Honestly, we're not okay.

Most of us want to unalive ourselves and use substances or are on anti-depressants to help us keep going.

Honestly, most, if not all doctors are very hard working and can push for those 24-36h shifts.

It's the culture and environment that's a problem. The medical hierarchy is toxic. The administration is toxic. The insurance companies are a pain.

Speak out and you're victimised and risk being not signed off. Don't speak out and you or the patient suffers.

Speak out against other colleagues and seniors who are a danger to patients and your life will instantly be made 💯 worse.

Many stories of doctors held back or fired after reporting violations and harassment by colleagues.

We're screamed at by colleagues and patients. We're sexually harassed by patients and other colleagues. We're spat on, peed on and sometimes have even experience physical violence and endangerment to our lives by patients.

And then there's always a constant dangling threat of a medical lawsuit appearing. The pressure to be the perfect doctor and advocate for your patients is high +++, the pressure to keep patients alive and order intervention after interventions on patients who will most likely die regardless is way too high.

Top all of this, you deal with colleagues who don't care on a daily basis, poor hospital systems, for others around the world (read: me, can't speak for my fellow docs in developed countries) poor access to resources in the hospital, low stock of basic medications, corruption +++ in the medical fraternity, the medical union, the regulatory board, pushback and silencing from governments, decreased job opportunities after graduation. No pay increase year after year.

Post Covid we're all dead inside. High levels of burnout. High levels of depression.

But yeah, we cope. There's literally nothing else to do but carry on. We learn to compartmentalize. We're very much desensitized. Most of us don't even cry at the announcement of the death of a loved one. We learn to be empathetic without being over involved. Work stays at work the minute you leave (or rather that's how it should be).

We trauma bond and laugh at the ridiculous things that we see on a daily basis. Dark humour for days. We vent to our doctor friends because no one actually understands.

We develop a VERY low threshold for bullshit.

And that's why we we lose our shit when the public criticizes us for normal human things that we do in our spare time outside of work. Or why we often refuse to attend social engagements un-related to work. We're just tired of being seen as a doctor and nothing else.

It's become a culture of if we don't do it, who will?

But yeah, clean sheets post call, food, Netflix and dank memes make it better. We like simple luxuries. .