Ladies and gentlemen, if I may.

In this short piece, I will attempt to conclusively answer the oft-asked question, “Do doctors ever get sick?”.

The simple answer is NO. Doctors do not get sick. They merely go undercover once in a while. Intermittent delving into the realm of infirmity is an imperative professional undertaking. It bolsters empathy and replenishes humility.

Pain and Medical Training

There is an unvoiced long-standing culture in most medical schools whereby professors use mental melee to instil the two crucial attributes of a good doctor (empathy and humility). The strategies range from deliberately structuring impossible-to-pass examinations, negative marking (a wrong answer is worth a negative mark, i.e. -1 instead of 0), to outright verbal humiliation, even in front of patients.

The opposite is also true. A deep study of diseases and their hosts (patients) can result in a medical student manifesting the ailments they are acquainting themselves with. The phenomenon is called Medical Student Syndrome. 

Medical Student Syndrome

Although there is still debate on whether this condition is fact or fallacy, its basic principles are loyal to common sense. Interestingly, we have observed the same occurrence in the general population during COVID-19. We can all recall giving ourselves that horrid diagnosis whenever we felt the slightest whiff of snorts, sniffles or sneezes. 

Dear gentle reader, how many times did you think you had COVID-19 whenever you felt the minutest inkling of even one of those symptoms listed all over the media? In a way, that is the definition of Medical Student Syndrome.

This intriguing indisposition is a psychological condition in which a medical student erroneously imagines that they have the disease they are studying. A common example given is a medical student thinking they have Meningitis (inflammation of the covering of the brain) when they wake up with a headache (probably from poor sleep or as a token of a humiliation-numbing night of alcohol binge-drinking).

I will argue that Medical Student Syndrome can also spill over to qualified and thoroughly experienced doctors. My humble submission is that excessive exposure to diseases can create a delusional state whereby the mind can start tricking the body into thinking “you also have that disease”. Here, I refer to the somewhat inevitable overdrive of the well-known psychosomatic connection.

On the other hand, illness can indeed be present. But, its presence in a doctor’s body is not an illness but refresher courses in empathy and humility. 

Diseases as Teachers

A common side-effect of experience in any profession is arrogance. The “I’ve seen it all” complex also includes complacency and indifference. This fragility especially applies to doctors and priests/pastors. I deliberately grouped these two vocations because they share the same moral culpability. Among the ecclesiastics, I call this pitfall the “Pharisee Complex”. 

As a general rule of thumb, suffering makes a human being humble. 

In medical professionals, battling a disease has the added effect of instilling empathy. A doctor who has passed through the corridors of Major Depressive Disorder will have a more intimate appreciation of a patient insisting that they cannot get out of bed in the mornings. 

A midwife or Gynecologist who has experienced a complicated pregnancy will have a more refined insight into why an expectant mother is wailing for your assistance in the throes of labour. 

Nevertheless, doctors never get sick. They naturally go undercover to confront what it is like on the other side.