You dug into the sources? The author of the linked article wrote, "I discovered that 75% of med students (and new doctors) are now on psychiatric medications."

That seems to exclude caffeine from coffee.

The article is based on a collection of anecdotes from responses to a Facebook question: “75% of med students and residents are taking either stimulants or antidepressants or both. True or false?”

Ctrl-f for 'coffee' to see some sample responses.

If you’ve ever had Ritalin, or amphetamine you’ll know it’s a different kettle of fish to coffee.

I drink large amounts of coffee. Previously, I bought a 4oz jar of anhydrous caffeine powder. I've also been on 10mg BID amphetamine.

To compare the 2, the amphetamine feels more artificial bodily wise. However ingesting about 500mg caffeine has the similar bodily feel as 10mg amphetamine. Given the amphetamine did some tricks like time delayed whereas the caffeine did not, does make it harder to compare. The caffeine did stay just as long, and provided a much longer bodily high.

These days, I just drink coffee and stay away from pills and powder. Safer.

I don't really know how anyone could honestly compare caffeine and amphetamines. One is like a knife and the other is like a 50 cal machine gun, as far as stimulation goes. There is a reason amphetamines are a schedule II drug and caffeine is not.

Drug scheduling is a joke. Schedule I is defined: "Substances in this schedule have no currently accepted medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and a high potential for abuse."

How do alcohol and cigarettes not fit this definition!? Meanwhile, edible cannabis is relatively safe and Ecstacy has shown promise as a component of PTSD treatment. Just a few examples...

And unfortunately, the GP using the fact that $thing is drug scheduled is the same type of idiocy that we see through government.

"Well, marijuana is a schedule 1, so we can't test it for legitimate applications. And since it's schedule 1, it has no medical applications".

There is absolutely no scientific or chemical basis of "schedule". It was originally a way for Republicans (Nixon, Reagan, etc) to use the law to arrest hippies and black people. And we have no further to look at crack/powder cocaine and sentencing disparities. Crack was inner city and primarily used by black people. Whereas powder cocaine was used more by whites outside of the inner city core.

It's about dosage. 5 mg of amphetamines is really just a bit a boost. Of course if you start cutting lines and snort them to keep awake and dancing until noon the next day, it's a different story.

> I don't really know how anyone could honestly compare caffeine and amphetamines.

They are both stimulants. I've done both, like I said. So yes, for my body (n=1) I can indeed compare them. And it was sincere and honest.

And the only reason why caffeine isn't schedule 2 is the same reason why alcohol and nicotine isn't either. That's purely a societal reason, and no basis in chemistry. If caffeine/coffee was discovered last year, it would be schedule drug. Look no further than kratom.

Yes 500mg caffeine is kinda similar to 10mg amphetamine, but you can easily take more amphetamine, up to a gram in some cases. It’s very much easier to abuse, has a far stronger, profounder and long lasting effect.

It also has some nasty side effects that come with abuse. Mental problems being the first ones, depression, anxiety, mood swings ...

Indeed, this is a very misleading title. Medical researchers might understand that caffeine is a stimulant, but as a layperson I assumed they meant aderall or similar.

How were you mislead?

What difference does it make if it's a prescription stimulant?

Prescription stimulants like amphetamine and methylphenidate are more potent than caffeine.

What if the headline had said "75 % of med students are on drugs" but actually it just means that 75 % of med students occasionally take acetaminophen or aspirin for headaches? Those are indeed drugs, but wouldn't you feel misled? People drinking coffee is not newsworthy, so one wouldn't expect an article about it. I haven't looked at the data the article is based on, so I don't know if something like this is what's going on, but I think this is the point village-idiot was trying to make.

No shit speed and meth are stronger than coffee. I don't think that was the point being made. Or at least its probably safe to assume the commenter you are replying to didn't indend to imply that.

Sorry to be do blunt but casually ignoring things like modafinil which seems to be the go to drug for staving off sleep if you want to be able to pass drug tests is a bit of a mistake.

Subjectivly most users of modafinil find it "weaker" than coffee because there is no rush associated with it as there is with coffee, you just can't sleep when you take it.

So if the point you're making is actually just virtue signalling with the "well some drugs are worse than others because I guess they are classified as controlled?" bullshit then please provide an actual reason why the comment was disagreeable.

??? I'm not sure you know what virtue signaling is. Also your tone is very unpleasant.

The point the comment was making was very simple: providing a single percentage that includes as a category things that are very different is misleading. In the extreme, saying "95% of the US takes painkillers at a rate considered addiction" where painkiller is defined as aspirin or heroin, is not a very useful metric

1. Methylphenidate (Ritalin) is not "meth", that's methamphetamine.

2. I'm not judging people who use any of these drugs, whatever their purpose. If it were up to me, all drug laws would be repealed and the state would have no say about what anyone is allowed to put in their own bodies. I'm only pointing out that there are stark differences between caffine and drugs like amphetamine, methylphenidate, and, yes, even modafinil, and lumping them all together as "stimulants" isn't useful to this discussion. (If modafinil is no better than caffeine, why does anyone bother going through the hassle and expense of obtaining it when caffeine is dirt-cheap and easily accessible?)

This discussion is not about villifying drugs or people who use them, it's about the unreasonable, inhumane workload that medical students are expected to handle. If 75 % of medical students feel the need for and take steps to obtain prescription drugs, whether illegally or by getting a prescription, then there is clearly something wrong with medical school. If 75 % of medical students drink coffee or other caffinated beverages, that is not a cause for concern (for me, at least).

It would surprise me if 75% of my coworkers did not drink coffee or tea daily.

Seriously? There's a big difference between tea and ritalin.

I'm curious if you could reason this out for me. If I drink a few hundred litres of tea a day to keep me alert then why is that different to me taking ritalin? I mean its obviously impractical and probably quite bad for me and I should absolutely take ritalin instead. But I'd love to know why the desire the stay alert to the extent that I need to seek drugs to help with that because I can't get enough sleep is any less alarming if my drug of choice is tea (ie. Caffeine) rather than ritalin?

Because caffeine consumption is usually a given in the general population, and significantly weaker than more specifically engineered and harder to acquire prescription drugs. Three pots of coffee in an hour is a poor equivalent to taking ritalin.

If I considered walking across the room as a form of workout, I could pretty confidently say that 99.99% of Americans exercise once a day. But that wouldn't yield me much in the way of insight.

Came here to say this. From the med students I know, I would have guessed 100%.

Coffee is quite stimulating by itself, an addiction can probably ruin your life via sleep and anxiety. I’m fine with it being classified as a stimulant, although I wish they pulled caffeine out into its own category.

Yes. Considering many psych drugs are well disqualifying reasons for becoming certain doctors, you either need to do it off the record or not at all.

So you are saying a disability is disqualifying to be a doctor? No that is not correct.

> So you are saying a disability is disqualifying to be a doctor? No that is not correct.

No, you are wrong. Mental health among doctors is a huge issue in the field right now. In some states having a recorded case of depression is enough for you to have a license review.

Behind closed doors everyone will tell you to lie about your mental history. If you need help, you better make damn sure you're going to someone who will take cash and not keep any records of your appointments.

Doctors are literally having their entire careers put at risk because they admit they're human.

Certain types. It talks about this is in the article about your medical board not being your friend. Medical doctors, lawyer, police officers, military have strict requirements about even antidepressants and you can be disqualified from having just taken them.

Doctor here. Can confirm this to be completely incorrect.

I respectfully disagree. Disclosing these things makes your life a living hell.

https://www.acepnow.com/article/emergency-physician-with-dep...

(Reddit thread discussing that article) https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/aaappq/emergency_...

My wife is a psychiatrist and sees a psychiatrist off the record because she’s afraid of the stigma affecting her career. It’s just one data point but I find it telling that a psychiatrist is afraid that other psychiatrists will know she takes med to treat a psychiatric condition. Hers is anxiety related.

In my view it's pretty widespread that people are hesitant to seek certain kinds of care because of the potential effect of a "pre existing condition" on their employability.

Exactly. I don't think it's because the medical board itself would stop them, but more because the stigma attached to it would lead to people questioning them and their ability to do their job, not to mention the issues with insurance. I'd say that likely has a lot more to do with doctors wanting to see others off-the-record... I know of some teachers who do the same thing with psychiatrists, because they don't want it getting out to the students' parents.

I'd be surprised if it doesn't vary by area/country. Where are you a doctor?

No you are wrong. That would be against the Americans with disabilities act.

So wait, I could have been an air force pilot after all, and their annoying eyesight and physical requirements are illegal?

That is absolutely ridiculous, the ADA doesn't imply that anyone with any disability needs to be accommodated for any job, just that reasonable accommodation be made. For instance, someone in a wheelchair will be unable to do many jobs, regardless of accommodation,such as framing carpentry and roofing.

As someone who has gotten ADA accommodations related to mental health, there are absolutely limits. Due to my hand tremors, no hospital in the nation would allow me to be a surgeon, regardless of qualifications. Ditto for police departments, due to said mental-health issues.

Here in the UK at least, the military is one of the very few exceptions to the disabilities laws.

I believe even the police are subject to the disabilities laws, the medical profession too. In which case they most likely can't even ask.

(Not a lawyer, just a bumbling Internet commentator, you'd be insane to take me seriously, etc)

I think the vast majority of people would agree with you. Clearly, some jobs require certain physical attributes.

However, which jobs would a person with a psychiatric disorder be disqualified for? Couldn’t one argue that all jobs that require a brain would be off-limits? Probably not, but where is the line drawn?

Anything that requires a security clearance.

And that is as much because of the potential for the condition to be used for blackmail as it is any real limits it imposes on the work you would be doing.

And for some jobs, e.g. you want to work undercover for the CIA as a field agent, your mental state is not what would be strictly considered normal.

This whole discussion is completely absurd. Good soldiers, doctors, intelligence agents, fighter pilots and astronauts are often far outside of the bell curve in some important traits. That's why they ended up in the job. It would be impossible to find good candidates if everyone was completely honest with all the things that should disqualify them from the job. If you were a cynic, you'd call it a test of good judgement.

You can bet that almost everyone in these jobs has some skeleton in the closet that would officially be a problem. Some years of depression or other psychiatric illness, a proclivity for scandalous sex, having used an illegal drug a couple of times or even regularly, an unofficial child somewhere, some hidden medical issue that popped up once and was never talked about again, etc. With the common case that the issue has little, no or even positive effect on job performance.

This is anecdotally true from off-the-record conversations with exceptional individuals I know. The list of disqualifying parameters is just there so the bureaucrats can cover their ass when an aneurysm causes the loss of a billion-dollar aircraft, and to prevent blackmail with information that can be easily found.

But regarding blackmail, I think the bigger problem is that honest and harmless things can be used for blackmail in the first place. Everyone has smoked a joint and had some compromising photos taken, it shouldn't be such a big deal.

ADA has limits. You can't be in the military if you are missing a limb. Can't be a police officer if you have mental issues. There are common sense limits to ADA.

Varies by jurisdiction, but there are a lot of places, including many areas in the USA, where this is very much an issue, affecting licensing and credentialing. Would it survive a court challenge? Probably not, but I don't know a lot of doctors who would take the risk of reputation, career prospects, lost income, etc. to find out.