What Its Like To Be A Physician Who Stutters

I remember hearing about Luke the physician in Sunday school as a kid and this story motivated my desire to become a physician. In addition, as a result of growing up in Jamaica I experienced many relatives and friends who were sick (some died) and I have always dream of becoming a physician to help family, friends and suffering humanity. I have always had a stutter and also dream of finding a cure for it someday.

My stutter began at around the age of 3 but I personally did not noticed it much until around 3rd or 4th grade when kids would start to teased me about my stuttering. My mother, like so many other stutterers whose mother encouraged them and empowered them with the confidence they need to over come stuttering as an obstacle did the same for me. I grew up in Clarendon, Jamaica until I migrated to the USA at the age of 14. I remembered while living in May Pen, Clarendon and attending May Pen Primary School that I would at times go on school trips which was suppose to be a lot of fun for the kids. I would at times get a little nervous about going on some of these long trips (usually to another Parish (state)) and my mother would accompany me and this did a great deal to ease my fear about stuttering. When I stutter she would tell me to slow down and that eventually I would "grow out of the stammering." When I felt a little sad about the fact that I was the only one who stutter she would take me to Kentucky Fry Chicken, or to shop for some clothing in an effort to cheer me up. My father would also encouraged me as well and I cherished the loved that my parents comforted me with so that I could build confidence.

I got teased, mocked and laughed at because of my stutter in Primary school. Sometimes I would fight to stand up for myself, and I was a pretty good fighter as well; in retrospect, I probably should not have engaged in fights because fighting usually only got you in more trouble and it is always better to leave or take the conflict to the authorities.

Stuttering is resolved in about 80% of kids by the time they reach age 16 and about 20% of the remaining kids who failed to recover goes on to become adult stutterers (including yours truly)!
And so I have been trying to fight a war against stuttering every since. Sometimes I lost some of the battles but I think I have been victorious in many of these stuttering "wars."

It becomes a war when you drive through the drive through window to order a chicken sandwich and you can't say chicken quick enough and the cashier at the drive through window say, "Are you still there?" while drivers behind you are waiting to placed their orders and you just say to your self what the heck and just drive off without placing the order because you cannot say chicken and you are embarrassed!

It becomes a war when you are introducing yourself in the first day of class and you cannot even say who you are for a long time because you are experiencing a long stuttering blocks (pauses in speech)

It becomes a war when you hate to hear the telephone rings because you know that you have to answer it and most stutterers hate to answer the telephone because it exacerbates the stuttering even more!

It becomes a war when you try to avoid people, places and events because of the interactions that would forced you to speak. Eventually, you learn to put a guard up to protect whatever left of your self esteem and switch to "self preservation." Now we know that running away does not solved your problem and avoidance (which is a secondary behavior) of stuttering feeds into encouraging the fear of stuttering and so it becomes a vicious cycle.

It becomes a war when virtually most physicians are ignorant about the nature of stuttering because they were not taught about it in medical school; consequently, when you are training to become a doctor and doing your clinical rotations in your 3rd and 4th year of medical school you have to educate the medical team on stuttering (including Attending, Senior and Junior Residents) because they sometimes react unfavorable to the stutter!

It becomes a war when you are the only one who stutters at your medical residency (intern year) and it became quite apparent that there are prejudices by some against the stuttering because of not being educated about stuttering. This empowers and motivate you even more to become one of the soldiers in the war on stuttering and to find a cure for it.

Please leave your comments on thoughts. Thank you.