# You're a surgeon. Would you operate on your own child? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 26, 2015, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436 "2015-12-26T22:58:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/21 "2015-12-29T02:38:47Z")
I’d be afraid of letting my own feelings interfere with my professional judgement, so no, unless it was a complete emergency (e.g. trapped in the mountains on an island after a plane crash, or something), or the next available surgeon was much less qualified, or dangerously so, than I was—like Dr. Nick Riviera, or something. 'Maybe an exception if the “operation” is just obviously, stupidly simple, like some sutures or treating a boil, or something. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/22 "2015-12-29T02:53:52Z")
You can’t be the best surgeon to do the job if there’s another qualified surgeon available. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/23 "2015-12-29T04:34:39Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > You can’t be the best surgeon to do the job if there’s another qualified surgeon available. Huh? Sure you can be, skills-wise. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/24 "2015-12-29T10:12:14Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > But here’s the deal. IME, medicine is a small town, and hyper-specialized, very talented medicine is a very small town. I’m in Texas and my sister was in a bad accident, broke her back. I have an uncle who is a neurosurgeon clear on the other side of the country–but he has a former resident who is a Very Big Deal here, and knows everyone , and it was a matter of a couple phone calls for the family to feel confident we’d gotten an extremely competent person to take care of the surgery. > > I really suspect that if you are the best in the world at a surgery, you know numbers 2-5 personally–not just by reputation, but you’ve sat in bars and talked shop with them, and you know which ones you like and trust. I also suspect that if your kid is in danger, one of them will come out to do the procedure as a professional courtesy. Good point, and that certainly adds a lot to the info available in the OP, but without contradicting the hypothetical. I’m now back to my original choice, that I would want someone else to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/25 "2015-12-29T11:55:09Z")
Accidents occur during surgery or sometimes their are complications. Sometimes people even die. If you were doing the surgery how could you live with yourself? ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/26 "2015-12-29T12:04:43Z")
Of course not. You need at least three kids to make a viable human centipede. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/27 "2015-12-29T12:58:18Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Accidents occur during surgery or sometimes their are complications. Sometimes people even die. If you were doing the surgery how could you live with yourself? You could say the same if you let another surgeon do it and they balls it up. It’s hard to answer because I am not a surgeon and don’t have the mindset of a surgeon, I don’t know just how routine their work feels to them. I chose option A. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/28 "2015-12-29T13:46:38Z")
> [@boytyperanma](#): > > I’d want the best surgeon available to do it. If that surgeon was me I’d be the one doing it. This. Assuming, of course, the child has appropriate insurance coverage or else sufficient financial means to cover my hefty fee. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/29 "2015-12-29T13:50:34Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Huh? Sure you can be, skills-wise. Your skill are not reliable when you’re operating on your own child. You will essentially be performing the operation in circumstances that you are not familiar with. A surgeon who is not emotionally invested in the patient in that way will be a better surgeon than you are. ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/30 "2015-12-29T14:06:58Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > I’m a doc, I’ve first-assisted in major surgeries and done plenty of minor surgeries in the last 3 decades and change. > > No way in hell I’d do significant procedures on family members unless it was an emergency. Not even if I was the ‘best’ (a ludicrous and highly suspect title in the first place, for almost anyone.) Emotions affect judgement and judgement is incredibly important during critical technical interventions. My father was a surgeon and this is very much in line with what I heard from him. In fact, he presented it as a given that “no doctor” would operate on his own kid or wife. Not even a question, really. However, he didn’t have a problem writing me out a script for meds related to my allergies and rhinitis. Nothing controlled; or for weird, out-of-the blue symptoms or illnesses, though. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/31 "2015-12-29T19:24:45Z")
Not exactly the medical field, but I have seen coworkers at my 911 center have a very hard time dealing with an emergency call because the emergency involves their child. I cannot fathom that a surgeon could truly maintain the needed emotional distance to adequately treat their child in a serious emergency. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/32 "2015-12-29T21:37:42Z")
> [@divemaster](#): > > My father was a surgeon and this is very much in line with what I heard from him. In fact, he presented it as a given that “no doctor” would operate on his own kid or wife. Not even a question, really. > > However, he didn’t have a problem writing me out a script for meds related to my allergies and rhinitis. Nothing controlled; or for weird, out-of-the blue symptoms or illnesses, though. My doctor told me about being with his kids in another town, and one of them was sick and he walked into a pharmacy and wanted to write a prescription, and even though he presented proof of his credentials, the pharmacist was still skeptical even though it was just for something along the lines of a Z-pack. However, it’s possible that this pharmacist might have been bamboozled and was just being cautious. He’s not the type who would play the “Don’t you know who I am?” card, but eventually, he did get his son’s medicine. :rolleyes: (On a related note, when I worked at the grocery store, I had someone come in on a weekend with a toothache and a prescription for penicillin written on a sheet of notebook paper by his neighbor, who was a dentist. I recognized the dentist’s handwriting, and anyway, nobody forges prescriptions for penicillin, and told the man that it was legitimate and filled it.) Dr. Kent Brantly, the first of the American missionaries to be stricken with Ebola, gave the graduation address at his alma mater last year, and in it, he told a story about his daughter being sick and he diagnosed her, and his wife said, “But don’t you think she needs a REAL doctor?” :o 😛 He also said, “If you ever become famous, get that way by being a top-notch physician, not a deathly ill patient.” [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/GaRz8YGaGQk/maxresdefault.jpg "2015 IU School of Medicine Commencement: Dr. Kent Brantly") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaRz8YGaGQk) ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/33 "2015-12-29T21:50:04Z")
My dad pulled my baby teeth out with a pair of pliers from his tool box. He took my stitches out once, too. HWNAD. It didn’t seem to bother him. Those of us with sensible, old-fashioned mothers were all treated by Dr. Mom instead of being taken to a clinic or a pharmacist, unless she knew she was in over her head. SWNAD. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/34 "2015-12-29T21:59:00Z")
Only if I were really bored and there was nothing on TV. Or he was going to grow up to be Hitler or something. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/35 "2015-12-29T22:20:53Z")
This scenario happened to me. When I was 11, I had to have my appendix out. My father was a Dr., and could have performed the operation, as he had hundreds of times, but he knew better/didn’t want to cut his kid, etc. Of course, there was no challenge to getting a good surgeon to perform the appendectomy, anyway (one of his trusted med school buddies did it). My dad DID do other things for me though, like putting on a cast, stitching up a wound, etc. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/36 "2015-12-30T21:13:46Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > Only if I were really bored and there was nothing on TV. Or he was going to grow up to be Hitler or something. **Penfeather** wins the Internet! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/37 "2015-12-31T01:19:47Z")
I would want the surgery to be done by the best surgeon available, and if I were the best surgeon available, I would want that to be me. However. I would want that assessment of “best surgeon available” to be made by someone unbiased, and preferably via consensus of a group of unbiased someones, because I _know_ that I am not, and cannot be, the best judge of my own abilities. I might certainly _think_ that I’m the best I am at what I do (I think it’s certainly possible, for instance, that I’m the best physics tutor in the Cleveland area), but I don’t want lives, especially not the life of a close family member, to ride on that. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/38 "2015-12-31T02:20:01Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > My dad pulled my baby teeth out with a pair of pliers from his tool box. He took my stitches out once, too. HWNAD. It didn’t seem to bother him. > > Those of us with sensible, old-fashioned mothers were all treated by Dr. Mom instead of being taken to a clinic or a pharmacist, unless she knew she was in over her head. SWNAD. You’re comparing pulling babyteeth and stitches out with major surgery? :dubious: What parent hasn’t done the former? (Although in my experience, mine didn’t use pliers.) ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/39 "2016-01-02T04:09:01Z")
How does emotion cloud judgment in this situation? A suture required is a suture required , cauterization required is cauterization required, an incision required is an incision required…? ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436/40 "2016-01-02T19:20:13Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > How does emotion cloud judgment in this situation? A suture required is a suture required , cauterization required is cauterization required, an incision required is an incision required…? When everything is routine, that’s fine. But judgment matters down the whole line, even the decision to operate at all. Any procedure can run into unexpected difficulties, or require modifications or variations to technique. Some of these are small decisions, some bigger. They all mount up into a big pile, while you are working under pressure of personal and family expectations. Many of us think we can handle things like it was just another case, but most of us are wrong about that, at least at some degree of difficulty or stress. Just for example, you start off doing a laparoscopic procedure, and even though you know conditions could force you to convert to an open procedure, you assure your SO, “but that’s not gonna happen”. So mid procedure, you find yourself considering converting to an open procedure, but you don’t want to leave your kid with a big scar and longer recovery time, and you promised your SO, so you think, “maybe I can get it done laparoscopically, after all”. The point is, you will somewhere down the line treat your kid differently from how you would a regular patient (often hoping to be easy on them), eventually to their detriment. You can see a lot of the same problems in VIP medicine. Between fear of missing things and fear of “inconveniencing” VIP’s, there are many opportunities for over- and under-treatment. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-surgeon-would-you-operate-on-your-own-child/741436.md?page=3)