In a new STAT+ opinion column, former ear, nose, and throat surgeon Frances Mei Hardin points to a striking example of how medical training treats residents: many are required to ask permission to use the restroom or grab food and drink. These are highly educated adults, often approaching or in their 30s, yet they are being managed like children.
Hardin argues that this contradiction — being infantilized while simultaneously given enormous responsibility for patients — helps create a deeper problem. The experience teaches doctors that they have little control over their environment, even when they actually do. That psychological state, known as learned helplessness, can persist throughout a career and keep physicians from challenging unfavorable conditions.
The column is an opinion piece, so it offers one physician’s perspective rather than new data. But it highlights a familiar tension in medical education: the same system that demands independence and judgment often starts by stripping trainees of basic autonomy.