in defense of the young doctor

i am often told that i look too young to be a doctor.

as a woman, it's nice to hear that.
as a doctor, i'm not sure how to take that.

how should that be interpreted?

too young to be a doctor
does that mean --

you look like a kid.
you look like you've got no experience.
i really don't want you taking care of me.
is there a real doctor in the house?

i've never personally had any negative experiences with patients being disturbed by my age or how young i look (just friendly comments), but i have friends who have a lot of problems with this. i have, however, become increasingly more aware and have tried to become more professional - in appearance, in mannerism, in conversation.

i've thought about this more recently. one of our fellows from last year (now completed), signed on as staff here. apparently, when patients call in and try to set up consultation appointments, the scheduler will sometimes advise them to be careful with this "new staff guy" because he's pretty young and probably doesn't have too much experience....he is a very smart, conscientious physician. he takes good care of his patients. he's really good at what he does - but he's young.

seeing as how i'm going to be done with fellowship in a little over a year, i'm probably going to have the same problem.

so i thought i would write in defense of the young doctor,
in defense of myself:

i am young.
i will be fresh out of fellowship.
i will not have as much experience as the older staff doctors will have.
but that doesn't mean that i don't have any experience.

hematology/oncology are very rapidly progressing subspecialties.
there are new discoveries - both in pathophysiology and in therapy - that are happening all the time and guidelines for treatment are continually being revised.

having just finished fellowship/training,
i'm as current as possible on all these new advances.
in an era of wide-spread, easily-available electronic medical information, and increasing sensitivity towards legal ramifications,
i am trained to think critically and review analytically.
and cost-effectively.

i know what i don't know.
i know when to look things up.
i know when to ask for help.
and, being young, i won't be afraid to ask for help.

i have no issues of pride or appearance that will make me hesitant about asking other staff for their suggestions. chances are likely that if i do have questions, i won't ask just 1 staff guy, i'll probably ask at least 2 different staff and that will be 3 different people thinking about you.

i'm more nervous.
and that's not necessarily a bad thing - because that nervousness is going to make me think harder about you and the decisions about your care that i'm making. and that means that - at the end of the day, after i've seen you in clinic, i'm going to go home and look things up and read several more hours about what's wrong with my patient to make sure that i'm not missing anything.

yes, it's true that there is a lot to be said about experience, but there is a lot to be said about youth, too.


of course, all this being said, if your doctor - no matter what age - is telling you something that just doesn't make sense, ask them. ask them to explain it until you understand it. or get another opinion. i am always supportive of my patients and encourage second opinions. or third opinions (at reputable institutions, of course). i would even refer them, as necessary. it never hurts to have more people thinking about a patient. especially because the patients i see often have very complicated diseases and histories.