Dating a Doctor in 2020: Pros, Cons, Things to Know

Female doctors often have a much harder time than other women when it comes to finding a great man to marry. By the time you doctors have the time to date seriously, you are usually close to thirty, and some of you close to forty years old. This timing issue can also limit the pool of available men to date. Many men feel insecure around you: you were smart enough to be at the very top of all your classes and determined enough to make it through brutal training.

You have challenged yourself, pushed the limits of your academic potential, and made an incredible difference in the lives of thousands of people with serious disease. You have the compassion to heal and the intelligence and skill to help the neediest people.

There is clear guidance on appropriate relationships between current patients and doctors. Dr Beverley Ward considers the dating dilemmas you may not see.

By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms. Eight years ago, video producer Kate Milliken was 35, single, and living in Manhattan—”a deadly combination,” she jokes. On the day she was anticipating a third date with a guy she was really beginning to like, she noticed that the fatigue and tingling in her hands that had been nagging her for a week had spiraled into something much worse. By the time I got to the doctor, I couldn’t keep my balance.

A neurologist immediately ordered a magnetic resonance imaging MRI scan, which revealed a spinal cord lesion in her neck. You need to be in the hospital right now. From her hospital bed, where she was receiving high doses of intravenous steroids to calm the inflammation in her spinal cord, Milliken wrote an email to the guy she’d been dating . I told him, ‘Hey, I’m in the hospital and you’ll never believe this, but I just got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis .

It’ll take me a little bit to recover, but I’m looking forward to going out again. The guy quickly emailed back—”Oh, I’m sorry to hear that! Dating is a minefield for everyone and horror stories abound, from tales of meeting wackos and weirdos to never hearing back from someone you really liked. But when you have a neurologic condition—especially one that could be progressive—it gets even more “complicated,” to borrow a term from Facebook status-speak.

Where do you find good dating prospects? When do you reveal your condition—and how much do you reveal—if it’s not evident?