17. they don't need them

they have skilz

[Dr. Strange]

19. Teach your daughter to do this:

That'll shake him off his game.

[Pierre.Suave]

23. From here forward...

my mission in life is to learn to do that.

[Aristus]

22. After-effect of too many joints.

[Pierre.Suave]

24. I read a book not too long ago...

that was for med students, by med students/residents that was an attempt to help the med students pick a specialty. It listed the various types of people that went into certain specialties by Myers Briggs type.

Mine, which happens to be ENTJ (in case you could not figure that out) were Surgeons,ER/Trauma docs, and Neuro Surgeons. Go Figure.

I had already decided I want to go into Trauma before reading the book.

But I promise not to be a jerk KW!

[KitchenWitch]

27. I know you won't be a jerk, Jason!

[Robeson]

28. My only experience with an orthopedic surgeon is when I had back surgery....

...years ago. He was head of the orthopedic department at Vanderbilt. He was simply a matter-of-fact type person, which I usually like. He wasn't Mr Personality, but I didn't want Alan Alda, I just wanted someone who was going to do the surgery right. And thankfully, he did...

[SarahB]

29. You know what's funny?

My daughter (she's 16) wants to BE an orthopedic surgeon. Fortunately, she's got a strong enough personality to climb her way through the lunkheads she knows dominate the profession.

[KitchenWitch]

30. She will likely be fantastic at it.

Lunkheads is right.

I feel like I have been filleted with a bastard file.

On edit, I am not inferring that your daughter is not personable or is lacking people skills.