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Physician Bullying

Never Give Up

Collecting improvements, until there's a cure.
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I was just checking to see if Medscape was reporting on the new Hornig/Lipkin study, they're not, but I found this article:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/839916

It's about physicians bullying each other, especially during training, and how traumatized they are from the bullying. The comments are very enlightening, apparently the trauma has left a large percentage of them depressed, suicidal, and stripped of their compassion. Here's a quote from a novel one physician is writing,
"For four years the men of medicine took hammer and chisel to us until compassion fell away like dross—a smoldering pile of words that longed to be spoken, of hands that begged to be held, of tears that never fell. And out of it we emerged transfigured—tireless, dispassionate, infallible. Or so we were led to believe."

There is a lot of talk of the wounded bullied turning around and becoming the bullies in an attempt to work through their unresolved feelings, and of the need for the whole physician culture to change. I think we would all support that culture change.

Maybe they are bullying us for the same reasons, and maybe the fact that they can do little for those with ME/CFS threatens their percieved infallibility, which infallibility may be the only defense they have against their past and present peer bullying experiences.

I think I'm going to try to be less bothered by the jerky physicians, dismiss them, and seek out the ones who will be helpful and respectful(I already do the last 2, the first one is the difficult one.) We've got a great ME/CFS specialist in Dr. Chia, now we just need helpful primary care and comorbid condition specialists.