Burnout & Dropout in Surgical Residency

[DarkDooWop]

I'm coming to the end of my first year of a surgical residency and am finding myself more exhausted, demoralized and questioning of my career goals than ever before. Having gotten a real look at what both surgical residency and a surgical career will realistically look like, I'm really questioning whether this is something I still want to do, whether I'm willing to work long weeks, nights and weekends for the rest of my life, and whether I can even make it through 5 gruelling years of working through post call, being pimped and humiliated on a daily basis and never feeling like I can know enough to stay afloat.

I know a lot of surgical residents voice concerns about burnout, but I'm just wondering, how common is it to really want to walk away from a surgical residency, and medicine, completely? How do you know if it's just the fatigue and the stress ebbing away the enthusiasm versus whether or not it's really time to re-evaluate life's decisions and find an alternative path?

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