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Charles Staubs, DO
The Medical Center Inc Beaver, Pa

JAMA. 1989;262(18):2539.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor. —

The article by Drs Gabbard and Menninger¹ addressing the psychology of postponement and medical marriage was very helpful. One statement that they made, however, was extremely disturbing. In their assessment of the personality traits of physicians and how they can be disabling in marriages, they state that these "traits lead to rigid, emotionally flat, automatonlike styles of relating that are adaptive in medicine but maladaptive in one's personal relationships."

How unfortunate it is that these authors perpetuate the idea that physicians need only be excellent technologists to be good and adaptive in medicine. This goes against much of what we are seeing in society today, with reaction against physicians because of their impersonal style of relating despite their being technically adept. The authors go on to say that "the language of feelings may be entirely alien, especially for the male physician." How can physicians, who . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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