Fellow docs who regret going into medicine realistically what field would you have gone into?

[Brigade4Radiant]

Assuming you could do it all over again.

I majored in microbiology there was no way I would do that getting a PHD to make 40k. Maybe a MRI tech you can get an associates degree and make 70k easily and live wherever you want. Also leverage hospitals against each other.

I would currently do EM again but if I had to do something else I would go into healthcare.

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[deleted547339]

Assuming you could do it all over again.

I majored in microbiology there was no way I would do that getting a PHD to make 40k. Maybe a MRI tech you can get an associates degree and make 70k easily and live wherever you want. Also leverage hospitals against each other.

I would currently do EM again but if I had to do something else I would go into healthcare.

Derm, ophtho, rad onc, maybe IR or ENT.

Outside of medicine, probably business or maybe economics.

 

[anbuitachi]

may have a biased view, since i graduated from a decent college. but wouldve definitely done CS. the starting pay is high (my college reports average starting salary of our CS grads to be 100k). Most of my friends who did CS did end up getting around 100k base, plus sign on bonus in the forms of stocks, usually 50k over 4 years or so, so your pay is essentially 110k as a 21 yr old not factoring in stock growth.. a good number of people jump companies to get promotions and more stock bonuses. the ceiling for salary is much higher than in medicine (pretty much no limit). Benefits are amazing, schedule is much more relaxed (most ppl i know show up to work at 10 and leave by 6), easy to work from home..

If i stayed in health related fields, i wouldve done a accelerated pharmacy program, finish college/pharmD in 6 years. or Become a PA.

 

[e30ftw]

Salt mining.

 

[cyanide12345678]

I would have probably gone into engineering of some kind, probably chemical engineering. The hours are nice, a lot of flexibility and opportunity to work from home. Financial stability in early 20s, instead of late 20s and early 30s. I might have even had money then to ride one of the most historic bull runs of the stock market as I graduated from college in 2012.

Though if I could do it again, I would still go into medicine. EM maybe, but I'll consider anesthesia strongly as well. But the eventual goal is and always has been entrepreneurship of some kind, whether it's massive real estate investments, starting sleep labs (after potentially convincing wife to do a fellowship in sleep after her residency), or buying cash cow businesses to set up passive income. Time will tell, all I know is I don't see myself working full timetbeyond my mid 50s and will need to have substantial passive income

 

[deleted109597]

Geoengineering. Help drill for oil. It makes hella money, but you're not the one getting killed on the machinery.

 

[Tenk]

Professional bitcoin owner

 

[GonnaBeADoc2222]

MLB player

 

[Restart13]

If i stayed in health related fields, i wouldve done a accelerated pharmacy program, finish college/pharmD in 6 years. or Become a PA.

Wife is a pharmacist....the field is saturated and functions more at the whim of corporations than we do.

 

[GonnaBeADoc2222]

Wife is a pharmacist....the field is saturated and functions more at the whim of corporations than we do.

Ohhhhhhh yah big time. You should see the ones that work at the CVS's of the world. Their life suuuuuuckkkkkksss.

 

[anbuitachi]

Wife is a pharmacist....the field is saturated and functions more at the whim of corporations than we do.

Def more corporate than us. But at least I'll know it before choosing it ha

 

[Southpaw]

Anesthesiologist here. Was an engineer. Maybe would go back to that. Urology or ophtho would be top of my list if I had to do it over again.

 

[CajunMedic]

Would have stayed on the Mississippi River and Intracoastal waterway. Worked my way up to Captain. Probably would be a Port Captain or in Safety by now.

 

[carbonizedeyesockets]

If I wasn’t doing this, I think a ranger for the national park service would be great if in Yosemite or something comparable. I dream all the time about working the clinic in Yosemite. It’s probably a lot of garbage and not great pay, but whatever, it’s IN Yosemite.

 

[deleted497653]

A surgical subspecialty. Would have gone the military route and had med school paid for then gotten out after 4 years. Then practice medicine overseas.

 

[Frogger27]

Anesthesiologist here. Was an engineer. Maybe would go back to that. Urology or ophtho would be top of my list if I had to do it over again.

Why would Urology/ophtho be at the top??

 

[emergentmd]

Lets take out all of the professions that I and most others have ZERO chance such as sports athletes, Hollywood stars, billionaire hedge fund managers, and Tech start up millionaires.

I got my college degree at a Top public University in Computer and Biomedical Engineering. I was offered a sought after well paid internship in my 3rd yr which I turned down to go the med school route. I was Tied with another person for highest GPA after my 3rd Yr so I suspect I would have done quite well as a computer or Biomedical Engineer.

Even knowing this, I would still have pursed medicine without a second thought. I avg about 400K/yr through my career. There is No friends of mine that I personally know from College that has made this much.

 

[bravotwozero]

PE teacher, majored in physical education in college. Was a reservist before getting into med school, so may have gone full time in the Army as an infantry officer. But these were very distant seconds and thirds.

 

[WilcoWorld]

I decided against pursuing a career as a touring & recording musician after I got into medical school. Two of the guys I used to play with went on to be more successful than was reasonable to expect, playing national festivals & getting rave reviews in respected publications. Even so, I think I have a better lifestyle than they do.

 

[CCM-MD]

Intensivist here. If I had could go back in time, I would do everything I could to do a surgical subspecialty - vascular, ENT, urology etc. Minimal midlevel threat, ability to "own" patients and ability to "bring in $" for the hospital.

 

[Southpaw]

Why would Urology/ophtho be at the top??

Cool surgeries, “own” patients, little to no midlevel nonsense, and any surgeon gets treated like a king/queen by the hospital.

 

[cyanide12345678]

I had half a shoe in urology before I fully committed to EM. I had 3 publications in urology, research, and a old urology professor willing to write an amazing letter. Probably was competitive enough for the field. Had a mid 240s, and upper 260s, top quartile of a top 20 med school. I bailed mid way through 3rd year of medical school. i see here every one wants to instead do surgical subspecialties, they still work a good 60 hours a week for most of their life, even after residency. Surgeons do not have the balance of life that we can have in EM. My full time contract is for 400+ after 3 years of residency. I'll work 11 days a month. Hell I wouldn't want to be a surgeon who works 23-26 days a month. The patients that enter a urologic clinic are nicer, but I sure as hell would still like to have more time off away from work.

In short, if you ask me, EM is a really damn good gig.

 

[emergentmd]

I had half a shoe in urology before I fully committed to EM. I had 3 publications in urology, research, and a old urology professor willing to write an amazing letter. Probably was competitive enough for the field. Had a mid 240s, and upper 260s, top quartile of a top 20 med school. I bailed mid way through 3rd year of medical school. i see here every one wants to instead do surgical subspecialties, they still work a good 60 hours a week for most of their life, even after residency. Surgeons do not have the balance of life that we can have in EM. My full time contract is for 400+ after 3 years of residency. I'll work 11 days a month. Hell I wouldn't want to be a surgeon who works 23-26 days a month. The patients that enter a urologic clinic are nicer, but I sure as hell would still like to have more time off away from work.

In short, if you ask me, EM is a really damn good gig.

Preach it brother.

When I was EM without hour restrictions, the worse rotation and physically demoralizing was GS and it wasn't even close. Q3 call, 36 hr straight, GS residents are pricks (I get why after all the crappy hours worked), 3-6 months straight GS rotations, "HIV Butt clinic" - I mean rectal clinic, eating crappy hospital food 80% of your life b/c you are in the hospital 80% of your life, Standing in a Cold OR after being up for 30 hours, 5 Freaking Years of this.

I did alot of moonlinghting end of my 2nd and 3rd yr b/c Seniors did 18 shifts a month. No way a GS could moonlight.

I have the utmost respect for Surgeons especially before hour restrictions. You gotta love surgery to do it b/c the hours are miserable.

 

[Perrin]

My degrees were biochem/molecular bio and micro bio. I was also in ROTC and one of only two freshman who qualified for the Army ranger team. I would have either ended up at USAMRIID doing research or gone out for the Army Rangers.

 

[Groove]

My first career was MIS/IT and I had a masters in comp sci/business. I worked in that field for about 6 years and got to wear a lot of different hats. I thought at the time that I wanted to be a CIO of a fortune 500 company. It was a great experience for me and prevents me from any delusional "grass is greener" moments these days so I'm lucky in that I actually don't regret medicine at all. People work just as hard in the corporate sector, lots of burning the midnight oil, lots of stress and it's much harder work to attain the level of compensation that we enjoy in medicine. Now, if you want to talk specialties, sure.... I might have chosen CC or something like that but honestly, I'd probably feel that way about any specialty after 10 years. I kind of expect everyone who's spent a decade in a particular specialty to at least have a tiny bit of disillusionment on certain days.

 

[RustedFox]

1. Critical care.
2. Anesthesia. Eh. Maybe not.
3. Big Rig OTR trucker. Sure, the pay is far less, but I'm a simple man and have terminal wanderlust.
4. Ski bum. (Still may do this, depending).
5. Voice actor. I actually think I could do this. Most folks who know me well enough IRL will tell you that I can mimic most voices after listening to them for a bit; not unlike a parrot.

But in reality; it's EM for life for me. Plan is to save aggressively for 20 years (will be 57), then scale back. I'm in too deep.

 

[Birdstrike]

Snake milker

 

[bravotwozero]

The snakes won’t milk themselves man...

 

[Birdstrike]

I decided against pursuing a career as a touring & recording musician after I got into medical school. Two of the guys I used to play with went on to be more successful than was reasonable to expect, playing national festivals & getting rave reviews in respected publications. Even so, I think I have a better lifestyle than they do.

Do you ever hang out with them and have to roll your eyes while they intolerably say stuff like, "Yo, this being a rock star stuff just blows donkey b@lls"?

 

[WilcoWorld]

Do you ever hang out with them and have to roll your eyes while they intolerably say stuff like, "Yo, this being a rock star stuff just blows donkey b@lls"?

We hang out, but if any eyes are rolled it'd most likely be in response to my saying "Yo, this being a doctor stuff just blows donkey b@lls" (aka most of the threads here nowadays).

 

[Maybedoc1]

I decided against pursuing a career as a touring & recording musician after I got into medical school. Two of the guys I used to play with went on to be more successful than was reasonable to expect, playing national festivals & getting rave reviews in respected publications. Even so, I think I have a better lifestyle than they do.

What do you play? Im kind of doing a similar thing that you did. Started off college as a premed science major, decided that I wanted to pursue music professionally, switched to music, picked up four additional instruments (hello spreading yourself too thin) and generally lived in a practice room for the remainder of college. About a year ago I took another look at the whole doctor thing, read obsessively and now I think i want to be an ER doc (I do reserve the right to change my mind).

Do you still play/gig and if so do you find it easy to balance music and medicine? While I don't think I want to be a professional anymore I still want to play at a really high level and that requires a whole lot of practice. I know at certain times on this journey I won't be able to dedicate a lot of time to music, which is fine. But the thought of not progressing and playing in a mediocre dad band is a little depressing. I want to play in a killer dad band like the one I saw this weekend.

 

[namethatsmell]

I'm still glad I trained in EM. It's the best damn body of medical knowledge there is. If I could move to Australia or NZ and escape the absurdities of working in a 'Murican ED I'd be happy as a clam. But short of that and having to pick another field...

1) Tie: Critical Care -or- almost any specialty that would allow me to not be dependent on a hospital
2) Cruise ship captain
3) Lawyer who goes after big insurance/health corps

 

[bky3c]

What do you play? Im kind of doing a similar thing that you did. Started off college as a premed science major, decided that I wanted to pursue music professionally, switched to music, picked up four additional instruments (hello spreading yourself too thin) and generally lived in a practice room for the remainder of college. About a year ago I took another look at the whole doctor thing, read obsessively and now I think i want to be an ER doc (I do reserve the right to change my mind).

Do you still play/gig and if so do you find it easy to balance music and medicine? While I don't think I want to be a professional anymore I still want to play at a really high level and that requires a whole lot of practice. I know at certain times on this journey I won't be able to dedicate a lot of time to music, which is fine. But the thought of not progressing and playing in a mediocre dad band is a little depressing. I want to play in a killer dad band like the one I saw this weekend.

I know you weren't asking me specifically, but I thought I'd just pop in to say that there's at least one person who's doing it... Dr. Neal Barnard is part of Carbonworks, which has had at least two recent top 20 hits that I'm aware of, and he founded the Barnard Medical Center in DC, as well as the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine, and because of that he's a sought-after speaker on medical topics. Oh, and he's written several books. Setting aside any diet/nutrition debates (PCRM promotes a plant-based diet), he's done a lot with his career on both sides of the medicine/music coin.

 

[filhodeinferno]

If I was picking any job out of the blue it would be College football commentator for ESPN games.

If I am being realistic, I'd probably do some kind of chemical or mining engineering. Have a buddy who did mining engineering and is making more than I do as a doc without having to be a doc. One downside is he has to travel to rural places a lot, but I could deal with that.

 

[bravotwozero]

If I was picking any job out of the blue it would be College football commentator for ESPN games.

You know what I think is an underrated gig? Being a kicker in an NFL team. Low probability of injury, and even if you’re earning the league minimum, it’s still more than what any of us will earn per year...

 

[WilcoWorld]

What do you play? Im kind of doing a similar thing that you did. Started off college as a premed science major, decided that I wanted to pursue music professionally, switched to music, picked up four additional instruments (hello spreading yourself too thin) and generally lived in a practice room for the remainder of college. About a year ago I took another look at the whole doctor thing, read obsessively and now I think i want to be an ER doc (I do reserve the right to change my mind).

Do you still play/gig and if so do you find it easy to balance music and medicine? While I don't think I want to be a professional anymore I still want to play at a really high level and that requires a whole lot of practice. I know at certain times on this journey I won't be able to dedicate a lot of time to music, which is fine. But the thought of not progressing and playing in a mediocre dad band is a little depressing. I want to play in a killer dad band like the one I saw this weekend.

I'm mainly a drummer (which allowed me to punch above my weight musically, given the relative scarcity of drummers).

I managed to stay active during med school, residency & my first few years out. It's being a dad that really cramped my rock & roll lifestyle. Good luck!

 

[Fox800]

1. Anesthesiology, probably followed by critical care or cardiothoracics.
2. Commercial airline pilot
3. Would have remained a paramedic and moved to Australia or NZ when they were recruiting overseas folks

Backup plan: NZ, Oz, Hawaii or Guam. Maybe a CCM or pain fellowship in a few years. Who knows.

 

[filhodeinferno]

You know what I think is an underrated gig? Being a kicker in an NFL team. Low probability of injury, and even if you’re earning the league minimum, it’s still more than what any of us will earn per year...

Good point, but I'd take punter instead. Much less pressure, same low risks. Thinking of that Chicago Bears kicker who screwed them in the playoffs this year....that guy was not a popular man. I can't imagine that pressure. Punters tho....nobody ever remembers what they do.

 

[thegenius]

may have a biased view, since i graduated from a decent college. but wouldve definitely done CS. the starting pay is high (my college reports average starting salary of our CS grads to be 100k). Most of my friends who did CS did end up getting around 100k base, plus sign on bonus in the forms of stocks, usually 50k over 4 years or so, so your pay is essentially 110k as a 21 yr old not factoring in stock growth.. a good number of people jump companies to get promotions and more stock bonuses. the ceiling for salary is much higher than in medicine (pretty much no limit). Benefits are amazing, schedule is much more relaxed (most ppl i know show up to work at 10 and leave by 6), easy to work from home..

If i stayed in health related fields, i wouldve done a accelerated pharmacy program, finish college/pharmD in 6 years. or Become a PA.

I was in computer science for about 7 years, until I changed careers and became a doctor. I did enterprise level Java programming, designed database schema, wrote SQL, HTML / Javascript, stuff like that.

I love coding, it's a lot of fun. But working for a big company, it's kind of a thankless job. Good chance if you don't uber-specialize in an area your work will be off-shored to India or China.

I'm happy I switched to ER, but I'm slowly losing my patience for patients. If people are willing to help themselves, I'll be more than happy to go the extra mile and help them. But I get so tired people just coming to us for their chronic problems..."sir...you have been to us 7 times this year for tooth pain." "But doc I swear I have an appointment next week!"

 

[anbuitachi]

I was in computer science for about 7 years, until I changed careers and became a doctor. I did enterprise level Java programming, designed database schema, wrote SQL, HTML / Javascript, stuff like that.

I love coding, it's a lot of fun. But working for a big company, it's kind of a thankless job. Good chance if you don't uber-specialize in an area your work will be off-shored to India or China.

I'm happy I switched to ER, but I'm slowly losing my patience for patients. If people are willing to help themselves, I'll be more than happy to go the extra mile and help them. But I get so tired people just coming to us for their chronic problems..."sir...you have been to us 7 times this year for tooth pain." "But doc I swear I have an appointment next week!"

i think EM is the best field in medicine right now if you like the stuff. I dont know how you people pulled it off and convinced the insurance/governing body that you only need to work 12 days a month but its impressive. i remember residency EM i had 21 shifts so amazing attendings do that much fewer! I liked my Em rotation in med school and residency, and although im still at a point in my life where i still like anesthesia, a little part of me regret not going into EM and make twice as much per hour.

Now with that said, i obvoiusly dont know your background, but so far everyone i know 10 years after college has done extremely well in CS. and it's the most commonly switched into job among my friends (thru boot camps, 6 month training and get hired with jobs paying 80-90k+..). i dont know about the future but in the past decade or so, i would say the demand for coders has been thru the roof, even now i think its a hot field. thats why all these bootcamps are able to attract business. my CS program in college in the last 10 years more than tripled in size and is still graduating students with average starting salary of 100k. It's not to say 30 years down the line you wont be out of a job, but even in medicine its hard to guarantee that stuff these days with midlevel encroachment and AI, etc

 

[thegenius]

i think EM is the best field in medicine right now if you like the stuff. I dont know how you people pulled it off and convinced the insurance/governing body that you only need to work 12 days a month but its impressive. I liked my Em rotation in med school and residency, and although im still at a point in my life where i still like anesthesia, a little part of me regret not going into EM and make twice as much per hour.

Now with that said, i obvoiusly dont know your background, but so far everyone i know 10 years after college has done extremely well in CS. and it's the most commonly switched into job among my friends (thru boot camps, 6 month training and get hired with jobs paying 80-90k+..). i dont know about the future but in the past decade or so, i would say the demand for coders has been thru the roof, even now i think its a hot field. thats why all these bootcamps are able to attract business. my CS program in college in the last 10 years more than tripled in size and is still graduating students with average starting salary of 100k. It's not to say 30 years down the line you wont be out of a job, but even in medicine its hard to guarantee that stuff these days with midlevel encroachment and AI, etc

I last worked in CS around 2006. From 1999-2006, so I got into it during the dot.com bust. I worked for 4 or 5 companies, never made more than $1,000 off of stock options. Most were under water. I got real tired of it and left. Plus...while I think I was a pretty good coder I wasn't the very best, was more of a foot-soldier. And those positions are expendable.

Now there is a bit of a revolution in CS...well at least in terms of companies there are a bunch that are going to IPO next year like Uber, Lyft, AirBNB, PinInterest, etc.

ER is a good field, there are times I wish I chose something else that involved more patient care. But overall it's quite a rush to resuscitate someone critically ill, and I LOVE diagnosing stuff. There is much less of that in other specialties. Imagine being a hospitalist. You are given a patient with a diagnosis and the opening round of treatment. On the floor you are managing blood sugars, keeping BP's between 120-150. If the patient gets sicker you don't fix them, they go to the ICU.


I really thought about anesthesia, but at the end of the day I wanted more patient interaction. I think it's awesome how much physiology and pathology you guys know, all the drugs you get to play with, all the numbers you deal with.

Anesthesiology makes much less than ER? I thought they were comparable.

 

[anbuitachi]

I last worked in CS around 2006. From 1999-2006, so I got into it during the dot.com bust. I worked for 4 or 5 companies, never made more than $1,000 off of stock options. Most were under water. I got real tired of it and left. Plus...while I think I was a pretty good coder I wasn't the very best, was more of a foot-soldier. And those positions are expendable.

Now there is a bit of a revolution in CS...well at least in terms of companies there are a bunch that are going to IPO next year like Uber, Lyft, AirBNB, PinInterest, etc.

ER is a good field, there are times I wish I chose something else that involved more patient care. But overall it's quite a rush to resuscitate someone critically ill, and I LOVE diagnosing stuff. There is much less of that in other specialties. Imagine being a hospitalist. You are given a patient with a diagnosis and the opening round of treatment. On the floor you are managing blood sugars, keeping BP's between 120-150. If the patient gets sicker you don't fix them, they go to the ICU.


I really thought about anesthesia, but at the end of the day I wanted more patient interaction. I think it's awesome how much physiology and pathology you guys know, all the drugs you get to play with, all the numbers you deal with.

Anesthesiology makes much less than ER? I thought they were comparable.

Oh i see, yea i graduated post bubble so as of now in the past 10 years everyone i know have done great. People who graduated in CS my year have had their stocks from their companies multiple several times.

yea anes covers a lot (which annoys me on exams cause almost everything is technically fair game since we do medicine and work with surgeons..), but what i like even more is we get to bypass nurses and give whatever drugs we want without the delay!
But yea annual income is similar, but hourly income EM is a lot more. I just looked at jobs and had several job offers that were 130-150 a hr. Nothing went over 180-200 a hr (im sure they exist in more rural areas or if you a covering CRNAs 4:1 and are running around like a madman).

 

[miacomet]

Oncology, or something without nights. I'd like to work another 15 years, or longer, and I just can't see doing nights until then. I feel like it's destroying my health already.

 

[Apollyon]

I would have been a professional firefighter (literal - not this CMG bull****), or, a state police officer. I would do SP/HP, because, as a statie, you are not beholden to any local garbage ("That's not how we do it around here"/"Do you know who I am?", tripe like that).

 

[alpinism]

Sometimes I wonder about going back and being a firefighter again. In practice though its mostly the same BS that EM physicians deal with on a daily basis. Most calls are medical nowadays and very few are for actual emergencies. The rest are minor car accidents without any injuries. You'll get maybe 1-2 good house fires per month even at the busiest stations.

 

[Apollyon]

Sometimes I wonder about going back and being a firefighter again. In practice though its mostly the same BS that EM physicians deal with on a daily basis. Most calls are medical nowadays and very few are for actual emergencies. The rest are minor car accidents without any injuries. You'll get maybe 1-2 good house fires per month even at the busiest stations.

Become a truckie and don't go on any EMS! And, for example, Buffalo, NY, has one worker a day, on average. When I lived in Hawai'i, my local station was Waipahu - they had an engine and a tanker. Both pieces of apparatus went on every call - the captain/lieutenant had 8 FF all the time! Contrast that with the city of Lackawanna, NY, who have 9 total FF working, for 2 E and 1 L and the shift commander/chief.

 

[MechEDoc]

Return to being a mechanical engineer. Either work in general industry or stay in the family company. The work was decent and it was interesting to delve into a problem over a period of months or years. Less medicolegal drama.

 

[miacomet]

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