Quote:
Originally Posted by WeepingWillow23
Unfortunately IME I've found healthcare professionals can be just as stigmatising as everyone else. Psychiatry, for example, doesn't always attract the best and brightest, but often the Drs who couldn't handle other areas of medicine. Four people that I personally know from medschool went into psychiatry, only one of them because she genuinely had an interest in it (unfortunately she later burnt out and left medicine completely). The other 3 went into psych because they couldn't do what they really wanted to do as it was too competitive and/or challenging.
Whilst psych is challenging emotionally, it's often seen as an 'easier' option in terms of on call rotas and the professional exams aren't seen as so difficult. In medschool we used to call those pdocs '40 percenters' ie they just scraped a pass through medschool. It's really terrible! However, there are a few good ones out there who are bright and interested in their profession and want to help their patients. Unfortunately IME you have to wade through a lot of garbage to find them :/
Btw, neither of those girls got onto a clinical psychology doctoral programme yet  But they do still work in mental health fields...
*Willow* |
Indeed, stigmatization exists everywhere and, unfortunately like you said, not everyone in the field is there because they should be. I had a conversation with my old pysch professor about the psych treatment field and how much burn-out there is in general. And that includes people who actually aspired to have such a career. It pains me to see doctors, therapists, and treatment workers without any real sense of compassion. Of course, that extends to most fields of medicine. I remember when I got off drugs and alcohol, I experienced seizures for about three weeks while in treatment. On numerous hospital trips, I had attending doctors and nurses who treated me like dirt when they found out I was in rehab because they just assumed I was there to cop drugs. I finally lost it and told my house manager that if I ever had to go to the hospital again due to a seizure, that he tell them I don't want a damn thing except to be stabilized because I'm not interested in being looked down on or treated like garbage.