Anyone had enough?

[bts4202]

you know, the most frustrating thing is knowing that some of the med students posting on this thread are US med students. These students took a position in a US school without really knowing what they were in for and now hate it and wish they had done something else. That spot that they took could have been filled by any number of more than willing students who, instead, had to go to the carrib or elsewhere to get the degree.

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[secretwave101]

Anyone who has completed 3 years of med school should have the right to complain - in the right context. Here, among mostly 3rd year students, is where they should have the right to say anything they want about their experiences, no matter how negative.

There is an extremely small percentage of students who really will decide against clinical medicine and go into business or public health. But they still earned the right to get an MD, and to complain about the experience to others who earned the same right. Just because they decide against clinical medicine doesn't mean some Carib. student deserves their spot.

Lay off. If they can't whine here, they can't whine anywhere.

 

[Square Pants]

bts4202,

What-ever. Please lend me your crystal ball so that I can divine what the future holds.

 

[bts4202]

Hey square pants,

If all the little immature kids who went straight into med school without ever working a day in their life had actually done some work in a hospital, maybe they would know what it would be like. Instead of sitting by the pool and spending daddy's money on kegs, they had worked a bit, they could have made a better decision career wise. Anyone with any intellegence should know that it is STUPID to lock yourself into a proffession without having any experience in that field. The only thing I can think of is that you figured you could make come good money in medicine, so you would put up with whiny sick people for a couple hunderd thou a year huh. Now you realize that medicine is actually a way of life and not just a job and all that money just doesn't seem worth it does it?

 

[powermd]

Originally posted by bts4202
Hey square pants,

If all the little immature kids who went straight into med school without ever working a day in their life had actually done some work in a hospital, maybe they would know what it would be like. Instead of sitting by the pool and spending daddy's money on kegs, they had worked a bit, they could have made a better decision career wise. Anyone with any intellegence should know that it is STUPID to lock yourself into a proffession without having any experience in that field. The only thing I can think of is that you figured you could make come good money in medicine, so you would put up with whiny sick people for a couple hunderd thou a year huh. Now you realize that medicine is actually a way of life and not just a job and all that money just doesn't seem worth it does it?

It's also STUPID to make sweeping assertions about people you don't know.

In lots of jobs, the responsibilities and lifestyle are simple enough that just reading the job description tells you pretty much what it's like to do that job. The only way to truly know what you're getting into with respect to medicine is to actually BE a medical student or doctor- to actually work the expected hours and have the actual responsibilities, both academic, and clinical, that people in this profession have. Anything short of this, and you are just a spectator. I did lots of clinical activities before medical school- hospital volunteer on pediatric, and ambulatory surgery (two years total), EMT (three years), plus tons of reading of books about being a doctor. None of this gave any useful insight into what I went through this past year as a third-year. "Residents","Rotations", and House of God came close in content, but did not truly impart the misery. I'm burned out a bit, but I still want more than anything to be a doctor. Still, my perception of what it's like to be in medicine is much less idealistic now that I've had a painful dose of reality. Your post was insensitive to the many, many disgruntled students who don't fit your attempted stereotype.

 

[bts4202]

My post was obviously not aimed at you if you have worked in the feild, knew what you were getting into, and still want to be a doctor even after busting your butt as a third year or whatever year. I was refering to the immature kids who do it for the money and when they realize that the work is not easy nor as glamorous as you see on TV they want to do policy or admin. Either that or they treat patients like crap and just work from day to day to get paid. Believe, I have worked with many. I worked in EKG and holter for 2 years, was supervisor of a nuclear stress lab for 2 years, worked as an EMT-I for 1 year, and worked in the cardiac cath lab for 1 year.

It is perfectly fine to get burned out, I get burned out also. But I still know that there is no other profession that i want to do. I don't sit there and say "wow, medicine is rough, I wish I had done accounting". People like that piss me off and I think they should have worked, as we did, before they made the decision to take a limited spot in a program that they are probably not suited for. Anyone can learn the info neccesary to be a doctor, that is not difficult. What is difficult is being selfless, unwavering, and always interested in helping someone who needs it. I have worn away much of my idealism, but I do know what is important. I have posted before that I think the MCATs and GPA is a terrible way to judge who should get into medical school and this is the reason. You get people like prominence and hosskp1 who can't hack it in real medicine and do policy. Pathetic.

 

[powermd]

Originally posted by bts4202
My post was obviously not aimed at you if you have worked in the feild, knew what you were getting into, and still want to be a doctor even after busting your butt as a third year or whatever year. I was refering to the immature kids who do it for the money and when they realize that the work is not easy nor as glamorous as you see on TV they want to do policy or admin. Either that or they treat patients like crap and just work from day to day to get paid. Believe, I have worked with many. I worked in EKG and holter for 2 years, was supervisor of a nuclear stress lab for 2 years, worked as an EMT-I for 1 year, and worked in the cardiac cath lab for 1 year.

It is perfectly fine to get burned out, I get burned out also. But I still know that there is no other profession that i want to do. I don't sit there and say "wow, medicine is rough, I wish I had done accounting". People like that piss me off and I think they should have worked, as we did, before they made the decision to take a limited spot in a program that they are probably not suited for. Anyone can learn the info neccesary to be a doctor, that is not difficult. What is difficult is being selfless, unwavering, and always interested in helping someone who needs it. I have worn away much of my idealism, but I do know what is important. I have posted before that I think the MCATs and GPA is a terrible way to judge who should get into medical school and this is the reason. You get people like prominence and hosskp1 who can't hack it in real medicine and do policy. Pathetic.

I don't know anyone in my med school class who comes close to the level of shallowness you describe.

Policy is NOT a pathetic career option for a physician. We NEED people who know medicine from the inside in policy-making positions. I have a very bright friend who graduated from Northwestern as an engineer, who came to medical school with the idealistic notion of helping people using her aptitude for science. In the third-year (this year), she discovered that in medicine we really don't solve the problems that cause people to get sick- we just palliate them temporarily until the patient dies. She thought about quitting medicine until I suggested health policy, an idea that appealed to her strong sense of activism, and desire to actually solve health care problems. Not everyone HAS to become a clinician to justify occupying their slot in medical school. Physicians are extremely valuable in policy, ethics, law, consulting, pharmaceuticals, and probably many more non-clinical fields.

 

[bts4202]

In the third-year (this year), she discovered that in medicine we really don't solve the problems that cause people to get sick- we just palliate them temporarily until the patient dies. She thought about quitting medicine until I suggested health policy

Like I said....

 

[powermd]

Originally posted by bts4202
Like I said....

Feel free ignore everything else I wrote that doesn't support your flimsy idea that policy is an unworthy pursuit for a physician. While you're at it, take something I said out of context so it looks like I agree with you. Sheesh.

 

[swing]

I'm the one who started this thread. I've been absolutely amazed at the number of people who've responded, and the consistancy of those responses! Thank you all for your courage and candor!

I agree completely with powermd's recent comments regarding spectating vs actually being there. There is NO way anyone can appreciate the life of a med student without having lived through it. Your friends won't, your spouse won't, your parents won't - NOBODY will unless they've been through it as well.

It's comforting to know we aren't alone!

 

[Optimistic]

Originally posted by swing
There is NO way anyone can appreciate the life of a med student without having lived through it. Your friends won't, your spouse won't, your parents won't - NOBODY will unless they've been through it as well.

Sooooooooooo true!!!

 

[Thewonderer]

Originally posted by bts4202
My post was obviously not aimed at you if you have worked in the feild, knew what you were getting into, and still want to be a doctor even after busting your butt as a third year or whatever year. I was refering to the immature kids who do it for the money and when they realize that the work is not easy nor as glamorous as you see on TV they want to do policy or admin. Either that or they treat patients like crap and just work from day to day to get paid. Believe, I have worked with many. I worked in EKG and holter for 2 years, was supervisor of a nuclear stress lab for 2 years, worked as an EMT-I for 1 year, and worked in the cardiac cath lab for 1 year.

It is perfectly fine to get burned out, I get burned out also. But I still know that there is no other profession that i want to do. I don't sit there and say "wow, medicine is rough, I wish I had done accounting". People like that piss me off and I think they should have worked, as we did, before they made the decision to take a limited spot in a program that they are probably not suited for. Anyone can learn the info neccesary to be a doctor, that is not difficult. What is difficult is being selfless, unwavering, and always interested in helping someone who needs it. I have worn away much of my idealism, but I do know what is important. I have posted before that I think the MCATs and GPA is a terrible way to judge who should get into medical school and this is the reason. You get people like prominence and hosskp1 who can't hack it in real medicine and do policy. Pathetic.

I believe that the only reason that bts4202 says all these things is that he or she has not gone through the brutal 3rd year yet! Being a med student is different than being an investment banker, say. An investment banker, after a couple months on the job, can be reasonably competent and start making fancy presentations and portfolio for their clients. The problem for med student is NOT JUST the hours but also the feeling that you do not know a thing and have to struggle with totally different fields and expectations once every 8 weeks when you switch rotations (knowledge on peds is very different from medicine which is different from ob/gyn, etc.). On top of that, I do not know a single profession that requires you to stay up every 4th night and stay at the work place until 8pm-12am on all the other 3 days! Investment bankers have it rough but many of them might stay up until 3 am but don't come in until 11am the next day. Also, their work comes in spurts. For 3 weeks, they have decent hours then for 4-5 days, they have to stay up and cram things in. In medicine, in-patient work requires sleep deprivation up to 8 weeks at a time. I am still bitter from my surgery rotation where I only got one single day off in 8 weeks and at no point in my rotation, did I sleep past 6am on weekends and 5 am on weekdays.... that was piss poor life style

 

[DocWagner]

In regard to the above poster...it all gets better, trust me.
First and foremost, any one making a medstudent pull a ton of call and giving them only one day off a month is a complete and utter dingus and *****. A medical student is NOT cheap labor nor are they robots...they are students with lives. And I am sorry you had to go through that crap...and I can assure you it is not universal.
My approach to medstudents is not at ALL like that. They need fostering and encouragement (forgive me if I sound a bit touchy feely)...but that is the BEST way to develop humane, happy, and excited resident doctors of the future.
Any resident knows who the slacker medstudents are...and rest assured I let them have it...but it doesn't take 60 hr work weeks to prove your worth.
Just be positive, know that it gets better, and realize what kind of human you want to be and what type of doctor you can be.

 

[volvulus]

I think your completely right thewonderer. After having gone through my third year I can safely say that medicine is much different than I imagined. On almost all my rotations I have had to see all the headaches attendings go through with HMO's, Medicare, Hippa, hospital admin, etc. All I want to do is practice medicine. I don't think I can deal with all the other crap. With that said I see nothing shameful with using your MD degree and joining the business world. Why not go into consulting, finance, or pharma? I mean we are in a free market country. If our knowledge and potential can help corporations or companies we should not hesitate to work for them. In the end we'll be helping our economy.

 

[Tazmaniac]

Ooooooh HIPPA....I can hear the lawyers salivating over that one.



I think most of the frustrations I've encountered have been administrative-related, a.k.a. the doings of non-medical people.

-Todd MS IV.

 

[Tazmaniac]

Ooooooh HIPPA....I can hear the lawyers salivating over that one.



I think most of the frustrations I've encountered have been administrative-related, a.k.a. the doings of non-medical people.

-Todd MS IV.

 

[mamadoc]

You know, I started reading this thread and truthfully couldn't relate all that well to what others were sharing - yeah, I've had my share of rotations with crappy hours and so forth, but for the most part it hadn't been THAT bad and I enjoyed it.

Then I got to my last rotation. OB is killing me. What is WRONG with these people? On no other rotation have I seen such angry embittered souls. They treat med students like dirt - we are the scut monkeys who are expected to wake our patients up at 4am so that all the progress notes are in the chart before 6am.... but we won't ever hear a word about whether our notes were any good or whether our assessments and plans were at all on target. IF we're lucky we may see an addendum to our notes that indicates if we had the right idea.

I have really tried to give these people the benefit of the doubt. They work horrible hours, I know. I think theirs may be the most stressful specialty: it is nerve-wracking to think that you have mothers' and babies' lives in your hands. But I am awfully tired of being treated like I am an incredible nuisance simply because I am there and require a *little* bit of explanation/orientation before I can get to work.

And on no other rotation have I felt like I was being treated like a child in school. (actually if I found out that one of my kids' teachers spoke to them the way I've been spoken to, I'd be at school complaining!) There are a lot more bossy teacher personas, as opposed to adult-oriented Socratic-method types. Nasty sarcastic remarks don't motivate me. DO they motivate anyone? Right now I am just motivated to get this damn gig over with, and I would not go into OB if you paid off my loans and promised me $1M tax-free every year.

So after five weeks of OB, I am still wondering....

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

 

[margaritaboy]

Mamadoc, you must be at UAB with me....Or maybe all OB folks are embittered and it is a universal trait of that field....

 

[hosskp1]

mamadoc- I have heard the same kind of things from people doing their OB rotations. I have had the same experience myself. I can empathize with you totally. The good thing is that if you have no ambitions in OB- after your required time- you are free to go. You can read the book if you need some more info.