personality

arli · Rookie Joined: 15 Mar 2009 Posts: 1 Location: Bris

Hi,

Just wonder if there's anyone who's a doc or studying to become a doc and is introverted? And how do you cope with seeing patients everyday?

I have done the Myers-Briggs personality test which shows that I'm 100% introverted (so hopeless) -_-'' I'm the kind of person scared to hear phone calls.....

I'm thinking about to prepare for GAMSAT test and do medical but is there anything medical graduates can do other than becoming a GP? I'm interested in medical, health science but is it a wise choice for introverted people?

KaneMortlock · Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:35 pm Post subject: Don't be a word, be a person!

Hmmm, "introverts" and "extroverts".

Interesting proposition, that living, breathing people in the full context and complexity of life with all the dynamism, flexibility and capacity for growth/change of humanity can be reduced to a word.

Jung originally proposed these archetypes, didn't he?

I disagree. Let me propose a different account of humanity for you. There are no such things as introverts and extroverts. These are just overgeneralised abstractions of language used with various amounts of imprecision to refer to instances of behaviour that approximate a non-existent stereotype. There are life skills, experiences, attitudes, ways of thinking and behaviours (there may in fact be other things in the universe, but I'd just like to talk about these for now).

People whose behaviour can be spoken about as "introverted" possess certain skills in life including certain social skills (or the lack thereof), they have had certain experiences employing this skill set. They approach life with certain attitudes and think and behave in certain ways.

Here's the thing. All of that can be changed. People can learn new and different skills (like how to make eye contact with people while they are talking to them and even smile every now and then. How to make their voice calm and warm and kind, like they are trying to hug you with what they say. How to recognize patterns in conversation like saying, "Hello, how are you?" and knowing you are going to be asked how you are in return, and prepare answers and even full performances for these repetitive social habits). These skills can lead to new experiences as they are tried out. New attitudes can be consciously adopted, new thinking used and new behaviours exhibited.

You are a living being. You are not a word. You can gain skills, try new things, experience new things, become good at things you were not great at before.

I found a Lifeline telephone counselor's course helped my conversational skills a lot. It taught me how to control a conversation so the other person had to do all the talking. Using conversational skills like "minimal encouragers", which are the "uh huh, mm, right, oh yeah" type little noises that indicate to someone that you are listening to them and they should continue (part of active listening). Reflections of content using a paraphrase where you reflect back something the person said in a way that encourages them to continue what they were saying, for e.g., "So you were washing your hair when the phone rang because you were going to go out?". Reflections of feeling that do the same thing, for e.g., "You sound like you were really surprised?". Open-ended questions: "What happened next?" Closed questions: "Where were you going to go?" Asking for more detail "Why? Have you been there before?" Zooming back out to a more general level "Do you go out a lot?" etc. Linking to a related topic: "What else do you like to do to have fun?"

Learning these conversational skills (and conversation is a social skill that can be learned) was quite hard at the time because I was worried about employing them and always thinking about what I would say next. The moment came for me, though, where I realised that all I had to do was listen to the other person properly (rather than thinking about what I could say next) and the rest took care of itself.

Mokusatsu · Veteran Joined: 16 May 2009 Posts: 43 Location: Perth

You will need to work on social skills to an extent if you are literally so introverted that you can't bear the sound of a ringing phone.

That said, House MD seems to function reasonably well even though he's an INTP. Very Happy

prepgenie · Grizzled Joined: 08 Dec 2008 Posts: 113

That's a great answer KartmortLock. I totally agree about the generalisation of "introvert" and "extrovert".

I feel it does not make much difference whether you are introverted or extroverted. Once you become a doctor, you will yourself know what you need to ask the patient to diagnose and treat them.

Lovebite · Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 12:14 am Post subject:

Med takes all kinds of people.

If you're a shy person, expect to have to work on that.... but its not a disqualifying factor. You do need to accept that as a Doctor, you'll need to interact with peers, superiors and subordinates, as well as talk with people of every conceiveable background.

There are loads of 'introverted' people in my year (I'm almost embarrassed to use that term after Kane's demolition job Wink

...), and I've seen a lot of them make some great progress already. The really 'Extroverted' types have also had to learn to tone it down a little..... so pretty much everyone has to adjust to some extent.

There are also plenty of specialties for non people persons....

129west81st · Regular Joined: 15 Oct 2009 Posts: 27

I'm shy too but I think you just need to deal with it and move on. You said you're the kind of person that's scared of phone calls..... well i think in ANY workplace in any industry you'll always have to answer a phone, so you won't be able to avoid it, gamsat or no gamsat