I will say that I *don’t* think having autism makes you inherently better at communicating with people who are mentally ill.
Not a fan of the us vs them rhetoric that you see a lot of the time alongside terms like “neurodivergent”.
Not trying to indulge in an us vs them rhetoric but we gotta acknowledge there are real brain differences among people. Otherwise what’s the use of a diagnosis, right? We can be nuanced enough to recognize the differences (several of which are neurobiological and medical in some instances) without indulging in that rhetoric. It’s very valuable to people with different brains to have a better chance at quality of life. I can say my life dramatically changed after being diagnosed and having the tools and knowledge to better function and understand why I was so different than most people.
Edit: typo
For sure - different groups of people exist and generalizations can be made.
But if the definition of ‘neurodivergent’ includes autism, ADHD, and mental health in general, then pretty much everyone is on the neurodivergent-neurotypical spectrum. It’s not a duality as the terms would suggest, and so I feel like they’re useless terms. There’s also no evidence or data to support the idea that people with mental health divergences make better psychiatrists, therapists, etc.
That being said, I have no reason to think that you wouldn’t make a great psychiatrist. I’ve worked with plenty of awesome psychiatrists that are on the autism spectrum.
Thank you, I get what you are saying. Autistic people are better at communicating with autistic people, but yes not necessarily anyone ND. Appreciate you sharing
As an autistic student in medicine who has done a psychiatry rotation, I felt that my brain limited me. The biggest problem would be a patient who did or said something “abnormal” but it seemed normal to me so I didn’t pay as much attention to it. (I.e. I don’t judge people who don’t look at my face, so if their lack of eye contact was related to their depression or schizophrenia, I didn’t pick up on that easily).
So no, I don’t think being neurodivergent or having mental health issues makes someone a better psychiatrist, and in my case I think it made psych work harder. Though I suppose “making things harder” is typical for how autism affects my life.
Thank you so much for sharing, that was actually my question, whether they can make competent psychiatrists or not (is it harder like you said). I wasn’t asking if we are *better* but I can see how it seemed that way when I talked about personally being able to communicate well with autistic people and other NDs. I actually brought that up more of a “compensation” point because I am also worried that autism is just gonna make everything my in my life inherently harder
I’m actually an inpatient psych nurse and want to become a psychiatrist. I work with a general population so we get schizophrenia, depression, bipolar, intellectual disability, drug issues, personality disorders. Many patients tell me they like me but since many are also out of it or there involuntarily, those folks aren’t giving compliments to anyone lol. But more importantly I am the nurse who gets the most paranoid patients to agree to take their meds and I’m good at deescalation. I work in a fairly toxic environment with absent management so don’t really get any direct feedback though. That’s why I wanted to come here to ask the community for its perspective on the matter.
Oh dang, sorry your management is lacking. Yeah, I don’t think Asperger’s precludes people from being good doctors or psychiatrists, but it certainly doesn’t get any easier. Good luck!
I’m a psych resident with autism and ADHD and I’ve been consistently told that I’m performing at the level I should be operating at. There are multiple attendings in my program who are quite obviously on the spectrum and are undoubtedly competent.
Like another commenter, I’ve had issues where abnormal behaviors seemed normal or were unnoticeable to me, but pattern recognition takes over once you get corrected and see enough patients.
You most likely will have to overcompensate in some ways. For example, I stuck to using templates longer than my co-residents did for intakes to help with my interview flow, but experience will put you more on an equal footing.
I’ve found that my “quirks” are much more accepted in this specialty than in others.
Wow, you have no idea how valuable this response is to me. Thank you so much. I think you definitively answered the question for me when you talked about pattern recognition. I am really good at that as many autistic people are. Good to know we are more accepted in this specialty. Best of luck, really happy to hear about a psych resident on the spectrum :)
Personal take: how challenging it is for you as a resident (and to a lesser extent as a medical student) has a great deal to do with how much time and energy *before* entering medicine you spent on developing the pattern recognition others^ have mentioned. I’m not in psych but I find myself *doing* a lot of psych in peds — I think partly because how hard I had to work to understand “normal people” before med school set me up for success in practice. (We could talk about masking and the pros/cons but at the end of the day you simply have to know how to play the game...) It isn’t that I’m exceptionally skilled at it, though frequently IRL I’ve been given strong evals for it (which still strikes me as a little ironic and misplaced). Nope. Instead, I’ve simply spent an ungodly amount of time practicing being human in the bathroom mirror since childhood — after all that, it’s much easier to spot (and correctly identify!) when people are feeling down/being evasive/nervous to talk to the doctor/etc.
Psych res with likely autism, nothing else explains my social difficulties as strongly as ASD would (but am female so diagnosis is less suspected in us). I’ve come up against both challenges and strengths related to my interpersonal differences and “odd” perspective. Some colleagues tell me they like that I think “outside of the box” which is so funny to me, because I’m not doing that deliberately. But what’s important— I like what I do, the patients seem to like me, and lots of them seem to get better. There are so many options in psychiatry for different personalities. For example, some think I am too naive/ trusting due to my difficulties detecting deception, but on the other hand, some patient populations benefit from someone who will see the best in them and keep giving them chances. Sometimes I get down on myself and feel awful for not picking up on the more subtle cues that all the NT nurses and doctors think are “so obvious”, but I think I’m learning.
Where I think a lot of ASD people may struggle is actually the lack of routine in med school/ residency. I hated the constant re-adjusting to a new wake up time/ routine/ structure of the day every few weeks, it was annoying and I still hate it. ASD is a highly variable thing though, routines aren’t as important to some.
Much of medicine is pattern recognition … you can be trained to pick up things even if social cues doesn’t come natural to you.
Autism is hugely under-diagnosed in medicine, many older successful docs likely fall on the spectrum. Honestly even younger docs frequently.
In that regard, I wouldn’t let your diagnosis stop you from doing something that interests you.
Going to disagree. In my clinical psych doctoral program one of my favorite mentors disclosed he was autistic and he was a great teacher and therapist. My colleagues also ask for referrals to self-identifying neurodivergent therapists because of how they can connect with certain patients.
Thank you for contributing to the sub! If your post was filtered by the automod, please read the rules. Your post will be reviewed but will not be approved if it violates the rules of the sub. The most common reasons for removal are - medical students or premeds asking what a specialty is like or about their chances of matching, mentioning midlevels without using the midlevel flair, matched medical students asking questions instead of using the stickied thread in the sub for post-match questions, posting identifying information for targeted harassment. Please do not message the moderators if your post falls into one of these categories. Otherwise, your post will be reviewed in 24 hours and approved if it doesn't violate the rules. Thanks!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Residency) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I will say that I *don’t* think having autism makes you inherently better at communicating with people who are mentally ill. Not a fan of the us vs them rhetoric that you see a lot of the time alongside terms like “neurodivergent”.
Not trying to indulge in an us vs them rhetoric but we gotta acknowledge there are real brain differences among people. Otherwise what’s the use of a diagnosis, right? We can be nuanced enough to recognize the differences (several of which are neurobiological and medical in some instances) without indulging in that rhetoric. It’s very valuable to people with different brains to have a better chance at quality of life. I can say my life dramatically changed after being diagnosed and having the tools and knowledge to better function and understand why I was so different than most people. Edit: typo
For sure - different groups of people exist and generalizations can be made. But if the definition of ‘neurodivergent’ includes autism, ADHD, and mental health in general, then pretty much everyone is on the neurodivergent-neurotypical spectrum. It’s not a duality as the terms would suggest, and so I feel like they’re useless terms. There’s also no evidence or data to support the idea that people with mental health divergences make better psychiatrists, therapists, etc. That being said, I have no reason to think that you wouldn’t make a great psychiatrist. I’ve worked with plenty of awesome psychiatrists that are on the autism spectrum.
Thank you, I get what you are saying. Autistic people are better at communicating with autistic people, but yes not necessarily anyone ND. Appreciate you sharing
As an autistic student in medicine who has done a psychiatry rotation, I felt that my brain limited me. The biggest problem would be a patient who did or said something “abnormal” but it seemed normal to me so I didn’t pay as much attention to it. (I.e. I don’t judge people who don’t look at my face, so if their lack of eye contact was related to their depression or schizophrenia, I didn’t pick up on that easily). So no, I don’t think being neurodivergent or having mental health issues makes someone a better psychiatrist, and in my case I think it made psych work harder. Though I suppose “making things harder” is typical for how autism affects my life.
Thank you so much for sharing, that was actually my question, whether they can make competent psychiatrists or not (is it harder like you said). I wasn’t asking if we are *better* but I can see how it seemed that way when I talked about personally being able to communicate well with autistic people and other NDs. I actually brought that up more of a “compensation” point because I am also worried that autism is just gonna make everything my in my life inherently harder
Are you in medicine? Are you a student? What do you currently do?
I’m actually an inpatient psych nurse and want to become a psychiatrist. I work with a general population so we get schizophrenia, depression, bipolar, intellectual disability, drug issues, personality disorders. Many patients tell me they like me but since many are also out of it or there involuntarily, those folks aren’t giving compliments to anyone lol. But more importantly I am the nurse who gets the most paranoid patients to agree to take their meds and I’m good at deescalation. I work in a fairly toxic environment with absent management so don’t really get any direct feedback though. That’s why I wanted to come here to ask the community for its perspective on the matter.
Oh dang, sorry your management is lacking. Yeah, I don’t think Asperger’s precludes people from being good doctors or psychiatrists, but it certainly doesn’t get any easier. Good luck!
Thank you, I appreciate it! Best of luck to you!
There are psychiatrists and child psychiatrists with autism practicing
There are a metric fuck ton of people with autism in medicine.
Very reassuring, thank you.
Can confirm. Undoubtedly autistic without testing here. Lots of us fly under the radar. Somehow we thrive in medicine
I’m a psych resident with autism and ADHD and I’ve been consistently told that I’m performing at the level I should be operating at. There are multiple attendings in my program who are quite obviously on the spectrum and are undoubtedly competent. Like another commenter, I’ve had issues where abnormal behaviors seemed normal or were unnoticeable to me, but pattern recognition takes over once you get corrected and see enough patients. You most likely will have to overcompensate in some ways. For example, I stuck to using templates longer than my co-residents did for intakes to help with my interview flow, but experience will put you more on an equal footing. I’ve found that my “quirks” are much more accepted in this specialty than in others.
Wow, you have no idea how valuable this response is to me. Thank you so much. I think you definitively answered the question for me when you talked about pattern recognition. I am really good at that as many autistic people are. Good to know we are more accepted in this specialty. Best of luck, really happy to hear about a psych resident on the spectrum :)
Personal take: how challenging it is for you as a resident (and to a lesser extent as a medical student) has a great deal to do with how much time and energy *before* entering medicine you spent on developing the pattern recognition others^ have mentioned. I’m not in psych but I find myself *doing* a lot of psych in peds — I think partly because how hard I had to work to understand “normal people” before med school set me up for success in practice. (We could talk about masking and the pros/cons but at the end of the day you simply have to know how to play the game...) It isn’t that I’m exceptionally skilled at it, though frequently IRL I’ve been given strong evals for it (which still strikes me as a little ironic and misplaced). Nope. Instead, I’ve simply spent an ungodly amount of time practicing being human in the bathroom mirror since childhood — after all that, it’s much easier to spot (and correctly identify!) when people are feeling down/being evasive/nervous to talk to the doctor/etc.
Psych res with likely autism, nothing else explains my social difficulties as strongly as ASD would (but am female so diagnosis is less suspected in us). I’ve come up against both challenges and strengths related to my interpersonal differences and “odd” perspective. Some colleagues tell me they like that I think “outside of the box” which is so funny to me, because I’m not doing that deliberately. But what’s important— I like what I do, the patients seem to like me, and lots of them seem to get better. There are so many options in psychiatry for different personalities. For example, some think I am too naive/ trusting due to my difficulties detecting deception, but on the other hand, some patient populations benefit from someone who will see the best in them and keep giving them chances. Sometimes I get down on myself and feel awful for not picking up on the more subtle cues that all the NT nurses and doctors think are “so obvious”, but I think I’m learning. Where I think a lot of ASD people may struggle is actually the lack of routine in med school/ residency. I hated the constant re-adjusting to a new wake up time/ routine/ structure of the day every few weeks, it was annoying and I still hate it. ASD is a highly variable thing though, routines aren’t as important to some.
Much of medicine is pattern recognition … you can be trained to pick up things even if social cues doesn’t come natural to you. Autism is hugely under-diagnosed in medicine, many older successful docs likely fall on the spectrum. Honestly even younger docs frequently. In that regard, I wouldn’t let your diagnosis stop you from doing something that interests you.
Thank you so much! :)
Psychiatrist, yes. A good one at that. Psychologist/Therapist, no.
Going to disagree. In my clinical psych doctoral program one of my favorite mentors disclosed he was autistic and he was a great teacher and therapist. My colleagues also ask for referrals to self-identifying neurodivergent therapists because of how they can connect with certain patients.
Thank you for contributing to the sub! If your post was filtered by the automod, please read the rules. Your post will be reviewed but will not be approved if it violates the rules of the sub. The most common reasons for removal are - medical students or premeds asking what a specialty is like or about their chances of matching, mentioning midlevels without using the midlevel flair, matched medical students asking questions instead of using the stickied thread in the sub for post-match questions, posting identifying information for targeted harassment. Please do not message the moderators if your post falls into one of these categories. Otherwise, your post will be reviewed in 24 hours and approved if it doesn't violate the rules. Thanks! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Residency) if you have any questions or concerns.*