Mary Black, a public-health physician in Serbia, offers her ideas in the current issue of the British Medical Journal (abstract only). [Yes, I know: two posts in two days from BMJ -- but hey, it's interesting stuff.]
Black’s criteria: “[T]hese are jobs that seriously compromise ethical and moral standards, are difficult to justify to your children, and are likely to be a source of regret on your deathbed.”
Here is Black’s list:
1. Head of medical services at Guantanamo Bay.
2. Research scientist at any major tobacco company.
3. Biochemical weapons developer.
4. Surgeon in the commercial kidney transplant trade.
5. Sports doping doctor.
I would also be interested to hear from physicians about their ideas of the hardest jobs in medicine. Personally, I don’t know how anyone can be a pediatric oncologist. But thank goodness for individual preferences, and that lots of other people feel different than I do.
, which downplays the America-is-in-decline meme; meanwhile, Latin America 
(Good WSJ review 
and 
. You can also watch it on 
I don’t know why any MD would choose a specialty other than proctology.
I don’t know why any MD would choose a specialty other than proctology.
Black’s List or The Blacklist?
Black’s List or The Blacklist?
As a child psychiatrist-in-training, I often have this discussion with my vascular surgeon-in-training buddy. We’re very glad that each of us exist, because if either of us had to do the other’s job, we’d run away like crazy.
I can’t imagine anything more miserable than pathology. He can’t imagine anything more miserable than rheumatology. My wife is seriously considering pathology. Go figure.
Pediatric oncology is actually a great field, because so many pediatric cancers are treatable. One of my most memorable patients of my third year was a little girl we worked up on the Peds GI service, only to discover that she had a pretty significant lymphoma. She transferred to the Hem/Onc service, and is doing great a year later. Not to say that devastating things don’t happen, because they of course do.
The literature on medical specialty selection is superficial at best, and for folks so interested in complex incentives, it’d be a field wildly open to some good Freakonomics.
As a child psychiatrist-in-training, I often have this discussion with my vascular surgeon-in-training buddy. We’re very glad that each of us exist, because if either of us had to do the other’s job, we’d run away like crazy.
I can’t imagine anything more miserable than pathology. He can’t imagine anything more miserable than rheumatology. My wife is seriously considering pathology. Go figure.
Pediatric oncology is actually a great field, because so many pediatric cancers are treatable. One of my most memorable patients of my third year was a little girl we worked up on the Peds GI service, only to discover that she had a pretty significant lymphoma. She transferred to the Hem/Onc service, and is doing great a year later. Not to say that devastating things don’t happen, because they of course do.
The literature on medical specialty selection is superficial at best, and for folks so interested in complex incentives, it’d be a field wildly open to some good Freakonomics.
FWIW, I’ve heard one of the toughest jobs in medicine is burns unit nurse, since they have to debride the wounds again and again, causing incredible pain each time. But if it isn’t done, the patient may well die….
FWIW, I’ve heard one of the toughest jobs in medicine is burns unit nurse, since they have to debride the wounds again and again, causing incredible pain each time. But if it isn’t done, the patient may well die….