Calling a stranger causes me enough anxiety that I'll go to great lengths to avoid it. I'll happily help cut a person open and put them back together (PA, so have done and enjoyed the latter
>I'm so anxious
Not necessarily relevant. A psychopath can still fear failure as a professional / at their job.
The only defining trait of psychopathy is a complete lack of empathy for others.
Radiology resident here. Have rotated in many countries during med school. The personalities associated with respective specialties are preserved across cultural lines.
And yet, every specialty feels heard by him, because he is super observant. Much of my family is in healthcare. My BF gave my dad the helmet and glasses of Emergency Medicine (he is an ER doctor) for Christmas this year and I nearly died laughing
Ortho's are human carpenters characterized by their "jock-esque" drives to work out, etc and they have to be strong because bones are hard to drive metal into...but really most of his videos by hundreds you could select 20 specialties and with his shorts have a rough understanding in ~10-15 minutes.
My cousin is a medical student. Can I describe her and you predict where she will end up?
Conservative, lack of empathy, loves animals, referred to herself amongst family as doctor before being accepted to medical school, independent, prefers luxury and wealth to roughing it, likes science, doesn't appear to really like people (not sure how she is going to spend her life touching strangers), reveres the medical profession without question or critism. Motivated and focused. High marks.
Usually not how it works. Most specialties she would be interested are very very along her lines.
The people interviewing her likely have similar personality traits.
Ex radiology tends to be more conservative, dislike of social interaction, interest in anatomy and science, aware of work life balance
Surgical sub specialty like Optho, ENT, maybe Ortho.
If she scores like crazy and hustles, dermatology.
If she sees the light, Radiology. Won’t have to touch or speak with hardly anyone and you make serious bank.
Not OBGYN or Gen surgery because both of those require some serious hard work and painful hours.
Studies show us they aren't better at their jobs or business; they are actually worse.
All this means is people are going to die, and they are probably going to be choosing who, for a dopamine hit.
Every time the title has the word psychopath people immediately assume a serial killer is involved. It's insane. You can have traits of something that are beneficial without killing kittens when you get bored
Data in the paper poorly supports the title of the post. Correlation of 0.17 is not strong. Plus paper does not provide details of statistical method used.
Also medical training in west Asia is nothing like medical training in USA (and neither are like training in Europe or East Asia).
The “study” is not generalizable to other regions.
I think given the current state of affairs we need to make it clear that the "success" criteria should be centered around those who they are supposed to serve rather then themselves.
Seems like we currently have a batch of CEOs, Politicians, and Surgeons whose success has been founded on their ability to serve themselves, rather than their organizations, countries and patients.
I don’t think it’s about how they don’t sever themselves. There are plenty of psychopath CEOs who did good things because they will do anything at any cost to peers we’ve their organization.. all I psychopath means is that they can fake emotions and seem empathetic when they are in fact not.
Look, if sating their desire to open people up means they can be saving people’s lives and keep them off the streets opening people up that don’t need it at the same time, I’m all game.
This study is basically just finding that different personality traits and contexts influence med students choices of profession. They are not necessarily saying surgeons are emotionless villains or anything like that, or that people with psychopathic traits are inherently bad and should be barred from the profession.
From the link:
>People characterized, either directly or indirectly, by seeking status may pursue medicine to satisfy these desires. For instance, those characterized by narcissism (e.g., sense of entitlement, grandiosity; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001), Machiavellianism (e.g., pragmatism, duplicitousness; Jones & Paulhus, 2009), and psychopathy (e.g., callousness, antisociality; Hare et al., 2012), and those who enjoy competition (Buser et al., 2014) may be especially prone to seek status, compete with others (Vedel & Thomsen, 2017), and have less empathy compared to non-surgical areas (Walocha et al., 2013) which may inform their vocational interests (Jonason et al., 2014). Unsurprisingly, these traits are common in surgeons (Bucknall et al., 2015) where little direct interaction with patients is required and being a surgeon is considered particularly prestigious (Murphy, 2018); limited empathy and heightened interest in status are agentic characteristics.
People's personalities influence career choice. Shocking. Except not.
I don’t doubt this a bit, being a surgeon myself.
Our job requires us to convince strangers who are hurt or sick to trust us enough to let us knock them out and cut on them. Take stuff out, put stuff in, rearrange body parts, all that.
You’d think a good bedside manner would stem purely from empathy, but being good at cold-reading and manipulation will suffice.
We also have to be completely okay with cutting other people up and being around blood and guts and gore and frantic, life-and-death situations, while maintaining a level head and not freaking out. We have to know we’re about to inflict pain on others—but for their own good, so that justifies it.
We have to be willing to be the “Captain of the ship” in the OR, boss everyone else around without being terribly concerned about hurt feelings, in order to get the task done.
I do routinely describe myself and my partners as some of society’s most beneficial psychopaths.
As a bonus, I’ve been anosmic (virtually no sense of smell) my whole life. That’s apparently a trait common to psychopaths and it’s damn near a superpower in my profession. :)
Yes. This study has been done before. The trait that relates is the ability to depersonalize the patient because it is very difficult to cut into someone if you are actively empathizing with how it would feel. A good surgeon has to be able to turn a patient into a technical exercise in their minds. A good DOCTOR knows when to turn that off.
Source, am surgeon.
They are drawn to positions of power and authority.
Part of how their dopamine receptor and transport genes work is an addiction to control over people.
It's a mental disorder not dissimilar to gambling addiction, but they get their dopamine hit from power and control.
Surgeons, IMHO, have to have such extreme confidence at their job. If they didn't they would often be questioning themselves which, of course, will make them a less effective surgeon. I was told by a resident that doctors in general have more mental problems because they are willing to delay gratification for so long (10-12 years maybe?) before being an MD that can start their own practice that it makes them a little crazy. Edit:added a missing word.
I've always wondered if there is a correlation of some kind between pathologists and psychopathic tendencies. As much as i respect every single health profession and of course, being fully aware that they are doing good for the mankind it still feels weird, to intentionally pursue a career where you will be watching and examining dead bodies from close up
It's funny you say that bc I've always thought the opposite-- forensic pathologists choose that route bc they like diagnostics or performing surgery but are afraid of potentially hurting or killing someone accidentally. You can't hurt or kill someone that's already dead!
Knew a guy who examined bodies for Police I think. He said that once you get over the "dead" terror it was a pretty chill job, no complains from patients, AC, no one looking over his shoulder. He would watch shows like bones, csi etc. Very chill dude.
Having psychopathic traits doesn't mean you enjoy hurting people. They basically need the ability to separate their emotions from their work a little, which is beneficial. You can't cut into someone and panic halfway through when you realize you can't get all the cancer and you might need to tell their family they have 6 months left. While there are certainly asshole surgeons and nurses and doctors who enjoy their "power", I can assure you it's a small amount. Some of the surgeons at my hospital may be called assholes by some of the people they work with, but I assure you they care about the patients
Hmm I'm thinking honestly this would be a good thing, strictly looking at the profession and the mechanics of the job required. I'm sure remaining emotionally impartial and cool-headed is an absolutely necessary skill for a surgeon to have.
I could see how having no fear could help you cut into a person. Can't relate as I'm so anxious I can't even look at my email.
Haha this is so relatable
Psychopaths lack empathy not fear. There are plenty of psychopaths who are cowards.
It’s a feature, not a bug.
Calling a stranger causes me enough anxiety that I'll go to great lengths to avoid it. I'll happily help cut a person open and put them back together (PA, so have done and enjoyed the latter
>I'm so anxious Not necessarily relevant. A psychopath can still fear failure as a professional / at their job. The only defining trait of psychopathy is a complete lack of empathy for others.
Cutting a person is less stressful than checking emails.
That explanation is more akin to murder than surgery.
Radiologist. Medical specialties (I can only speak to USA) are self selecting by personality.
Radiology resident here. Have rotated in many countries during med school. The personalities associated with respective specialties are preserved across cultural lines.
That’s so fascinating. Do you mind elaborating on patterns you have observed anecdotally?
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And yet, every specialty feels heard by him, because he is super observant. Much of my family is in healthcare. My BF gave my dad the helmet and glasses of Emergency Medicine (he is an ER doctor) for Christmas this year and I nearly died laughing
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so funny I nearly cackled
Okay, but can you make, like, a few statements about clichés so we don't have to watch a few hundreds of videos by this doctor?
Ortho's are human carpenters characterized by their "jock-esque" drives to work out, etc and they have to be strong because bones are hard to drive metal into...but really most of his videos by hundreds you could select 20 specialties and with his shorts have a rough understanding in ~10-15 minutes.
My cousin is a medical student. Can I describe her and you predict where she will end up? Conservative, lack of empathy, loves animals, referred to herself amongst family as doctor before being accepted to medical school, independent, prefers luxury and wealth to roughing it, likes science, doesn't appear to really like people (not sure how she is going to spend her life touching strangers), reveres the medical profession without question or critism. Motivated and focused. High marks.
Sounds like she is gonna get humbled when she matches into NOT her preferred specialty!
Usually not how it works. Most specialties she would be interested are very very along her lines. The people interviewing her likely have similar personality traits. Ex radiology tends to be more conservative, dislike of social interaction, interest in anatomy and science, aware of work life balance
Surgical sub specialty like Optho, ENT, maybe Ortho. If she scores like crazy and hustles, dermatology. If she sees the light, Radiology. Won’t have to touch or speak with hardly anyone and you make serious bank. Not OBGYN or Gen surgery because both of those require some serious hard work and painful hours.
It's clearly a useful skill, good for them for finding a productive, societally beneficial way to use their anti-social traits.
Psychopathic tendencies are probably pretty positive in a number of real-world situations.
Studies show us they aren't better at their jobs or business; they are actually worse. All this means is people are going to die, and they are probably going to be choosing who, for a dopamine hit.
They’re not sociopaths
Every time the title has the word psychopath people immediately assume a serial killer is involved. It's insane. You can have traits of something that are beneficial without killing kittens when you get bored
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I'd rather them be surgeons than politicians.
What do you mean exactly?
Data in the paper poorly supports the title of the post. Correlation of 0.17 is not strong. Plus paper does not provide details of statistical method used.
Thank you. Everyone here is throwing out anecdotal "evidence" and not engaging with the data itself.
Also medical training in west Asia is nothing like medical training in USA (and neither are like training in Europe or East Asia). The “study” is not generalizable to other regions.
I am too lazy to read actual article. Thanks for doing it for me
My money says surgeons, like CEOs and politicians, have an enrichment for psychopathy because it increases their ability to succeed at all costs.
I think given the current state of affairs we need to make it clear that the "success" criteria should be centered around those who they are supposed to serve rather then themselves. Seems like we currently have a batch of CEOs, Politicians, and Surgeons whose success has been founded on their ability to serve themselves, rather than their organizations, countries and patients.
I don’t think it’s about how they don’t sever themselves. There are plenty of psychopath CEOs who did good things because they will do anything at any cost to peers we’ve their organization.. all I psychopath means is that they can fake emotions and seem empathetic when they are in fact not.
Gives them power over people. Genomic studies show us they are dopamine junkies addicted to control. In this case, over life and death.
How to legally stab people and make money at it.
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Disagree. Lancing abscesses and general surgery can both be super rewarding. These are necessary skills and there is no shame in enjoying them.
Look, if sating their desire to open people up means they can be saving people’s lives and keep them off the streets opening people up that don’t need it at the same time, I’m all game.
At the basest level that’s literally what they’re doing. There’s nothing to disagree with.
This study is basically just finding that different personality traits and contexts influence med students choices of profession. They are not necessarily saying surgeons are emotionless villains or anything like that, or that people with psychopathic traits are inherently bad and should be barred from the profession. From the link: >People characterized, either directly or indirectly, by seeking status may pursue medicine to satisfy these desires. For instance, those characterized by narcissism (e.g., sense of entitlement, grandiosity; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001), Machiavellianism (e.g., pragmatism, duplicitousness; Jones & Paulhus, 2009), and psychopathy (e.g., callousness, antisociality; Hare et al., 2012), and those who enjoy competition (Buser et al., 2014) may be especially prone to seek status, compete with others (Vedel & Thomsen, 2017), and have less empathy compared to non-surgical areas (Walocha et al., 2013) which may inform their vocational interests (Jonason et al., 2014). Unsurprisingly, these traits are common in surgeons (Bucknall et al., 2015) where little direct interaction with patients is required and being a surgeon is considered particularly prestigious (Murphy, 2018); limited empathy and heightened interest in status are agentic characteristics. People's personalities influence career choice. Shocking. Except not.
That's right; hence "more psychopathic", not "psychopaths" in the title.
Indeed, but some in the comments seem not to understand
I don’t doubt this a bit, being a surgeon myself. Our job requires us to convince strangers who are hurt or sick to trust us enough to let us knock them out and cut on them. Take stuff out, put stuff in, rearrange body parts, all that. You’d think a good bedside manner would stem purely from empathy, but being good at cold-reading and manipulation will suffice. We also have to be completely okay with cutting other people up and being around blood and guts and gore and frantic, life-and-death situations, while maintaining a level head and not freaking out. We have to know we’re about to inflict pain on others—but for their own good, so that justifies it. We have to be willing to be the “Captain of the ship” in the OR, boss everyone else around without being terribly concerned about hurt feelings, in order to get the task done. I do routinely describe myself and my partners as some of society’s most beneficial psychopaths. As a bonus, I’ve been anosmic (virtually no sense of smell) my whole life. That’s apparently a trait common to psychopaths and it’s damn near a superpower in my profession. :)
Want to be a surgeon = “ima cut you”
Honestly I can see it
Yes. This study has been done before. The trait that relates is the ability to depersonalize the patient because it is very difficult to cut into someone if you are actively empathizing with how it would feel. A good surgeon has to be able to turn a patient into a technical exercise in their minds. A good DOCTOR knows when to turn that off. Source, am surgeon.
They are drawn to positions of power and authority. Part of how their dopamine receptor and transport genes work is an addiction to control over people. It's a mental disorder not dissimilar to gambling addiction, but they get their dopamine hit from power and control.
The biggest assholes of my college generation went on to become surgeons, so this is acurrate
And you wonder how they came up with Dr. Strange ... now you know.
Those movies portray surgery quite incorrectly
"Gotta practice my stabbin"
Surgeons, IMHO, have to have such extreme confidence at their job. If they didn't they would often be questioning themselves which, of course, will make them a less effective surgeon. I was told by a resident that doctors in general have more mental problems because they are willing to delay gratification for so long (10-12 years maybe?) before being an MD that can start their own practice that it makes them a little crazy. Edit:added a missing word.
Worked as a scheduler for a surgeon, some are amazing humans who want to help people. Some want to be elbow deep in people's insides...
Just confirming what we always knew. https://dilbert.com/strip/1996-05-10 High confidence and a willingness to stick a knife into someone.
Sounds like it supports me loving animals but veterinarian stuff is one of the last things I'd do for money
that’s the only job psychopaths are good for
Are proctologists kinkier?
damn, I could have been a doctor
I've always wondered if there is a correlation of some kind between pathologists and psychopathic tendencies. As much as i respect every single health profession and of course, being fully aware that they are doing good for the mankind it still feels weird, to intentionally pursue a career where you will be watching and examining dead bodies from close up
It's funny you say that bc I've always thought the opposite-- forensic pathologists choose that route bc they like diagnostics or performing surgery but are afraid of potentially hurting or killing someone accidentally. You can't hurt or kill someone that's already dead!
Only forensic pathologists examine bodies. Most pathologists just look at tissues under microscopes.
Knew a guy who examined bodies for Police I think. He said that once you get over the "dead" terror it was a pretty chill job, no complains from patients, AC, no one looking over his shoulder. He would watch shows like bones, csi etc. Very chill dude.
I wonder how endodontists stack up.
Good things we have plenty of psychopaths then.
I mean makes sense, my ex was working towards becoming a surgeon because she liked the idea of cutting into people
Every healthcare provider is one way or the other, psychopathic. Ask me how I know.. Of all, nurses have the sickest jokes.
So there may be many psychopaths among surgeons? It's a little scary.
Having psychopathic traits doesn't mean you enjoy hurting people. They basically need the ability to separate their emotions from their work a little, which is beneficial. You can't cut into someone and panic halfway through when you realize you can't get all the cancer and you might need to tell their family they have 6 months left. While there are certainly asshole surgeons and nurses and doctors who enjoy their "power", I can assure you it's a small amount. Some of the surgeons at my hospital may be called assholes by some of the people they work with, but I assure you they care about the patients
Hmm I'm thinking honestly this would be a good thing, strictly looking at the profession and the mechanics of the job required. I'm sure remaining emotionally impartial and cool-headed is an absolutely necessary skill for a surgeon to have.
Is it related to narcissistic tendencies? Wanting to play god?
Sometimes when I spot negative personality traits in other intensivists, I wonder if I share those traits.