I’m a medical student who is currently undergoing therapy for depression. I had always been a big supporter of those with mental health disorders, and even hope to become a psychiatrist, but I recently experienced a profound event that caused me to question how I perceive mental health issues within my field.
Recently, I told my therapist how my depression was getting worse, and she recommended that I start trying antidepressant medications. My gut instinct caused me to recoil and immediately take that option off the table. Knowing that I was going into medicine, and specifically interested in psychiatry, she asked me a question: “why are you so against taking medicine yourself if you are going into a job in which you will be prescribing them to your future patients? Wouldn’t you want for yourself what you would want for your future patients?” I was speechless with cognitive dissonance. On one hand I believed in medicine and its ability to make a difference in patients, but on the other hand I didn’t want them for myself because I thought it’d make me less competent as a caretaker, or perhaps less worthy of the title of doctor. I was also afraid that if licensing boards would ask for my records, they would view a case that required medication to be more serious than one that didn’t. I’m not too familiar with how strict they are but I just wanted everything to point to a less serious condition if they do discover my mental health conditions.
I would think that a lot of other future and current doctors have the same thinking as I do, and I can see how this kind of thinking can be problematic: if this field is meant to heal others then why does its culture prevent its own healing? At this point I’m still not sure what I want to do but what is clear is that this discussion is one that needs to be had in the wider medical community.
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Posted on October 5th, 2020. Follow us on Instagram at (@medical.minds.matter).
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