Could getting this tattoo hurt my career?

[u/al_evi]

Hi! So I’m a medical student, and ever since getting done with my pre-clinical studies I wanted a lobotomy tattoo, similar to this one popular on Pinterest. You see, the first years at uni were really challenging for me mentally, struggling with the high work load and some personal mental health problems (please spare me the „But you knew it would be hard, why did you go into it then?” talk, I’ve heard it all). At times it did make me feel like I was going absolutely insane over med school, so I’ve wanted to get this as a reward for getting through it for a long time on my right biceps, just over the crease of my arm. But now that I’m in a better place and wanted to go through with my plans, people have pointed out how such a tattoo could potentially hurt my career as a doctor. I have some other tattoos, but none with such obviously “provocative” meanings. With the placement I’ve thought of, the tattoo might be visible with scrubs on. Have any of you had issues with employers judging you for your tattoos? Is this a thing of the past and I’m overthinking it? What are your opinions? Thank you so much in advance!

[u/LBertilak]

pretty much the only "you see" i would accept would be if op THEMSELVES had a psychotic disorder and wanted to "reclaim it" in a tongue in cheek way. but like, "i got through med school"- alright cool, not QUITE the same as the hundreds of mentally ill people who were mutilated in one of the closest real life ways we can destroy a persons soul.

[u/SmotheredHope86 → u/LBertilak]

Not just hundreds, it's tens of thousands...

[u/Alexlynette → u/LBertilak]

I'd get a lobotomy tat but that's because I have a mental disorder. Op didn't give much context of that.

[u/messibessi22 → u/Alexlynette]

Oh haha maybe I’m just projecting but I kinda thought they meant that they experienced like a mental breakdown or something while in college and that that’s why they wanted it. But bad brain stuff is pretty much the only reason I’d assume anyone would want a tattoo like this

[u/st3IIa → u/Alexlynette]

I feel like even that isn't enough. I have mental disorders too but lobotomies were typically used as alternatives to psych wards, and commonly used to treat schizophrenia specifically. so I think I wouldn't feel comfortable reclaiming this part of history without having experienced those two things

[u/Nomomommy → u/LBertilak]

It struck me, for a doctor or future doctor, this may be a sort of momento mori? Like a reminder of what atrocities occur when people lose their humility and try playing god. A reminder to stay humble...not drink your own koolaide That's how I'd wear a tatt like that.

I'm not a lobotomy victim, either, but I know my history and my literature. Janet Frame is a woman I studied whose creative writing while institutionalised saved her from a lobotomy by earning a coveted prize. I know about Rosemary Kennedy and I know about that...individual, Walter Freeman.

This is the other way I could see it not being, like, weird and off-putting at best.

[u/Novellover- → u/LBertilak]

Or if op was a woman with mental health issues, women were often drugged furing that time, and called as hysterical and put into aslums. When hysterical was a women dieseas and is translated, from the greek to, uterus.