“I often wonder if some who have anxiety/depression are drawn to the profession, particularly psychiatry because of their own situations?” - Interesting question. I can only answer based on my own D’s experience and also her best friend’s experience since both were drawn to psych.
My D. has been “drawn” to psychiatry way back in college and even was only 2 classes short of completing her Neuroscience minor, which she had to drop in senior year because of increased number of pre-reqs at one of the medical schools that she has applied. She mentioned many times that it was academically very interesting to her. Even her pre-med research was in-line with this interest. Going forward, while in psych ward rotation at medical school, her superiors told her that she has a talent in this area and if not psych, she should choose specialty that requires a lot of talking to the patient. Well, she herself got disappointed in psych because of widely used over-medication (keep in mind that it is a medical student observation, not exactly a professional assessment, so it was simply her opinion). Since psych has been always her back-up specialty, in case that she was not making it in her #1, she basically dropped it and matched in the specialty of her dream way back in HS. My assessment of my D. is that she is not prone to have an anxiety, but she does need a lot of positive support and she knows how to get it and how to “lift” her spirits.
D’s best friend is graduating this year. The psych has not been her interest initially, she just got disappointed in several other specialties that she considered while she got interested in psych. She is also the one who can easily connect and talk to others in a positive way. She has applied to psych residencies and ranked D’s location as her #1. She is not a person who is prone to feel down for a long time. She is also very up-beat and outgoing person who knows how to take care of herself.
Neither of my examples fit the suggestion that anxiety prone people are drawn to psych. Frankly, I feel that maybe “anxiety prone people” do not even belong in this profession as psychiatrist should bring a positive outlook to their patients. But again, this is just my opinion.
Overall, I agree that the prior history of anxiety / depression may be amplified under stresses in medical school / residency which was also mentioned by my D. Further, I would suggest that the people with the prior history of anxiety / depression maybe should not be considering the medical school altogether, they may get broken beyond repair so to speak or there may be other implications, like several cases of shingles in the mid. 20’s as it happened in D’s medical school class.