TV Doctors are Crazy. Is that real?

The most likely answer is – your doctor is probably sane. Active felony charges don’t go so well for renewing your medical license. Your doctor should have committed a college degree, 4 years of medical school, and 3-7 years of residency. It’s pretty difficult to complete those if you are an active paranoid schizophrenic. Doctors may have more risk of drug use and depression as evidence by their increased suicide risk, but they are relatively unlikely to attack or harm you nearly as often as it happens on TV.
 

So Crazy TV Doctors are few and far between? They are possible but keep reading below about why it’s somewhat unlikely. (This doesn’t mean your doctor isn’t an egomaniac . . . Dr. House.)

 

Honestly, the greatest concern most medical schools have is lack of empathy in their medical students. While residents show increased rates of burnout, depersonalization, and decreasing empathy for patients over time as they get more tired, imagine if the medical student showed up with low empathy and high arrogance.

 

First off, there is almost always a medical school in-person interview. I was on the student committee at my school and we were told to flag people on tours who had bizarre behaviors/comments. If the interviewee was spouting anti-gay, anti-woman, racists remarks, heck yeah I was telling the selection committee.

 

Then there is a new thing they offer for some schools, called the CASPer test. It is supposed to test your people skills, not your ability to communicate with ghosts. You get questions like – you are a clerk at a store and see someone shoplifting. What should you do and why?

 

The test wants you to say you will warn them if it is a small item and get it returned or something similar. It is pretty bad if you say you’ll pull out your shotgun and shoot them or charge them with a felony for trying to steal a candy bar. It is yet to be determined if this is actually effective, but at least they tried something. Technically the website claims it works . . . it’s pretty highly mocked because it’s kind of easy to ‘cheat/prep’ at. . .

 

Dr. Sean Murphy and Dr. House would have had difficulty passing this for very different reasons.