<p>[15%</a> of U.S. Surgeons Report Drinking Problems in Survey: MedlinePlus](<a href=“http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_122121.html]15%”>http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_122121.html)</p>
<p>As I’ve often said, alcoholics are not stupid; they’re just alcoholics.</p>
<p>8-12% in general population?? I worry more about perscription drug abuse in the medical community.</p>
<p>[How</a> to Determine if You Are at Risk for a Drinking Problem - Health - WSJ.com](<a href=“Health & Wellness - News, Articles, Biography, Photos - WSJ.com”>Health & Wellness - News, Articles, Biography, Photos - WSJ.com)</p>
<p>All I can tell you after a few years watching lawyers practice law…if doctors have ANYTHING like the level of problems that lawyers do, we all ought to be a lot more nervous than we are.</p>
<p>Well, the numbers here are believed to be an underestimate. These are self-reported surveys, and surgeons may have felt they were at risk of being outed if they responded.</p>
<p>Which raises a question: just as your doctor gives you a questionnaire, should you be entitled to give your doctor/surgeon a questionnaire before allowing him/her to practice on your body?</p>
<p>(The “general population” masks some profound differences: alcoholism and alcohol abuse are substantially lower in African-American and Asian-American populations, and lower in Hispanic populations, and substantially higher among Caucasians, especially males.)</p>
<p>The only question I asked of my urologist, “Do you drink coffee?”
He said, he’s a practicing LDS, and I said OK, “you may cut”
:)</p>
<p>I would argue, mini, that the incidence of alcoholism among caucasion women is not lower than that of caucaison males but that the social and cultural and medical barriers to women getting treatment are much higher. Untreated alcoholism among young caucasion mothers is very, very high. But, I’m sure you wouldn’t argue with the underreported nature of the disease in that population.</p>
<p>As for surgeons, and doctors in general, they are the biggest pushers of addictive drugs in the population I personally work with, and it is time for them to get some actual education about opioid addiction, frankly.</p>
<p>Around here, doctors and nurses have their own special treatment programs. I argue that they should at least be placed in treatment with the addicted drug dealers and bar-tenders, since their “special circumstances” are similar, frankly, and it might assist them in understanding what is really going on with them.</p>
<p>My department psych got annoyed with me for this suggestion, so I make it all the time, now.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>We all have our vices; if they are not hurting patients, then I just feel bad for them and their families. </p>
<p>I will confess that I’m a little surprised by this. The majority of surgeons I have met gave me the impression that they were above this kind of thing. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are the best humans on the planet, but a good number of them have a God complex, and God doesn’t have addictions.</p>
<p>Interesting thread.</p>
<p>it’s impossible to be above addiction. It would be like being above diabetes. We’d like it if we could find a way to be beyond it, but 10% of the population at large is addicted to something.</p>
<p>I think my favorite fact about addiction has to do with heroin, just because it is such a frightening drug to most civilians. When Vietnam was going on, at least ten percent of the soldiers were using a very pure variety of heroin regularly in the jungle. People were afraid they would all come back as addicts, because “everyone gets addicted to heroin.”</p>
<p>After their assimilation back into the US culture, even as challenging as that was for the vietnam vets, only 1% of the vets were addicted to heroin at home. 10% of those who regularly used it, in that situation, just like 10% of those who regularly use alcohol in THIS current situation, ended up addicted.</p>
<p>It’s a pretty steady number no matter what the drug… it just seems that 10% of the population metabolizes mood altering substances differently than the rest of the population. It doesn’t matter where they go to school, or for how long.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Is there any correlation between socio-economic status and alcoholism? Maybe it takes a higher consumption of “substances” for high achievers to relax.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>From the article:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Are more female surgeons abusing alcohol, or are they more honest?</p>
<p>Another problem is that, at least in small community hospitals that don’t have a ready availability of a lot of specialists, there is a tendency to just make the problem go away locally. The system as a whole doesn’t seem to have what it takes to address the issue with the problem physician, identify the problem, and chart out a plan; rather the strategy is to simply persuade the physician to pack up and go to the next unsuspecting hospital.</p>
<p>Hopefully, they aren’t drunk when they operate…</p>
<p>I think surgeons might be more vigilant against abusing alcohol/drugs while practicing medicine than other doctors that might think they don’t need to be 100%.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I guess I’m just oblivious or hopelessly naive, but in more than 30 years as a lawyer I’ve never really heard or thought that any lawyer I knew had that sort of problem. Workaholism and anger management problems galore, yes. And depression too. But nobody who took regular 3-martini lunches or kept a bottle in their drawer. Or snorted cocaine off their desk (except in the '80’s).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Donna, Lawyers are people and people have alcohol problems. You can be sure, absolutely sure, that some of the lawyers you know have alcohol problems.</p>
<p>Ever heard of a “functional alcoholic?” Yes, you know them, you just don’t know who.</p>
<p>“I would argue, mini, that the incidence of alcoholism among caucasion women is not lower than that of caucaison males but that the social and cultural and medical barriers to women getting treatment are much higher.”</p>
<p>It’s an interesting thought. But we have pretty good data that indicate that girls start drinking later than boys, they drink less and less often, they are less likely to binge in college, are significantly less likely to be heavy drinkers in college (binge three or more times in a two week period, or drink 2+ drinks every day), and are less likely to be diagnosed later with alcoholism. They are, however, more likely to become addicted to prescription-type opiates, and this is now beginning to show up in the heroin data. </p>
<p>At my alma mater (#1 LAC - with LOTS of future lawyers, doctors, etc.) roughly 16% of the student body will turn up with a serious alcohol problem/alcoholism at some point later in life. Higher among Caucasian men. </p>
<p>“Is there any correlation between socio-economic status and alcoholism?”</p>
<p>No. Although those with alcoholism are less likely to end up with higher socio-economic status. The flipside is that white men are more likely to end up with higher socio-economic status. </p>
<p>I would be concerned about an alcoholic surgeon operating on me, almost especially if it was late in the day, and s/he HADN’T had a drink.</p>
<p>My observed experience holds: **The statistic of 15% significant substance abuse of those we recognize as “accomplished people” is WAY TOO LOW. **</p>