Why do you keep doing it if you're miserable?

The same 4 reasons why we got into it in the first place. Chicks, money, power, & chicks.

Personally, I have a hard time imagining that I'd have the stamina to go through any more school/training to go into another career.

It's called student loan debt. That's why I do it. Otherwise I would probably do a Ph.D in Organic Chemistry. Or maybe not. There are definitely days when it seems OK and seems to be worth it. But there are lots of days when it seems so pointless and awful. I do think if I had it to do over again, I would do a Ph.D in Chemistry. But with close to $200,000 in student loans, that is simply not a possibility.

There is no turning back after med school... or at least not without risking all the loan disasters. I believe that many would simply walk away if their loans could be paid off.

My experience:

A discrepenacy exists between what you are told, what its really like.

I was told in medicine you'd always have a job, which true. And the money would be very good, which is possible. And much of this was told by older MDs who were already wealthy, and had FUN back in the old school days!!
I suspect some of them would never go into medicine if they were 22 in the year 2005 instead of 1975!

No one tells you the down sides!!
You bust your ass to get into med school...but have NO idea what it's really like. Then you bust your ass and have no idea what residency is like.
The same can be said for fellowship. This whole med school thing is like getting on a NONSTOP train...and once it gets going there is NO WAY OFF!!

One of my best friends actually didn't go on to residency. He QUIT and started a consulting business...and he is much happier. Lucky for him though he no debt!!

i think people continue on because to quit would make the past years just meaningless...and that would be much harder to take...

Here's my take. I was a nontrad-went to med school at 39-finished up IM training at 46. Sure school/training was brutal- and now? Well Iwork in primary care- the money about $150 k/yr. My previous career MBA, and MS in chemistry I worked for many large corporations. To make $150 k/yr in a corp - you have to be at a director level. Your job is on the line every day. Politics, layoffs and other bullsh*t. Most corporate workers hate it. Believe me. Work is,well,work-otherwise they'd call it fun.

My colleagues take some pride in yourselves. You have a substantial profession. No one can ever take that away from you.

#1: ~$180K of debt.
#2: being an intern SUCKS AS$. med school, i liked. there were difficult times, yes, but for the most part, i liked it. i also went to med school after having a career in a different field - i chose to leave that field and really spent a few years thinking through the decision to go to med school. when i went, i had a pretty good idea what i was in for. so i don't feel like i "should have done something else," as the other things i seriously considered doing, i already did. and chose med school anyway. right now, my misery stems about 95% purely from being an intern and dealing with the bottom-of-the-totem-pole-****-filter that is intern year. i'm in a field i really enjoy and see the upper level residents in my program enjoying what they do and i'm excited to actually get to practice medicine and learn my chosen specialty. it's a matter of just making it through intern year at this point.

smq123 said:

But there are good moments that I wouldn't trade. Joking around with the intern...really talking to patients who actually seem glad to see me...seeing the attending break into an impromptu dance in the middle of the OR...but for some reason, my friends never see me right after those things happen. So maybe you're just seeing the residents/attendings at a really bad moment?

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Because we keep telling ourselves it will get better down the road. And when it doesn't, we tell ourselves the next step will be an improvement. This delusion can be stretched out many decades.

Faebinder said:

There is no turning back after med school... or at least not without risking all the loan disasters. I believe that many would simply walk away if their loans could be paid off.

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I finished medical school with loans and said to hell with it. I just couldn't take it anymore. I hated everything about it including the patients, the nurses, the attendings and most residents. I had never met a more pretentious and miserable group of people.

I now do my own thing, making much more money than most attendings and I have more free time than I know what to do with. The loans aren't even an issue anymore.

It can be done -- you just have to want it bad enough.

Tired said:

Because we keep telling ourselves it will get better down the road. And when it doesn't, we tell ourselves the next step will be an improvement. This delusion can be stretched out many decades.

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Another problem is that most of us were just ******* kids when the snowball started rolling downhill.

Age 17: Premed? Hell, why not? Have you seen "Scrubs" yet, I love that show. It's rough though, I had to read for an hour the other night and I have classes before 10am.

Age 20: This MCAT business is ridiculous and I can't stand OChem and Physics, why all the hoops for med school application? I wonder why I have to take Calculus. Well, it must be important or else they wouldn't make us take it. Besides, I'm too far along in my Biochemistry degree to change now and I refuse to end up as some lab rat or high school teacher. It will be okay, everyone says the hardest part of med school i getting in, smooth sailing after that.

Age 22: Well this is rather disconcerting, I never imagined med school would be like this. It's kind of like college only with a lot more reading and less drinking(with other people, I mean). Well, I'm going to be the best doctor ever, I can name all the coenzymes in the Krebs cycle. I can't wait to get out on the wards and practice "real" medicine.

Age 24: Hmmm, patient contact isn't exactly all its cracked up to be. When I stated my great love for humanity in my personal statement, I definitely wasn't thinking about these humans. If I see another 80yo who feels "weak and dizzy" I'm going to lose it. But's not all bad, and I'm sure I'll it will be better when I get to concentrate on what I like. Oh wow it's already 2pm, what am I still doing at the hospital? I still need to work out before I go home and relax and read for a bit.

Age 27: How the hell did I get here? How can I be almost 30 not realize what my career really entails until now. How is that a person as educated as me serves a mostly secretarial function? Why does everything I do require a f*cking form to be filled out? I always figured that as a resident I would have some sort of defense against that bitchy nurse or lazy unit clerk that I didn't as a med student. The truth is I'm more powerless and vulnerable than before. At least I'm finally being paid for my work, but everyone seems to make out like this is some special treat I don't really deserve. I just consolidated $120,000 worth of debt and by my calculations I make $6.70 /hr. The kid at Taco Bell makes more than me.
Well, it's not all bad. I do like my field and there often a few satisfying moments in the day. Everyone says it will get better.........

They say there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's really just an oncoming train.

I feel the need to chime in. People are miserable? Perhaps. But I stopped listening long time ago.

People in medicine are the biggest whiners and complainers I have EVER met in my life. I noticed it in premeds compared to everyone else, then as a med student compared to everyone else, then in residents. Worse of all, when I hear it from attendings who theoretically has it better than everyone else, all I can do is shake my head.

It's not that there are other people worse off than you, because as always there are kids in China who are starving.

The problem is you. You are a victim of yourself. There's no escaping you.

I know you don't want to hear from me, because I love my job. And I'm an intern--I'm supposed to be hating this.

I think a large part of it is expectations. I expected to work hard and struggle a bit, but I expected the rewards to be worth it. So far, they have.

Maybe it differs between specialties, but I've never heard so many physicians say they love their job as I've heard from family doctors. Maybe our expectations are lower, or maybe more of us got into this for reasons other than chicks, money, power, and chicks.

Hoo\/er said:

I finished medical school with loans and said to hell with it. I just couldn't take it anymore. I hated everything about it including the patients, the nurses, the attendings and most residents. I had never met a more pretentious and miserable group of people.

I now do my own thing, making much more money than most attendings and I have more free time than I know what to do with. The loans aren't even an issue anymore.

It can be done -- you just have to want it bad enough.

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I gotta tell you HooVer. Your blogs are scary thoughts that happen to everyone in medicine.

Money.

You get to a point in your life where you are really only trained in one thing and doing that will keep you in your house, keep your kids fed and the lights on. Yes every shift is a drag and you start to look at every patient as either a drug seeker or a potential plaintiff but that's the biz. Either sell the house, tell the wife and kids to get used to less and start making 1/3 as much if you're lucky or suck it up and gut it out. Only 23 more years to retirement.

nowanmd said:

Here's my take. I was a nontrad-went to med school at 39-finished up IM training at 46. Sure school/training was brutal- and now? Well Iwork in primary care- the money about $150 k/yr. My previous career MBA, and MS in chemistry I worked for many large corporations. To make $150 k/yr in a corp - you have to be at a director level. Your job is on the line every day. Politics, layoffs and other bullsh*t. Most corporate workers hate it. Believe me. Work is,well,work-otherwise they'd call it fun.

My colleagues take some pride in yourselves. You have a substantial profession. No one can ever take that away from you.

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EXACTLY. I was in banking before this and although I agree that medicine is totally not what I thought it would be, it feels WAY more important and satisfying than the corporate race. That was not fun. I'd never go back. Although, the chicks were hot.

Despite the fact that I'm only 22, I have worked 6 years in engineering. I type this from my desk at an engineering firm. I hate the uncertainty of this job and the business world in general. I'm not saying medicine will be any better, but this sucks. At least in medicine you make a difference. All I do here is help make widgits to put on cars and widgits to put in chairs.

Oh my god can everyone please stop their bitching? Am I the only one who has found everything to be much less of a pain in the ass then everyone makes it out to be?

The MCAT was supposed to be hard--it wasn't.

Med school was supposed to be killer--first year was a joke.

Well 2nd year will be much worse--it was more work but a lot more interesting and I had a great time

Well Step 1 will kick your ass--I studied for 3 weeks, no big deal, killed it

Well 3rd year will be hell--It was certainly a lot of work and there were times that were rough, but by and large it was a great experience and it felt good to start actually taking care of people. It is EXTREMELY doable.

Well 4th year...oh who am I kidding everyone said 4th year is awesome and they're right.

Intern year--I'm expecting it to be super hard, I'm sure it will be, and I'm sure I'll survive and learn an increadible amount. Whats the big deal?

I think, for whatever reason, people in medicine (from pre-meds on up) LOVE to put themselves on the cross and bitch about how hard their life is. The only way you can actually feel that way is if you were stupid enough to not really research this profession before you went into it and didn't realize that if you're smart enough to do medicine you can make more money faster and easier doing almost anything else you're capable of. Fine. True. But if medicine really interests you then you have the best job in the world. Nothing is as fascinating to me as medicine and I can't imagine a more rewarding career. And seriously, who was suprised to find out this was a lot of work?

I've also met a few people who have the "Our life is so incredibly difficult. Much more difficult than ANYONE else's. Do you want to talk about it? Right now, at this party, even though we're around normal people who don't care. Let's talk about it." Complex. I can't stand it.

There's a time for school/study/work, and there's time for family/friends/hobbies. I enjoy both, but I also like them to be seperate sometimes.

JMPeffer said:

I've also met a few people who have the "Our life is so incredibly difficult. Much more difficult than ANYONE else's. Do you want to talk about it? Right now, at this party, even though we're around normal people who don't care. Let's talk about it." Complex. I can't stand it.

There's a time for school/study/work, and there's time for family/friends/hobbies. I enjoy both, but I also like them to be seperate sometimes.

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Yeah, that drives me up the wall too. Maybe their lives are so miserable because they don't even know how to enjoy their time outside of the hospital...

people are miserable b/c

1. their expectations were totally off - this is not the good old 1970s/80s
2. parents forced them
3. they are lazy
4. they are dumb

velo said:

Oh my god can everyone please stop their bitching? Am I the only one who has found everything to be much less of a pain in the ass then everyone makes it out to be?

The MCAT was supposed to be hard--it wasn't.

Med school was supposed to be killer--first year was a joke.

Well 2nd year will be much worse--it was more work but a lot more interesting and I had a great time

Well Step 1 will kick your ass--I studied for 3 weeks, no big deal, killed it

Well 3rd year will be hell--It was certainly a lot of work and there were times that were rough, but by and large it was a great experience and it felt good to start actually taking care of people. It is EXTREMELY doable.

Well 4th year...oh who am I kidding everyone said 4th year is awesome and they're right.

Intern year--I'm expecting it to be super hard, I'm sure it will be, and I'm sure I'll survive and learn an increadible amount. Whats the big deal?

I think, for whatever reason, people in medicine (from pre-meds on up) LOVE to put themselves on the cross and bitch about how hard their life is. The only way you can actually feel that way is if you were stupid enough to not really research this profession before you went into it and didn't realize that if you're smart enough to do medicine you can make more money faster and easier doing almost anything else you're capable of. Fine. True. But if medicine really interests you then you have the best job in the world. Nothing is as fascinating to me as medicine and I can't imagine a more rewarding career. And seriously, who was suprised to find out this was a lot of work?

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People who have never held a full or even part-time job.

People who have never had to be somewhere on time or had real responsibilities.

Frankly, I see a lot of the above in medicine. Adolescents who never grew up and realized that its not ok to oversleep (more than once), that yes, you have to come in everyday (or almost every day), and that you work hard. If you've never had a job before, you'll work harder than you've ever worked before and you will make a lot less than you think you should or would and yes, that the tax man will take a LOT of your hard-earned money.

Maybe medicine is full of whiners or maybe its because there are a large contingent of people who never had to work outside of school or the home and didn't understand why people complain about it.

gwen said:

people are miserable b/c

1. their expectations were totally off - this is not the good old 1970s/80s
2. parents forced them
3. they are lazy
4. they are dumb

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Ah I guess I'm fine because...

1) I have no idea what things were like in the 70s/80s and don't care
2) Parents told my brother and I to be whatever we wanted to be and supported anything we showed an interest in--ended up with a doctor and a lawyer
3) debatable...
4) debatable...

exactly my thoughts!!!

Kimberli Cox said:

People who have never held a full or even part-time job.

People who have never had to be somewhere on time or had real responsibilities.

Frankly, I see a lot of the above in medicine. Adolescents who never grew up and realized that its not ok to oversleep (more than once), that yes, you have to come in everyday (or almost every day), and that you work hard. If you've never had a job before, you'll work harder than you've ever worked before and you will make a lot less than you think you should or would and yes, that the tax man will take a LOT of your hard-earned money.

Maybe medicine is full of whiners or maybe its because there are a large contingent of people who never had to work outside of school or the home and didn't understand why people complain about it.

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yes, but why is that a surprise to people?

Blade28 said:

Medicine can also be that stressful.

Very few jobs out there where people's lives are so directly affected by your actions. Air traffic controller, criminal defense lawyer, teacher - all important, but in a different way.

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we all have choices in picking what specialty we want to get into, and in 2007 it's easy to make those choices with a ton of information. lifestyle matters to me, and you bet your a$$ that's part of why i'm not going to be a surgeon or ob-gyn. i make no apologies for wanting to not be miserable. nor do i expect to be because i'm going into a field that i find interesting and i'm willing to work the expected number of hours during residency and practice. i'm not willing to work 80 hours per week for the next 4 years.

so to answer the main question, i keep doing it because i'm not miserable. i was miserable during certain med school rotations, but i sucked it up knowing it was a very short term situation. but to enter a specialty that you don't like, pays less than you're willing to accept, and requires more hours than you're willing to give, well that's just a bad choice.

mlw03 said:

so to answer the main question, i keep doing it because i'm not miserable.

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Give it some time . . .

velo said:

Oh my god can everyone please stop their bitching? Am I the only one who has found everything to be much less of a pain in the ass then everyone makes it out to be?

The MCAT was supposed to be hard--it wasn't.

Med school was supposed to be killer--first year was a joke.

Well 2nd year will be much worse--it was more work but a lot more interesting and I had a great time

Well Step 1 will kick your ass--I studied for 3 weeks, no big deal, killed it

Well 3rd year will be hell--It was certainly a lot of work and there were times that were rough, but by and large it was a great experience and it felt good to start actually taking care of people. It is EXTREMELY doable.

Well 4th year...oh who am I kidding everyone said 4th year is awesome and they're right.

Intern year--I'm expecting it to be super hard, I'm sure it will be, and I'm sure I'll survive and learn an increadible amount. Whats the big deal?

I think, for whatever reason, people in medicine (from pre-meds on up) LOVE to put themselves on the cross and bitch about how hard their life is. The only way you can actually feel that way is if you were stupid enough to not really research this profession before you went into it and didn't realize that if you're smart enough to do medicine you can make more money faster and easier doing almost anything else you're capable of. Fine. True. But if medicine really interests you then you have the best job in the world. Nothing is as fascinating to me as medicine and I can't imagine a more rewarding career. And seriously, who was suprised to find out this was a lot of work?

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Wow, you sound amazing. Tests that other people consider to be difficult you took while you were inebriated and you purposefully even left half of the answers blank and you still scored higher than everyone else because you're just that good. Let me guess, you're going to parlay that into a lifestyle specialty and continue to talk about how hard everyone should work while you relax on the beach? Get over yourself, poser.

thusell said:

Wow, you sound amazing. Tests that other people consider to be difficult you took while you were inebriated and you purposefully even left half of the answers blank and you still scored higher than everyone else because you're just that good. Let me guess, you're going to parlay that into a lifestyle specialty and continue to talk about how hard everyone should work while you relax on the beach? Get over yourself, poser.

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I'm not, by any means, doing a "lifestyle specialty" and I'm sorry if my post came off like I was trying to talk myself up. I wasn't. I was trying to talk DOWN the difficulty of a career in medicine, which I think is over-played. I'm sick and tired of all the negativity.

Some people, for whatever reason, just LOVE to tell you how hard things get, how much their life sucks, and how much your life is GOING to suck. I was simply reflecting (and this is an attitude shared by most of my friends in the class) that the next level never seems to be anywhere NEAR as bad as people try to convince you it will be. I still think Medicine is a fantastic career for those who love it and am sick of these bitter little people who come out of the woodwork and post on these boards trying to tell me how terrible my life is (or, if I'm not unhappy now, how terrible it will be).

I look up at the resident/fellow/attending level and see 95% satisfied, happy, driven people loving what they do. I see (mostly at the resident and MAYBE fellow level) a few bitter ones bitching and moaning about this and that and I feel like those guys are over-represented on these boards.

Lets just be honest people. Its not THAT bad. Its actual pretty cool. Enough with the hate...

DrDude said:

I've met so many people who are miserable in this profession, from med students to attendings. I know the standard response is that every career has people who are unhappy, but I can confidently say this one has a lot compared to others from my experience and they really seem to dislike it (they're not just complaining for the heck of it).

Everyday I meet med students who complain about school, residents who are perpetually in a crappy mood and want to just get home as soon as possible, to attendings who seem to have little if any enjoyment about their career.

So why do you keep doing it if it makes you like this? There must be people on this forum who are like the ones I've mentioned and I would like to hear from them especially. How can you wake up every single day going to med school/residency/attending job you hate and being in a miserable mood day in and day out? Is it really that worth it to you?

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Because we are like prostitutes, and our pimp(student loans) insists we stay on the streets.

Tired said:

Give it some time . . .

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i have yet to meet a miserable person in the specialty i'm going into... care to guess what it is?

mlw03 said:

i have yet to meet a miserable person in the specialty i'm going into... care to guess what it is?

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Ya we know pathologists arent usually unhappy.. Good for them but try and spread the happiness and you will meet what Dr. Cox said in my signature.

Faebinder said:

Ya we know pathologists arent usually unhappy.. Good for them but try and spread the happiness and you will meet what Dr. Cox said in my signature.

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and i'll point out that in the 2007 match there were still more spots than US allopath grads. and that gen surg, among the worst lifestyles, is still quite competitive. people are seeking out these "miserable" speacilties. why they do that i don't know.

i try and spread the happiness... i'm a happy dude. not sure what you mean by "you will meet what Dr. Cox said in my signature" since that feature appears down at the moment. i can't see anyone's signatures.

mlw03 said:

and i'll point out that in the 2007 match there were still more spots than US allopath grads. and that gen surg, among the worst lifestyles, is still quite competitive. people are seeking out these "miserable" speacilties. why they do that i don't know.

i try and spread the happiness... i'm a happy dude. not sure what you mean by "you will meet what Dr. Cox said in my signature" since that feature appears down at the moment. i can't see anyone's signatures.

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Sigs only appear the first time someone posts in a thread (go to post #5 to see Faebinder's sig).

Kimberli Cox said:

People who have never held a full or even part-time job.

People who have never had to be somewhere on time or had real responsibilities.

Frankly, I see a lot of the above in medicine. Adolescents who never grew up and realized that its not ok to oversleep (more than once), that yes, you have to come in everyday (or almost every day), and that you work hard. If you've never had a job before, you'll work harder than you've ever worked before and you will make a lot less than you think you should or would and yes, that the tax man will take a LOT of your hard-earned money.

Maybe medicine is full of whiners or maybe its because there are a large contingent of people who never had to work outside of school or the home and didn't understand why people complain about it.

Click to expand...

QFT

Kimberli Cox said:

Sigs only appear the first time someone posts in a thread (go to post #5 to see Faebinder's sig).

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ah, thanks Dr. Cox. faebinder... harsh response, man. i wish other specialties could be as content as most pathologists i know. i certainly know happy pediatricians, internists, psychiatrists, and subspecialty surgeons, and i suspect there are happy gen surgeons and ob-gyns... but not that i've met around USF. misery is apparent, and i think it trickles down to students. we saw how miserable the residents and even many of the attendings were and that's why we have only a few people doing gen surg (but plenty of subspecialty). i'm not trying to revive a "bash on surgeons" theme here, but i do think my point plays into the original question. at my school we see misery in certain clerkships and we run the other direction. at USF the other directions include peds, IM, and EM, which are all much more enjoyable clerkships run by much happier attendings. this will be very obvious in march when our match list comes out. i think we have something like 15 gen peds, at least that many IM, and about 10 EM among our class of 115.

It's easy to wonder why eveyone doesn't choose your speciality. Don't make that mistake. Just because someone has a passion and love for general surgery doesn't mean they should be subjected to torture. People have to follow their passion, wherever that leads. It might not be what you'd choose, but maybe you were just lucky that you have a passion for a lifestyle and laid-back field.

I think many of you are being unfair. People without a rosy view of medicine have been characterized in this thread so far as dumb, lazy, forced into medicine by parents, unprepared, never had another job and so on. Medicine is a tough racket. Running or administering a practice once you’re out is even tougher. Medicine demands more front end investment of years and cash that anything else. I’m not worried about getting laid off but those corporate guys aren’t worried about getting personally sued either. And if reimbursements drop I can get laid off. No other industry has such a jacked up business model where you do the work and then try to get “reimbursed” for what you did. Medicine is filled competing mandates. For example, the DEA will get you if you write for too many narcs yet you can be sued for not treating pain aggressively. Medicine is a hard business. The hours are long. The work is tough. The training is brutal. It’s possible, reasonable and valid to think you’re in the best specialty for you and to plan on sticking with medicine while seeing it for the mess that it is. So forgive me for paraphrasing Chevy Chase but I do think it’s Pollyannaish to be walking around whistling Zippity-Doo-Dah out of one’s a--h--- about what a great profession it is.

something i haven't seen mentioned is a sense of obligation. i'm not "miserable," but i have heard people who are say that they continue because they realize they have a relatively uncommon and very important set of skills or knowledge. they know that the job they're doing needs to be done and that if they don't do it their community may suffer.

DrDude said:

So far a few people have mentioned it's because they have to pay off their loans. What I get is that people are saying they're essentially trapped in the career because of their debt and are only continuing on to pay off those debts. So is it fair to say you wouldn't practice medicine and instead do something else if you didn't have loans to pay off?

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Quite possibly, or at least it was true at one point in time.

When I was miserable in residency and considering quitting, one of the reasons I didn't was because of the debt and the fear that I really wasn't trained to do anything else (or at least had been away from my former career for so long that I was no longer fit to practice it). Its terrible to feel trapped because of that.

Kimberli Cox said:

Quite possibly, or at least it was true at one point in time.

When I was miserable in residency and considering quitting, one of the reasons I didn't was because of the debt and the fear that I really wasn't trained to do anything else (or at least had been away from my former career for so long that I was no longer fit to practice it). Its terrible to feel trapped because of that.

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Sure is the case for me. I don't, actually, dislike being a resident. Didn't dislike it as an intern, either, even though I did so much work. I just don't like coming to work and doing my job out of fear. Fear that if I lose my job I'll never have the ability to pay off my loans, that I'll never find as high-paying job (try getting yourself into a 140k/yr job in any OTHER field) and that my kids will grow up with lice and dirty fingernails because their Dad is a tool who couldn't stay employed.

I think I'd go to work either way, bec. the job doesn't entirely suck. But I'd like to do it without the element of fear that currently forces me out of bed every day.

lowbudget said:

People in medicine are the biggest whiners and complainers I have EVER met in my life. I noticed it in premeds compared to everyone else, then as a med student compared to everyone else, then in residents. Worse of all, when I hear it from attendings who theoretically has it better than everyone else, all I can do is shake my head.

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velo said:

Oh my god can everyone please stop their bitching? Am I the only one who has found everything to be much less of a pain in the ass then everyone makes it out to be? ... And seriously, who was suprised to find out this was a lot of work?

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ITA with these posts, and also with the posters who say that most of the complainers don't have other work experience for comparison.

I kept expecting medicine to get really unbearably hard, and so far it hasn't (at least not for more than a couple of weeks at a time). I'm midway through intern year and feeling fine (and I write this post-call thank you). At this point I'm starting to doubt the wisdom of all the whiners I've heard from over the years.

Btw I freely admit I'm in a cush specialty (psych) so my intern-year experience is not comparable to, say, a G-Surg intern-year experience. I don't doubt that surgical residencies are draining. But you don't *have* to choose that road. There are plenty of specialties that don't require 100-hour workweeks, and they're not all impossibly competitive either - especially if you choose a community setting vs a high-powered academic hospital.

I think it's possibly relevant that the social cachet in medicine comes from working a lot of hours. If I recall, in undergrad the social cachet came from *not* working ("Dude, I partied all night and still aced that calc final!") Then all of a sudden in med school it was like "I worked 625 hours last week and I'm taking call q2" (yeah you slept 8h in the call room for no reason other than PR when you could have been in your own bed - I know med students who did this)

Perspective and balance have a lot to do with this. Comparing notes with other interns, I've found that intern A might consider a particular rotation hard while intern B considered it easy - even if intern B worked equal-or-more hours than intern A. Most rotations have something fun/interesting/of value if you can get yourself into a place where you can see that.

When I was a resident, I almost quit 3 times. All during internship. I had a B.A. in Classical Greek and Roman History, $60,000 of debt and no other skills to pay off that kind of debt. I kept at it and now am reasonably happy with medicine. Yeah, I do think about other careers, but most of the accountants and lawyers I know are not all that thrilled with what they do. A good friend of mine is on the partnership track at one of the big 5 accounting firms and he puts in 60-80 hours a week. He doesn't always have a smile on his face.

I guess the caveat is some of the mid-level jobs out there. You can be a clinical pharmacist and make $120,000 a year. Would I be happy doing that? I don't think so. I like the technical aspects of anesthesia. I like working with my hands and dealing with complex situations. I just had a bizarre case of massive hemolysis/hyperkalemia after a carotid endarterectomy last week that I barely skated out of. Those kinds of challenges are fun. I like being the end of the line and making the final decision in high stress situations. Yes, I had to trade 4 or 5 years of my life to be in charge, but let's be real, we are all living to 80 or 90, so 4 years is a drop in the bucket.

Being a resident can be a real drag. There is a lot of negativity out there. I think that if people choose their specialty and job right, they'll be fine.

Having high student debt can be a problem, but even if you want to do pediatrics and you have $250,000 of debt, choose pediatric anesthesia. If you want to do primary care, choose maternal fetal medicine. Making those choices can double or triple your income and still have a somewhat similar feel. Those specialties may be somewhat more hours during residency, but they can have much better hours after training than other specialties.

In the end, I think the debt is what makes us feel trapped. Once I paid off my debt and had the right job, I was fine with my choice. Only by paying off my debt was I able to take the job I wanted, which had fewer hours and less pay.