Thank you. While VERY FUCKING DEPRESSING LOL, your perspective is right on point and illustrates my crisis perfectly. And you're a lawyer, even better...we live in rather similar minefields where our words can literally alter lives. It's great that you managed to overcome your disability. Obviously, I'm not quite there yet. You hit the nail on the head about how stuttering can impact our prospects. I wish I could say that people really won't care and it's not a big deal, but I would be kidding myself. I already fear that I will lose major opportunities as a stutterer. The reason we attend and host so many conferences isn't just to keep our minds sharp and our protocols updated, but also so the medical community is aware of each other. If I cant get through a presentation about the latest breakthrough in diabetes research without losing control, I'll be deemed "incompetent" as you said. Being asked questions with my answers incomprehensible is the same as not knowing the answers at all, which is suicide in medicine. My colleagues will be less likely to work with me, my superiors will not trust their patients with me, and if I somehow make it to consultancy I won't see many referrals. I'd rather just quit... Fortunately I'm not so dysfluent that I can't function. I'm fluent much of the time. I can go through an entire 24 hour shift without any serious episodes, while other times my patients stare at me a little embarrassed as I fumble through their discharge meds (diabetes, fibrillation, and PHYSICIAN, for fucks sake, are some of my most problematic words). Slowing down helps, but it's not really an option most of the time, especially in conferences and while making endorsements on the phone, when my attendings keep griping at me to get to the point, which just makes it worse. Relaxing my abdominal muscles helps quite a bit though. And since I have palpitations during the worst moments, I take beta blockers which relieves the tension (as a doctor, I advise against following that advise...consult with your own physician please). Still, not enough...sigh. In short, I'll probably be able to work as a general practitioner. I can work strictly on an outpatient basis, away from the overwhelming stress of hospital life. Which makes me cry just thinking about it, since I really wanna be an endocrinologist. But it's still a living, and it will have to do while I search for a speech pathologist. I can't let this ruin my future. And yeah, I've seen the Kings Speech. Who of us hasn't lol? Didn't really make much of an impact when I first saw it. My stutter was never that bad and I was just a dumb teenager who never thought he would go into medicine at the time, so I couldn't really relate. Maybe I'll give it another watch.