# What Kind Of Doctor Would You Be? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 22, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340 "2012-01-22T23:42:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/1 "2012-01-22T23:42:22Z")
I work in the medical field, but am not a doctor. Sometimes my coworkers and I talk about what kind of doctor we would be if we were doctors. I’d be a pathologist. Very little, if any, patient contact, and no on-call times, if you have your own private practice, which, of course, I would. Most likely a dermatopathologist, as then you’re only dealing with skin, which I’m already used to, and pretty small specimens at that. So, if you were a doctor, what kind would you be, and why? ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2012, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/2 "2012-01-22T23:43:51Z")
Who. Doctor Who. Time traveller, do-gooder. StG ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2012, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/3 "2012-01-22T23:44:35Z")
> [@StGermain](#): > > Who. Doctor Who. > > StG Or a veterinarian? ---
**Author:** ![slm2955](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c6cbf5/32.png) [@slm2955](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slm2955)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2012, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/4 "2012-01-22T23:44:38Z")
A veterinarian b/c I love animals and it you don’t have to deal with any rude attitudes… ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2012, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/5 "2012-01-22T23:52:09Z")
I’d be some kind of techno-doctor, programming robots to do tests or something, because I don’t deal well with guts. ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2012, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/6 "2012-01-22T23:56:39Z")
A radiologist. It would be sort of like being a detective or playing Where’s Waldo? for a living. ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2012, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/7 "2012-01-22T23:57:48Z")
> [@Sudden\_Kestrel](#): > > A radiologist. It would be sort of like being a detective or playing Where’s Waldo? for a living. Oh, yeah, that’s a good one. They make tons of money, too. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2012, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/8 "2012-01-22T23:58:47Z")
> [@Alice\_The\_Goon](#): > > Or a veterinarian? I don’t have the fortitude to be a vet. I couldn’t euthanize the way they do. StG ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/9 "2012-01-23T00:00:41Z")
I’d be an optometrist or a dermatologist. No life and death drama, no emergencies, no messy blood or guts. ---
**Author:** ![Foggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foggy/32/1082_2.png) [@Foggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foggy)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/10 "2012-01-23T00:02:39Z")
Dr Fate Dr Strange Dr Karma IRL - If I had to be one it would be a medical examiner, that way I don’t have to worry about accidentally killing anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/11 "2012-01-23T00:09:00Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > I’d be an optometrist or a dermatologist. No life and death drama, no emergencies, no messy blood or guts. There’s not immediate death, but you do have patients die from melanoma. And you do have to incise and drain big smelly infected sebaceous cysts. And there will be blood. Not a lot, and you usually have a cauterizing machine right there to stop it, but there is blood. In dermatology, that is. Optometrist or opthamologist would be interesting, but it does seem like you have to get very, very, uncomfortably close to people. I feel like I get more intimate with my optometrist than I do with most people, and he doesn’t even buy me dinner first. ---
**Author:** ![congodwarf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@congodwarf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/congodwarf)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/12 "2012-01-23T00:10:42Z")
Forensic pathologist - it’s the job I’ve wanted for 20 years now. I have no interest in being a doctor though so I’m aiming to be an assistant instead. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/13 "2012-01-23T00:11:54Z")
My mother always thought I’d be a pediatrician. Seems right to me. I’m good with kids especially babies. ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/14 "2012-01-23T00:12:05Z")
> [@congodwarf](#): > > Forensic pathologist - it’s the job I’ve wanted for 20 years now. I have no interest in being a doctor though so I’m aiming to be an assistant instead. Is that smelly? I don’t think I could handle the smell of a dead person- do they de-smellify it first? ---
**Author:** ![congodwarf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@congodwarf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/congodwarf)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/15 "2012-01-23T00:22:38Z")
> [@Alice\_The\_Goon](#): > > Is that smelly? I don’t think I could handle the smell of a dead person- do they de-smellify it first? Yes it is, and no they don’t. 😃 The level of smelly will vary of course, with the age of the body and the reason it died. Someone who died of a heart attack and has been dead a day will certainly smell a lot less icky than someone who died of a bacterial infection and wasn’t found for a week in the height of summer. I just had a discussion on facebook with my mom. She couldn’t understand how I could claim that dolls are creepy but say that the idea of autopsying dead people isn’t. I told her that dolls are evil and that autopsies are science. Science isn’t creepy, it’s cool. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/16 "2012-01-23T00:43:19Z")
A Dr. Phil-type of psychologist. I’m always more than willing to point out to people what they could be doing. And Oprah would be my friend. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![rekkah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee59a6/32.png) [@rekkah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rekkah)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/17 "2012-01-23T01:09:35Z")
> [@Alice\_The\_Goon](#): > > Is that smelly? I don’t think I could handle the smell of a dead person- do they de-smellify it first? In the UK at least, not all pathologists do post mortems. The majority of work for cellular pathologists is studying tissue samples e.g. biopsies to look for abnormal cells. They also look at organs & tissues removed during surgery. Some of that probably is smelly though. If I had the right skills and personality (which I don’t) I would love to be an emergency or acute medicine physician. I like the idea of never knowing what’s coming and of having to start from scratch to work up a diagnosis and treatment. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/18 "2012-01-23T02:22:06Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > I don’t deal well with guts. Same here, which is why I pick juris doctor. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/19 "2012-01-23T02:34:47Z")
Trauma, hands down. The ER fascinates me – hours of routine boredom with occasional minutes of terror. But I’m going to be a pharmacist instead. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340/20 "2012-01-23T02:58:37Z")
Dr Cox from Scrubs. Arrogantly competant and and caring in a “I’m going to crush you because I want you to succeed and I don’t care about your feelings” sort of way. Or “McDreamy” from Grey’s Anatomy, just because we have the same hair. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-doctor-would-you-be/610340.md?page=2)