It will come as no surprise when I say I see many cons in this field. I imagine most will say that there are so many great things about this field, and they are probably the majority. Their reasons are not wrong. Here are my own reasons for my current dissatisfaction. An observant person will note NONE of these reasons have a thing to do with money, health insurance, or such. :
CLINICAL:
1) Testing: In general most testing is relatively unpleasant. It sucks to meet a stranger, delve into their world and then give them hours of unpleasantness.
2) Patients: By their very nature, patients are suffering. I do not take this personally, but day in day out it kinda sucks.
3) Feedback: In adult neuro your feedback options are almost limited to : A) You have a disease state which invariably has a high ten year mortality rate with no known cure. Good luck. B) You are lying. C) Your emotions are messing up your thought process D) You can have surgery but it will probably mess you up some E) You can't have surgery because it will mess you up lots F) Your medications are causing your cognitive problems G) Your substance abuse is causing your cognitive problems. H) etc. Few of those go over very well, regardless of how kind you are. It also sucks to have to tell people bad news on an at least weekly basis.
4) Treatment Interventions for NP disorders: Not too ecologically efficacious.
5) No Thanks: Very few people say thank you. People will demand and then not have the common decency to thank you.
6) My Time: A) Patients, understandably, try to schedule things at their convenience. I don't mind. But when you miss 3 appointments and then call because your surgeon won't schedule your surgery/your psychiatrist won't write you another script until this is done/etc, it has already gone to the bottom of my priority list. 100 phone calls won't change the consequences. When you explain that there are 30 people in line ahead of them who are just as ill than they are, expect some rage. I could diffuse the situation, but then I start thinking about how this behavior developed in a context and start thinking about what is best for the person. B) Patients and/or family members calling and demanding to speak to the Dr. You don't get paid for this, and you usually have a sick person in front of you. Scheduling them for another feedback session does not work because they are too busy to see you. The irony is palpable.
6) Colleagues: IME, on a personal, "do I want to hang out with you on the weekends", level, most psychologists are weird, narcissistic, judging, and offer opinions outside their area of expertise for no apparent reason while using feelings words to cover up their lack of knowledge in a subject. They also tend to say things like "someone should do something", while offering a million reasons why they can't actually do a ten person study, pay $100 for a PAC, take on a student, read every issue of the quarterly journals in their subfield, or whatever. I think it has something to do with their reliance on the omnipotent supervisor, who they always have to tell me they studied under 35 years ago. If only there were a developmental stage associated with this behavior.... There is also a lot of incompetency, which means your referral sources refuse to stop sending people to you even after you tell them you are shutting down, and give your name out to more people. I also think there is a lot of unethical behavior towards students. Some of the superstars in the field are paradoxically the most humble and awesome people.
7) Mundane: There's a reason some disorders are seen more than others. This means the majority of your interactions are going to be confined to the high frequency disorders, with the odd zebra thrown in. It's exciting in a morbid way when you see one of those odd ones. But day to day it is sort of boring. After enough patients of one disorder, tests almost become ancillary. Almost.
RESEARCH:
1) Committee meetings. OMFG, this is the 5th ring of hell. And unavoidable.
2) IRB trainings: While good for a few years, it is always painful to go through the "don't sleep with subjects, don't commit fraud, disclose conflicts of interest, etc" training.
3) No results studies. Just sucks.
4) Politics: I hate having to play this game. Just let me work. Or don't. Just don't make me answer 300 emails about some random aspect of the study which was already addressed.
5) Funding: What other job makes you find the money for your own salary? Yes, I know what "history of extramural funding" means, and yes I can do the math, and yes this is insulting especially in light of point #4.
TEACHING:
I've actually quit teaching.
1) Students: When compared to med school peers, they are immature, dressed less well, not responsive to deadlines, confrontational about obtuse points, and full of excuses.
In summary: For me, day to day in clinical practice, the cons outweigh the pros. I do like my consultancy gigs though.