Your Physicians Personal Life

Ever wondered how your physician saw themselves politically, if they went to church, if they were married, how happy they were...Medscape put together this really interesting survey delving into the private lives of your physician.  They fielded the survey to almost 300,000 physicians across all fields and the chance at winning a new Ipad.  Almost 30,000 respondents participated.  There is some seriously interesting information here.  Some of the things that struck me.  1) Anesthesiologist and Radiologist must be your party animals since they are the most likely to take over a month off :)  Ok really though my guess is this probably has more to do with how much money they make or the personalities attracted to these fields.  One if you make a little more money there isn't a need to maybe work as much.  Two, a lot of the people I've known who have gone into these fields (NOT ALL, BUT QUITE A FEW) were not what you would refer to as "people persons."  Higher percentage of introverts to be sure, so maybe that reflects on just wanting a little more time to yourself or it could just be the money.  Further study is obviously needed :)  2) I was surprised by how many people were still in a first marriage.  Good job!  3) It looks like men are more likely to get more active as they get older where woman taper off in their exercise.  Does this mean woman exercise more for looks then for health?  Hmmm.... 4) 65% of them volunteer.  Sure there is that group who doesn't but it's nice the majority do.  Sometimes people like to think physicians as this group of people that are just trying take all this money.  I read in this article here that about 1/3 American engage in volunteer work.  That means physicians are ahead of the curve.  Attorneys, I might not necessarily like all of you and may think there are way too many of you, but I'll give you your props as well. Turns out about 3/4 of attorneys do pro bono work  :)   5) Most striking to me, regardless of age or personal religious beliefs physicians the majority of physicians would choose palliative care and quality of life or length.  My own husband, a relatively young man of 34 has had a living will put together since he was in his twenties outlining what he did not want done in terms of life saving measure.  In fact we talk about it on a regular basis so that we are both clear on how we'd like our finals days on this earth to go.  I think when you are faced with life and death every day you start to see that even though we have amazing technologies that can prolong life far beyond what used to be possible sometimes the quality just makes it not worth it.

http://www.medscape.com/features/slideshow/lifestyle/2012/public?src=ptalk&viewreport