Why Would A Doctor Want To Know A Patient's Occupation? How Is That Relevant To Medicine?

This question was originally posted on Quora.com and was answered by Barry Guertin, former Adjunct Faculty (2003-2005)



I once had a patient that we treated at the cardiac cath lab for an arrhythmia; the issue was fixed by putting in a pacemaker. While I was tending to him after the procedure and removing some excess banadages from him, he and I got to talking about his job.

His job was working in a scrap yard. That was kind of cool, so I asked him what he did there. (Part of taking care of people is just talking with them and learning about their lives. It makes it easier for them to endure procedures and it makes the time go by.)

So this guy fed scrap metal to the electromagnet on the crane at the yard. It is both is really cool and a real problem. Pacemakers are not particularly sensitive to microwaves anymore but they are absolutely responsive to magnetic fields. In fact, one of the things that is done when doing an EKG of a person with a pacemaker is to apply a magnet, which puts the pacemaker in to fixed pacing at a rate of 100 BPM.

So for this guy, he had to change jobs.

They want to know your profession for a number of reasons that you would probably understand if you knew more about the field. They do not care about it one way or the other, only in so much as it may be important to your care.

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