Some Psychologic Vulnerabilities of Physicians

TLDR

Physician psychosocial difficulties are linked more to pre‑medical life adjustment than to the medical profession itself. Researchers compared physicians’ childhoods and 30‑year adult outcomes—including drug use, marital instability, and psychotherapy—to those of matched non‑physician controls. Physicians with unstable childhoods were more likely to experience poor marriages, substance use, and psychotherapy, indicating these early life factors predict later occupational hazards.

Abstract

The childhoods of 47 physicians were compared with those of 79 socioeconomically matched controls in occupations other than medicine. During 30 years of adult life, drug use, marital instability and resort to psychotherapy of the physicians was also compared with that of the controls. Physicians, especially those involved in direct patient care, were more likely than controls to have relatively poor marriages, to use drugs and alcohol heavily, and to obtain psychotherapy. Although these difficulties are often assumed to be occupational hazards of medicine, their presence or absence appeared to be strongly associated with life adjustment before medical school. Only the physicians with the least stable childhoods and adolescent adjustments appeared vulnerable to these occupational hazards. The findings may contribute to the medical and psychologic management of physician patients.