😶 The Misaligned Drifter Description: Quiet, reserved, and often distracted — he doesn’t disrupt, but he also doesn’t belong. He walks the corridors of neurosurgery like someone who took the wrong train and is too polite to get off. Colleagues sense it. Residents feel it. He’s competent enough to avoid red flags, but never truly present.

He doesn’t talk about passion. He avoids teaching. He hesitates in the OR, not because he doubts his technique — but because he doubts the whole endeavor. Not every hesitation is diagnostic. Some are existential.

Patients are burdens, not puzzles. Meetings are noise, not purpose. When asked about future plans, he deflects. He might be in therapy. He might be looking for a way out. But for now, he stays. Not out of vocation — but inertia.

No one knows what keeps him there. Fear of starting over? Family pressure? A lost bet with life? He’s not a danger to others — but his drift is contagious. Because doubt, when sustained and unexamined, creates a vacuum. And vacuums in surgery are dangerous.

Dishonesty Type: 🧊 Cognitively flawed

You don’t have to be toxic to be misaligned. Some surgeons fail not by harming — but by never truly choosing to care.