Aspie doctors

Post Reply New Topic

i'm aspie but i want to be a doctor... will like to work in the er.

I would have liked to be a doctor and would probably make a pretty good GP. But, the long hours that junior doctors have to do (in this country anyway) put me off completely. There's no way I could handle the physical and mental exhaustion that would be inevitable after working a 72+ hour week. I guarantee I'd make mistakes. Before my daughter was born, I did a 35 hour per week office job and that was plenty.

Hated mine. He took one glance at me and said I had anxiety (considering I walked in with my dad).

I'm not a doctor yet, but I will be assuming I pass all of my exams in my Clinical years.

I'm currently interested in Pathology, Geriatrics, and D&A (Drug & Alcohol) atm, although my interests may change later on depending on my experiences in the wards. I was going to consider Psychiatry as well, but my previous experience with certain people means that I may have a very hard time with certain Psychiatric patients. I find Medicine very socially frustrating, but at the same time I think it's good for me in the long term, as the social challenge forces me to figure out ways to deal with social situations (with patients) in a curt yet respectful manner. I hope to get assistance from the Student Office regarding Clinical Communication skills if possible.

yea we aspies can be MDs . I think it depends on if you are in a class that has lots of aspies(good time) or lots of NTs ( no fun).
Many Many Mds have aspergers and dont know it. med school selects for aspies due to intesity of academics involved.
Med school and grad school were made for aspies ...tons of memorization, rigid schedule, one interest..... lack of emotions come in handy in emergency room situation. Just make sure you get enough sleep( melatonin a must for aspies) and excercise daily to keep the stress down.
I work alot in busy Emergency room and my aspergers is my greatest gift .. I have no emotions or empathy or judgmental attitude to cloud my thinking so my desicions are based on facts protocols and reasoning...thats not to say i am not kind to people . Just in some cases being like Mr. Data is agreat way to be. I think the high divorce rate in physicians is mostly due to the MD being an undiagnosed aspie married to an NT..... that combo has divorce rate of 80%,while physicians divorce rate is 70%.

I see no reason whatsoever that an aspie cannot become a doctor, although for many (myself included) would choose not to become an ER doctor or nurse because that involves a lot of empathy and social cues when dealing with families as well as split decisions, fast paces, lots of distractions and constant stress and pressures.

Instead an aspie wanting to work in the medical field may fare better doing medical research or being a non-emergency doctor/nurse and working in quieter environments like homecare nursing home or small office.

I have an Aspie friend who is going to become a nurse specializing in IV therapy, and she would do great in a blood donor clinic where I volunteer

I see no reason whatsoever that an aspie cannot become a doctor, although for many (myself included) would choose not to become an ER doctor or nurse because that involves a lot of empathy and social cues when dealing with families as well as split decisions, fast paces, lots of distractions and constant stress and pressures.

Instead an aspie wanting to work in the medical field may fare better doing medical research or being a non-emergency doctor/nurse and working in quieter environments like homecare nursing home or small office.

I have an Aspie friend who is going to become a nurse specializing in IV therapy, and she would do great in a blood donor clinic where I volunteer

I am an aspie doctor and I love it! I love being able to help people with my unique gifts. I have excellent visuospatial memory and ability, I am more observant than most and will pick up on important things that others miss. Having a "role" to play as a doctor works well and I am able to mask and conduct a visit with a general script I have for different types of visits. I have had patients praise me for how great of a doctor I am and how well I listen and empathize with them. I never really "clicked" with or understood how to socially interact with any of my NT coworkers, unfortunately, and mostly kept to myself and kept things professional at work.

I didn't realize I had AS until I was recently fired from family medicine residency in 2nd year. It was so confusing because I felt like everything was going pretty well until I would receive unexpectedly negative evaluations at the end of a few rotations. Residency is stressful, but I was doing everything I was supposed to and did well with patients, procedures, etc.

However, I kept getting poor evaluations that didn't make sense. Often these were written by people I had only worked with a few times and those who I would work with the most wouldn't write an evaluation. The evals would say things like:
-"(perceived) lack of medical knowledge" (even though I do very well on board exams and objectively have good knowledge, am eager to learn, constantly reading and asking questions). I have been misjudged by teachers and peers as "stupid" before in school, called a "space cadet", etc, so this is not a new issue I've had to battle.
-"poor professionalism" (saying I was late "all the time" if I had been up to 5 minutes late only one time, not responding to emails when I didn't feel it was necessary to respond),
-"condescending" (which I felt I was exactly the opposite and trying to be encouraging and supportive. This made me feel really awful to hear this, as it was completely not my intention)
-I was apparently also offering ideas during rounds that I was told had already been expressed by someone else in the group (I think this was due to an auditory sensory processing difficulty while in the hospital with multiple things constantly happening at once. I also often felt like it was difficult to hear people speaking or their words would sound jumbled and would ask them to repeat themselves. I had an evaluation by an audiologist actually who determined I had no physical hearing deficits. )

Now I'm trying to pick up the pieces and get into another residency program, but I'm not sure how that will go. It's tough to get into residency in the first place. Now having been fired I am worried no one will want to hire me. I feel like the primary reason I lost my job was that I was unknowingly angering attendings and coworkers with my AS social difficulties and when I told the administration this might be the problem and that I was working on getting help for it, they fired me. I'm in the process of getting a diagnosis, but not sure if that will pan out because I am an adult and am able to function pretty well and personally wouldn't have gone for it if it wasn't for these negative evaluations and getting fired. My plan is to first try to get some therapy for learning social skills so that this isn't a problem in the future.

I think I make a great doctor though, and once I'm able to finish residency and can have a regular controlled schedule with fewer hours and no hospital work, things should be much easier. It's challenging but it's totally worth it if it's what you want to do. I often think I may not have put myself through all of this if I had known about my AS earlier in life, but on the other hand I may have had more help and been able to understand how to avoid some of the difficulties I've faced with respect to social interaction, sensory overload, and emotion regulation, etc.

You can be a great doctor with AS! It's hard for anyone, but definitely possible if it's what you really want. I would avoid using this diagnosis to limit yourself by saying you can't do certain things, and just go for what you want even if it's difficult and people tell you that you won't be able to do it. Prove them wrong.

So glad to hear of medical professionals having personal experience with Aspergers.

Currently, I have a Doctor who has some understanding; that is "enough to get by"- as my Doctor is of a younger generation with growing awareness of the Autism Spectrum.

Is it difficult to find NT medical colleagues who have a strong understanding of the Autism Spectrum?

I am an Aspie and my youngest daughter exhibits some of my symptoms. She decided to become a doctor around the age of 7 or 8 and focused intensely on that goal. She is an anesthesiology today and her husband is a surgical gynecologist. She also has 2 children and she down-selected anesthesiology because it would allow her a type of 9 to 5 life so she could raise her children. Some types of doctors lead such an intense life (20 hour workdays) that they only come up for air a few hours of the day.

coffee.c.cactus - Good luck on your journey through residency. There are areas of the country that have a desperate need for doctors. Many of these are rural areas. I suspect many of these may be open to recruiting you into their residency program in the hopes that once you complete the program that you might like the region so much that you will stay.

I will make one suggestion. Looking over the reasons they gave for terminating your residency, many seem to be based on their misinterpretation of your feeling and intentions. Most NTs are not able to read what an Aspie is thinking. Most NTs automatically focus on reading the hidden signals in the eyes and around the eyes. One interesting way you can block their stares is by wearing mirrored glasses. Think of the mirrored silver sunglasses that motorcycle cops use to wear. It is like looking out through a one way mirror. These glasses come in a variety of colors. I prefer blue because the color blue is peaceful, tranquil and symbolizes loyalty. Blue is reliable and responsible. It exhibits inner security and confidence. The non-prescription types are fairly inexpensive but you can also buy these as prescription glasses. You can obtain these as mirrored finish only and not tinted which will then allow you to wear them indoors.

If you look at the photograph of the girl in this article, you will see what I mean. 'Wing mom' goes viral for playing son's matchmaker at grocery store

I'm planning on becoming a veterinarian. Technically vets are doctors too I guess.

Old thread but my goal is clinical psychologist

Shoot!
I just realized this is another resurrected dead thread... which makes my last post irrelevant. I had to go back through all of the pages searching for where there was the most recent time jump- and basically it was just another person saying "yeah, me too"

This is why resurrecting threads is annoying.