It’s really quite easy to kill a doctor. Here’s a step-by-step process guaranteed to succeed at least 400 times a year:

Start early.

Be sure to denigrate medical students whenever possible. Even if they’ve come to the profession later in life and have accomplished all kinds of amazing things personally and professionally (which don’t count, of course, since those are other professions) they don’t know squat about medicine and you do. Make sure to emphasize their ignorance and inexperience at every turn, because it’s the only way to prove that you know more than they do, which, of course, means that you’re a better person than they are. The fact that as a group they’re all at the very top of their peer group in motivation and intelligence is irrelevant.

Tell them they’re lazy when they say they’re tired after being up for 36 hours (since they’re not residents, they don’t have work hour restrictions). Tell them they smell of formaldehyde from the anatomy lab and make amusing gagging noises whenever you see them. If all else fails and they are actually able to competently work up a patient, plus answer the most esoteric questions you can think of, impugn their sexuality or tell them they dress weird. Don’t worry about being judgmental; patients are the only ones deserving of your respect. And other doctors, of course; well, the ones ahead of you in training at any rate. But only in your own specialty.

Don’t let up once they graduate from medical school.

The first year of residency training is a great time to kill doctors. They’re foundering around desperately trying to figure out how to function in their new roles. Most of them are also drowning in debt and watching as their non-medical friends (if they still have any) get married, buy houses, and have kids; you know, have lives. Yell at them for everything that goes wrong with their patients, whether it was their fault or not. Tell them it builds character.

Hospital administrators have an important role.

Make sure the physicians you hire understand how important it is that they show up for their shifts, but don’t give them any input into the schedule. Ignore their scheduling requests but tell them they were lost; better yet, imply that they were never sent. Same with messages, committee meetings, and other administrative responsibilities. Make sure there are enough of these to make it impossible for doctors to take care of the patients. Otherwise, the patients may actually think it was the doctors, and not your wonderful hospital (or hospital system) responsible for their recoveries.

If you’re not a particularly affluent institution, make sure that the food, decor, and customer service at your institution is as bare-bones as you can, but lump everything under “Medical care” in your patient satisfaction questionnaires so the doctors get blamed. Then tie their payments to those satisfaction scores. Win-win, for you.

Be sure to switch up your EMR annually at least, but call it “Upgrading” and label any doctors who complain as “disruptive.” It helps if the main hospital, Emergency department, and Radiology departments all run separate systems that don’t interact. Make sure each system requires different passwords and require that they be changed at different intervals. Forbid physicians to write them down. Security, you know.

Don’t stop once you’re in practice.

Pick on your younger colleagues for their inexperience. Whatever you do, never tell them they’re doing a good job. Stick them with as much holiday and weekend call as you can. After all, you’ve paid your dues; now it’s their turn. (Tell them that.) Don’t listen to your older colleagues either. They’re just old farts whose knowledge is waning. Who cares about their decades of experience? Just tune them out when they start talking to you, then nod condescendingly and walk away.

Practice that condescending look and use it at hospital staff events. Make it a point to ignore newcomers. Concentrate on talking just with your friends and laughing at inside jokes, especially when others are around. Don’t return their calls, and don’t take their calls if you can possibly help it. If you accidentally wind up on the phone with the patient’s primary physician, just tell them you’ve got it all under control, and that he (and the patient) are so lucky you got involved when you did.

Target your efforts.

None of the above actions in and of themselves is likely to drive a doctor to suicide. However, if you manage to select individuals with a personal or family history of depression, those with poor social supports or self-esteem issues, you can greatly increase your chances of killing a doctor. Concentrating on certain specialties where there may be easier access to more lethal means, like anesthesiology and surgery, may also raise your yield. Don’t despair, however. Intensively applying all the strategies above and more (you know what to do; much of it has been done to you over the years and may still be occurring as we speak) to doctors in any specialty represent proven ways to kill them.

Now you know how to kill a doctor.

It’s really not that hard. The question is: Why would you want to?

Lucy Hornstein is a family physician who blogs at Musings of a Dinosaur, and is the author of Declarations of a Dinosaur: 10 Laws I’ve Learned as a Family Doctor.

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