Dealing with difficult colleagues?

[PhillyMed777]

How do you deal with colleagues in different medical specialties that feel the need to demean or insult your work as a dermatologist. Have you encountered these people? Some folks I meet are just plain haters. I am speaking from the perspective of a rising dermatology resident.

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[asmallchild]

How do you deal with colleagues in different medical specialties that feel the need to demean or insult your work as a dermatologist. Have you encountered these people? Some folks I meet are just plain haters. I am speaking from the perspective of a rising dermatology resident.

I have encountered these people although I noticed it more in training than I do out in private practice.

My biased opinion? They're jealous.

If I think there is an opportunity to educate them on what I do and that they'll be receptive, I'll take it.

If I can tell I won't change their mind, I won't bother wasting my breath. I'll just smile and nod along. For the most part, they'll need you more than you need them. (It's funny how they consider derm to be trivial stuff. But when they consult us, the patient MUST be seen right away.)

Outside of academia, I don't see this a lot. Most of the non-dermatology physicians in my community were excited to have a dermatologist arrive so that they can refer their difficult cases to me.

In my current practice, I only receive and accept referrals from dermatologists. Depending on how you structure your practice, there may be limited to zero involvement with other physicians outside of dermatology.

 

[Moose A Moose]

C’mon now.. be a good sport. You can’t have every aspect of you life on easy street.

 

[username456789]

As asmallchild said, you mostly encounter this in residency when jealous contemporaries feel the need to vent. Usually it’s when they’re feeling most overworked or under appreciated in their own department.

The good thing is, both you and the person in the other end of the deal know any insults are steeped in insecurity and/or jealousy, so they really don’t require a response or much of your time.

Fortunately, these people tend to be he vocal minority. One of the reasons I got into Derm in the first place was the feeling of being an expert in a field with which most other physicians feel very uncomfortable. Your skills end up being in high demand because most non-dermatologists actively run away from skin stuff and hide their head in the sand.

I also agree that out in the real world, it’s totally different. Most other docs love having you on the community.

I found that any opportunity to educate my fellow non-derm residents was good if they were receptive. Keep in mind that most non-derm doctors have never and will never even hear of 80-90% of Dermatology diagnoses that exist. So they really don’t know what they don’t know about our field. Which is part of why they act the way they do on the first place.

All in all, don’t let it bother you one bit.

 

[Sophia88]

I actually really haven't encountered this much from other medical colleagues in other specialties. I think they know enough to usually recognize the complexities of derm and often the issue is more getting too many texts and messages with their derm questions and photos. My spouse is in a surgical field and generally the only comments we get are joking about how they wish they'd done derm instead..haha. On the other hand I have gotten a fair share of derogatory comments from non-medical people about not being a "real doctor" etc.

 

[PatsyStone]

I have never had a problem with other physicians giving me a hard time. I think as a med student it may have bothered me, but after my intern year, I could care less what people think. I’m a physician who gets to help a lot of people while not working weekends, holidays, or nights; I get to sleep in my own bed every night; and I get paid very well to see a mix of diseases and patients of all ages while doing a mix of procedures. I hit the life jackpot.