More disabled doctors!

Doctors are heavily conditioned automotons. Few who are different survive the training and rigourous conditioning process to advance to the level of consultant. It isn't just the exams. It is the need to fit into the hierachy. Its psychiatrists who are usually the mad ones in the medical profession. This is, perhaps, because their patients rub off on them or perhaps learning about psychiatry is enough to drive anyone crazy.

I've been developing an index of how well organisations do in meeting their disability duty and I wonder how well the general medical profession does in terms of helping those with mental and physical disabilities become GPs or other types of real doctors. If my guesstimate is correct, general medicine has few people with disabilities and I guess the majority of those have common mental disorders before they become doctors.

The mental health of doctors is usually pretty poor - so much so that psychiatrists used to retire at 55 and GPs have an exceptionally high occupational suicide rate (partly because of the access to successful methods and partly because of the burden of their job). I would guess few have these problems before they step forth on the career path though things may be different in the modern day.

I would also guess, perhaps incorrectly, there are few doctors with high levels of disability severity. There are rare examples of psychiatrists like Kay Redfield Jameison who've experienced severe mental disability but I would guess they're few and far between and even rarer in the general medical profession.

This guess is based on a friend of a friend - his nickname was Village - who was at medical school. My friend became a GP at a young age and I could see the change in him, the awful sanity. Village battled all sorts of mad behaviour while trying to complete his medical degree. I don't think he completed it. This was about 15 years ago and he had manic depression.

An ex-colleague dropped out of his first year at medical school many years ago because he heard voices. I assume the diagnosis was schizophrenia but I'm not sure. I assume he was hospitalised as was the standard back in those days. He never returned to complete his degree.

Perhaps patients don't want disabled doctors. A surgeon with Parkinson's disease would certainly be a liability but the individual could be a GP. A deaf GP might be difficult but with an interpreter things could be workable.

The point is if any profession should be employing disabled staff it should be the profession tasked with helping reduce disability.

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