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Ask any medical student, and they’ll tell you that a hidden stressor in their life is often rooted in dealing with constant calls from family members who reach out to report a rash or a troubling symptom and want free answers — immediately.
Being the 24/7 medical help desk for the family is something Alex R. Rich, a fourth-year medical student at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University in North Haven, Connecticut, experiences quite often.
“Sometimes it’s a relative asking for help interpreting blood tests or radiology reports,” Rich told Medscape Medical News. “Other times, relatives call me to talk about a drug they’re taking, and then they ask if they can take it with the other medications they’re on. This puts me in a very awkward position.”
It’s even more challenging when health information about a relative is delivered thirdhand, like a bad game of telephone.
“When my grandma was sick, I was getting updates from my dad, who was getting information from my uncle, who heard it from her doctor,” Rich said. “That’s a big stressor — you know you don’t have all the information, and it’s frustrating when I don’t have the answers. At times like that, I have to remind myself that I’m still in the process of learning everything.”
About Medscape Insights
Medscape continually surveys physicians and other medical professionals about key practice challenges and current issues, creating high-impact analyses. For example, the Medical School Stressors Report 2025 found
- 3 in 4 med students surveyed sometimes doubt they will become competent doctors.
- 33% frequently have “imposter syndrome.”
- 62% found delivering bad news moderately difficult.
How to Navigate Thorny Questions — and Be Helpful
Alexandria Lange, a second-year medical student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, credits her program for helping navigate these tricky interactions — in a lecture that took place during the first week of orientation.
“The speakers addressed it right away and said that people would be coming up to us, every family member, friend, and neighbor,” Lange said. “They explained how to set boundaries since this issue will be with us throughout our careers as physicians.”
Some of the helpful phrasing and tools learned in that lecture are ones that Lange uses to this day.
“One of the things we learned was that it’s very important to clarify where we are in our training and that while we are a doctor, we’re not their doctor,” she said. “This way we’re not tempted to blur some of those lines and do things that make us uncomfortable or, worse, provide bad care.”
Directing friends and family to other sources has worked well for DeAnthoni Wilkins, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago.
“When someone asks me a question about their personal health concerns, I do my best to point them in the right direction,” he says. “I always say that it’s hard to do a complete medical assessment of someone in their home, so I try to help them navigate the healthcare field without giving them information I can’t possibly know about their situation.”
This will always be a delicate issue, agreed Jose Barrera, a third-year medical student at Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine in Pasadena, California. “I’m always very honest and tell loved ones that I can’t answer their questions, but I always let them know that it’s not like I’m gatekeeping information,” he said. “Instead, it’s that I don’t want to give them the wrong answer or false hope. For their own good, I always urge them to speak to their own doctor about their concerns.”
Is There a Doctor in the House?
While medical students are learning to exercise extreme caution when sharing advice among friends and family and preparing some rote responses, there’s actually an interesting twist to the story.
Turns out, if there’s a health professional in the family, health outcomes tend to improve, according to a 2019 Swedish study. In it, researchers found that people with healthcare providers in the family were more likely to “engage in preventive healthcare, live longer, and are less likely to suffer from chronic conditions.”
In the end, the medical students we interviewed agreed that the most important role they can play with family members is to help translate doctor-speak into words that are easy to understand.
“I was recently talking to a family member, and she asked me a general question about the difference between arthritis and osteoporosis because she had read online that she could be at risk for one or both,” Barrera said. “Being able to break something like that down and explain the difference between two diseases is a way for us to use what we’ve learned and mitigate someone’s stress and perhaps even put them at ease.”
Bridging that gap remains one of the most helpful things medical students can do for their loved ones.
“At the end of the day, the word ‘doctor’ means teacher,” Barrera added. “So being able to teach friends and family about health issues that may come up is a gift any medical student can give.” However, leave any specific medical advice to their doctor.
Lambeth Hochwald is a New York City-based journalist who covers health, relationships, trends, and issues of importance to women. She’s also a longtime professor at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
