After your comment on my comment on FD, I came to this site. We’re on the same page, my friend. Its all just so complicated. I had lots more I wanted to say, but felt I should limit my comment and it did come off diabetes-centric. I’m adding your blog to my favorites list.

Which is ironic because if there is anything that is guaranteed to put on weight it is med school!

And whoever says “well, I did it, so can YOU!” is arrogant and misinformed. We are not all built the same and response to diet/exercise varies from person to person. If my vitals look good and I’m feelin’ fine, that should be the end of it.

Excellent rant. I feel your pain!

Now its interesting. I know the risks of my weight, but like many others, I struggle. Funnily enough though, I probably raise it more with my patients than when I was thinner. And patients raise it more with me. They say things like “you know what its like feeling like this ” (and they know I do) and when I say things like “I know its hard, but we all have to keep working on it ” they agree with me and we plan together. I’m not advocating gaining 50 pounds as a way to inprove patient rapport (!) but I am a human being, with human frailties and my patients appreciate that. I may not be much of an exerciser. Doesn’t make me any less of a doctor.

Nice rant, appreciated by fat person who wants to go to medical school

If you saw a physician deeply inhaling from his thirtieth unfiltered cigarette of the day, would you think him a human, fallible, and approachable doctor, or just a moron, and a hypocritical one at that?

In short, I recommend that you heal thyself first. Get off your butt and drop the extra pounds — I know it can be done, having done it myself.

Cheers,
Felix.

I do not pay doctors to be the pictures of health. I pay them to take care of mine. If they find time to care for their own, well, good for them.

I wish for them all the well-being in the world, as I wish for myself. But show me an overweight or otherwise unwell doctor, and I would have to guess she or he is just human, after all.

The post and my comments were about physicians being the targets of the “fat police,” and how patients would allegedly be affected by a physician’s generous waistline. I think common sense needs to prevail on both sides. Heavy handed approaches to try to get patients to lose weight will fail just as quickly as simplistic, across-the-board generalizations will fail to resonate with overweight physicians.

A few years ago I ended up in the hospital with a severe ear infection. Completely ignoring the clear signs that I was in considerable pain, the doctor who saw me there said, “You know, you really need to lose some weight.” It was all I could do to refrain from slapping her and scream, “Gee, ya think? I never realized that!” I couldn’t believe that a caregiver could be so insensitive to someone who was undergoing a much more immediate problem. Maybe making me feel like crap was supposed to distract me from the pain. Personally, I’d prefer a painkiller next time.

I don’t want Simon Cowell as my doctor, I want an intelligent human being with good people skills and the sensitivity to know when things are an issue and when the time is right to deal with them. That happens to be my doctor. I’m very lucky.

Having said that, I would, however, run away WITH Simon Cowell if my husband ever gave me permission…….