Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

Dr Carnahan | The Hidden Cost of Medical Training_ A Doctor’s Eye-Opening Revelation

1 Jan 2025 · 0 min

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0:24

A first-person excerpt from a YouTube video criticizing medical training culture for encouraging trainees to deny basic bodily needs (e.g., not eating, not sleeping, avoiding calling in sick). The speaker argues this denial leads to dissociation from personal needs and undermines physicians' ability to be compassionate and fully human.

You do not call in sick. There's no such thing. Almost. There's no compassion to like. And you think about the training. I mean, we're trained to hold our bladder, just not eat, to not sleep, to, like, deny all of our own physical needs so that we can show up. But we're actually not doing ourself any service. Because how in the world can we show up as a compassionate, fully human physician when we're totally in denial and basically dissociated from our own needs? And I was no different.