What is wrong, & what isn't wrong, with having multiple careers all at once?

[Gauss44]

Several highly ambitious highly intelligent people I know have thought about becoming both a doctor and a lawyer and an author, etc. The idea of being a doctor part time, and handling medical-related legal cases, perhaps all the way to the supreme court in some cases, has appealed to many. Given that there are people like Donald Trump, as only one example, who have run companies, stared on TV shows, and authored books all at once, what's the problem with this, or what could reasonably be a problem with this? What, if anything, is good about planning or trying for multiple unrelated (or semi-related) careers?

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[QofQuimica]

If you try to do too many things at once, you won't do any of them well. I've never seen Trump's TV show, so I won't comment about that, but have you actually read any of his books? The way "Crippled America" abuses the English language is atrocious. And the man has also filed for corporate bankruptcy four times, which he brags about. I suppose given his net worth that you could call repeated bankruptcy filings an effective business strategy, but I'd imagine his creditors don't see it that way.

 

[wholeheartedly]

I can certainly understand the desire to do multiple varied things. I have some pretty diverse interests that I'm passionate about from science to art (sculpture work) to writing. A classmate of mine once told me, you can't do everything, you need to just pick one thing focus on it and do it well for the rest of your life. This was a person who canceled her TV and refused social outings to just focus on grad school. I respect her decision for herself, but I'm not wired that way. I need those other things to feed my soul so to speak and to provide a sort of balance.

That said, I agree completely with Q. When you try to do all these things at the same time, you run the risk of not doing justice to them with your best work. The thing you need to realize with the people who do things like practice medicine, write novels, etc is that while they might be doing all of those things, they are rarely doing them all at the SAME time.

People who write novels often take a sabbbatical, celebrity types get a lot of assistance because they can afford it. People start out practing law or medicine then after a certain amount of time shift more into the other. Or physician scientist types start out hard with the research focus and then maybe shift more into a teaching/administrative focus many years later. Others shift into more volunteering service type work. Cut hours near retirement to write novels or something.

So my response to my friend is that you can do all of those things, just not all at once.

For me that means right now my work and school are highest priority with my art taking a backseat and I have done pretty much no recreational writing during this time. After I finish school soon though, I'll be diving fully into some major sculpture projects that have been bouncing around my head for awhile. When my hands get tired, then I'll work on some of the writing stuff. Then it will hopefully be medical school and shifting gears once more, with the emphasis on school and research with art being a little thing that helps keep me sane. At some point, I will publish a novel.

Hard to predict the future, but I imagine my career down the road will have some pretty distinct phases as well.

 

[Apollo1]

If you try to do too many things at once, you won't do any of them well.

Seconded. Also, if people are coming to you as a physician, they probably don't want a "jack of all trades, master of nothing." Dabbling as a hobby is great, but as part of your profession is a disservice to others.

 

[Gurby]

Several highly ambitious highly intelligent people I know have thought about becoming both a doctor and a lawyer and an author, etc. The idea of being a doctor part time, and handling medical-related legal cases, perhaps all the way to the supreme court in some cases, has appealed to many. Given that there are people like Donald Trump, as only one example, who have run companies, stared on TV shows, and authored books all at once, what's the problem with this, or what could reasonably be a problem with this? What, if anything, is good about planning or trying for multiple unrelated (or semi-related) careers?

As above, you can do it, but just don't try to do it all at once. Become an MD/DO first, gain some experience, pay off your loans, build up your bank account a bit, get yourself into a position as a physician where you're able to start cutting back on that time commitment, and THEN go to law school.

A family friend of ours did that: undergrad -> med school -> residency + fellowship -> clinical practice -> eventually became head of a department at a hospital. They started law school at age ~50 and now spend more time doing research, legal and administrative stuff.

 

[DrMikeP]

I have a background/careers in engineering, education, psychology, and business among other things but medicine is now my passion and I don't see where switching back and forth would be best for obtaining my goals or being the best I can be within my medical profession. At the same time recently, I ran a multidisciplinary practice, was director of a psychology dept at a major public hospital, supervised students/interns/residents, saw patients, clinical prof at a university, board member, etc. But everything I did was well within the same general vein and it still took me 80hrs a week to do it all. Prior professions influenced my capabilities for each future profession, but I approached each in a sequential fashion.

If you want to defend a case all the way to the supreme court then you repeatedly won't be available to see patients for potentially weeks at a time. That can pose huge challenges in being available for your patients. I know drs who practice part time and teach but they were well established in their medical careers before adding something else.

 

[Ligamentumarteriosum]

I know there are a bunch of folks who jump through all of those hoops and become great success stories at being doctors, lawyers, etc. all at once.
The problem is they rely on the idea of some other field to power them into another field. And they can't follow up.
I've never seen, read from, or met any physician that I respected more than 10 minutes after they got on air or anything like that. It sounds great and then it's painfully clear they were fair-weather physicians before they threw in with another lot, and it makes me cringe when they bring this hollywood aspect back into medicine. I think that the best physicians tend to be so enamored with medicine for the long-haul that the idea of launching a secondary career either never occurs to them, or they are so focused on mastery of medicine that they can't put the time into something else.

Two cents, for what it's worth. (2 cents exactly.)

 

[eteshoe]

Several highly ambitious highly intelligent people I know have thought about becoming both a doctor and a lawyer and an author, etc. The idea of being a doctor part time, and handling medical-related legal cases, perhaps all the way to the supreme court in some cases, has appealed to many. Given that there are people like Donald Trump, as only one example, who have run companies, stared on TV shows, and authored books all at once, what's the problem with this, or what could reasonably be a problem with this? What, if anything, is good about planning or trying for multiple unrelated (or semi-related) careers?

Did you really use Trump as an example?! All kidding aside - pick something as your main passion and fill your free time with one or two serious hobbies. Unfortunately, unless you can clone yourself, you are not physically capable of being an expert in multiple things (usually humans hit their limit at about two or so things).

 

[Law2Doc]

Having worked in both law and medicine (but not simultaneously), I can assure you both are very much full time jobs. In either field you probably aren't reading everything you ought to to keep current as is, even as a full timer, and really need to spend a lot of time at your craft each week just to stay reasonably competent at it. So these are not good examples of things one can or should "dabble" in. Now could you use your "spare time" in one of the fields to write a book, or appear occasionally on TV, or dabble in a hobby or some other endeavor that does not require the same kind of daily focus? Perhaps, within reason.

The problem is that there's a very fine line between doing a lot and looking impressively ambitious, and spreading yourself so thin that it impacts your competence at your primary job. So no, you really can't do two high powered professional jobs simultaneously and well, and basically would be dangerously incompetent in both if you tried. Instead of being impressed with such person you really should actively make sure they neither treat nor represent anyone you care about. I guaranty they aren't spending enough time in either field to be adequate, aren't reading what they need to to stay abreast of changes in the industry. Get someone whose head is in the game most of the time.

 

[MD89]

There's a reason why the introduction of the assembly line changed the course of the US economy. Specialization to an extent allows you to become an "expert" in something. If you try to juggle too many things at once, you will be mediocre at best. And I for one wouldn't want to go to a mediocre physician l, would you?

I know for a fact that I wouldn't be able to continue my current career while being in med school and practicing as a physician. Both fields require a lot of time and effort to be an even simply average performer - it would be impossible for me to do either part-time and still devote the necessary investment of time to keeping up with new developments, etc.

Obviously, hobbies are a different story. I think it's reasonable (and preferable) to expect to have some time on the side for those. But hobbies aren't generally a side career and don't require a huge amount of time, concentration, and commitment.

Maybe you can mix some of your dabbling in with your main job as a doctor. So, for example, if you like inventing things, maybe invent something that will help you perform surgery better. Or, if you like business, keep up with what's going on with your practice and maybe invest in some new investments.

 

[Goro]

In addition, the Donald started out his adulthood with a generous chunk of change from hyper wealthy dad. If he had simply invested that in the stock market then, he'd have more money today than he does now.

If you try to do too many things at once, you won't do any of them well. I've never seen Trump's TV show, so I won't comment about that, but have you actually read any of his books? The way "Crippled America" abuses the English language is atrocious. And the man has also filed for corporate bankruptcy four times, which he brags about. I suppose given his net worth that you could call repeated bankruptcy filings an effective business strategy, but I'd imagine his creditors don't see it that way.

 

[Law2Doc]

In addition, the Donald started out his adulthood with a generous chunk of change from hyper wealthy dad. If he had simply invested that in the stock market then, he'd have more money today than he does now.

Yeah I think that's lost on a lot of people. He started out rich, went bankrupt multiple times, basically had to abandon his mismanaged Atlantic City casinos. If not for being such an entertaining showman, he really wouldn't be where he is today. His TV presence and celebrity have kept him afloat, made him a mint, DESPITE his horrible business sense. He really should be much richer than he is today but his lack of understanding of the "art of the deal" has essentially lost him more money than most of us can dream of. So if he's the poster boy for the kind of Renaissance man OP is talking about, let's not encourage that.

 

[DrMikeP]

I was thinking about how a lawyer could benefit from having medical knowledge and this might be one time a Caribbean school could be useful. You could get a law degree and pass the bar. Then go to a Caribbean med school with the goal of getting basic 4yrs of medical knowledge with never really fighting for residency or practicing. Just an option if you wanted to put yourself on the supreme court path and argue a complex medical case from a position of knowledge. It would also avoid your taking a spot from someone who wants medicine as a career. Just a thought.

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[QofQuimica]

I was thinking about how a lawyer could benefit from having medical knowledge and this might be one time a Caribbean school could be useful. You could get a law degree and pass the bar. Then go to a Caribbean med school with the goal of getting basic 4yrs of medical knowledge with never really fighting for residency or practicing. Just an option if you wanted to put yourself on the supreme court path and argue a complex medical case from a position of knowledge. It would also avoid your taking a spot from someone who wants medicine as a career. Just a thought.

Would be a lot cheaper and easier to just buy a few medical textbooks on Amazon and read them rather than paying six figures for a worthless Caribbean degree that one will never use. Or just take some biomedical science classes online or at one's local state U, even.

 

[DrMikeP]

Would be a lot cheaper and easier to just buy a few medical textbooks on Amazon and read them rather than paying six figures for a worthless Caribbean degree that one will never use. Or just take some biomedical science classes online or at one's local state U, even.

If someone wants to be like Trump what's money?

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[eteshoe]

If someone wants to be like Trump what's money?

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Lol

 

[Law2Doc]

I was thinking about how a lawyer could benefit from having medical knowledge and this might be one time a Caribbean school could be useful. You could get a law degree and pass the bar. Then go to a Caribbean med school with the goal of getting basic 4yrs of medical knowledge with never really fighting for residency or practicing. Just an option if you wanted to put yourself on the supreme court path and argue a complex medical case from a position of knowledge. It would also avoid your taking a spot from someone who wants medicine as a career. Just a thought.

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Not a good thought. There are a few big problems with this post:
1. If your goal is to argue in front of the Supreme Court, your best path is to do appellate litigation at big law, and a Caribbean degree won't help you there.

2. You don't need a medical degree to argue medical cases. 99.988% of lawyers who practice health law or medmal don't have this degree, and it doesn't make you more marketable. In fact it makes you LESS marketable in law if you have an MD because employers always assume at some point you'll just go practice medicine.

3. Med school is just foundation. You won't have "basic medical knowledge" per se. Med school just a puts you at the level you need to go forth and start to learn to be a doctor. In a way it's a big misnomer -- unlike law school where you come out ready to practice law, med school grads are ready to START their training. You don't really learn the practice of medicine until residency, and without residency you have about as much to add as someone who has read a few books on the subject. (As Q suggested above).

4. Offshore schools don't open doors in other professions any more than in medicine. Big law law firms will care more about pedigree than medicine.

5. The time you spend in an offshore school could be much better served getting good as a lawyer. Law is a field that gets much harder to break into the longer after law school you wait. Your law school classmates may be far into their careers before you get a foot into the door.

6. There are many threads and blogs And websites out there about why the dual MD/JD combo makes no sense, that no employers seek this combo, that you will inevitably have to choose one or the other field, that you won't get paid more to have both degrees, and so on. It's more about deferring a decision to later than any increased marketability. You are trying to compound those issues by throwing Caribbean into the mix, so that you now don't even have the option to pick one of those fields, basically a lawyer who gets to start work later. Why would this make sense to anyone? It's a step worse than worthless.

In short what you are suggesting is a bad idea, and won't get you to where you want to go. It probably means you'll have an extra worthless degree to hang on the dashboard of the uber car you'll be driving.

 

[DrMikeP]

Not a good thought. There are a few big problems with this post:
1. If your goal is to argue in front of the Supreme Court, your best path is to do appellate litigation at big law, and a Caribbean degree won't help you there.

2. You don't need a medical degree to argue medical cases. 99.988% of lawyers who practice health law or medmal don't have this degree, and it doesn't make you more marketable. In fact it makes you LESS marketable in law if you have an MD because employers always assume at some point you'll just go practice medicine.

3. Med school is just foundation. You won't have "basic medical knowledge" per se. Med school just a puts you at the level you need to go forth and start to learn to be a doctor. In a way it's a big misnomer -- unlike law school where you come out ready to practice law, med school grads are ready to START their training. You don't really learn the practice of medicine until residency, and without residency you have about as much to add as someone who has read a few books on the subject. (As Q suggested above).

4. Offshore schools don't open doors in other professions any more than in medicine. Big law law firms will care more about pedigree than medicine.

5. The time you spend in an offshore school could be much better served getting good as a lawyer. Law is a field that gets much harder to break into the longer after law school you wait. Your law school classmates may be far into their careers before you get a foot into the door.

6. There are many threads and blogs And websites out there about why the dual MD/JD combo makes no sense, that no employers seek this combo, that you will inevitably have to choose one or the other field, that you won't get paid more to have both degrees, and so on. It's more about deferring a decision to later than any increased marketability. You are trying to compound those issues by throwing Caribbean into the mix, so that you now don't even have the option to pick one of those fields, basically a lawyer who gets to start work later. Why would this make sense to anyone? It's a step worse than worthless.

In short what you are suggesting is a bad idea, and won't get you to where you want to go. It probably means you'll have an extra worthless degree to hang on the dashboard of the uber car you'll be driving.

LOL... Yes it was a bad idea. My thought was actually more of don't take a slot away from someone who really wants to be a physician if you don't want to practice. OP is wanting to be a lawyer or politician not a doc.

Notice my suggestion of do law first, which odds are extremely good that it would end there or after law school the op would be older than 17yo and much wiser.

Sorry for tossing a nonserious suggestion out and making you type such a long response. Good argument tho you should consider law. lol

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[Law2Doc]

Lots of young ambitious people who know nothing about future careers, but have been in school their whole life, tend to get confused by all the positive feedback they get in their current educational endeavors, and start to feel like more degrees should necessarily be better. It's why certain dual degree programs (MD/JD, MD/MBA, etc) generate so much revenue for schools despite extremely dubious statistics in terms of value added to future careers. But the truth of the matter is, society values someone who excels at one thing more than the guy who dabbles at two. A few extra years of solid experience at a job usually far outweighs any additional certificate you could have on your wall. The people most impressed by these academic laurels tend not to be employers.

 

[Goro]

1000% agree. Of the many treasured pieces of advice my thesis advisor gave to me, one of the most important was "do one thing, and do it well."

Lots of young ambitious people who know nothing about future careers, but have been in school their whole life, tend to get confused by all the positive feedback they get in their current educational endeavors, and start to feel like more degrees should necessarily be better. It's why certain dual degree programs (MD/JD, MD/MBA, etc) generate so much revenue for schools despite extremely dubious statistics in terms of value added to future careers. But the truth of the matter is, society values someone who excels at one thing more than the guy who dabbles at two. A few extra years of solid experience at a job usually far outweighs any additional certificate you could have on your wall. The people most impressed by these academic laurels tend not to be employers.

 

[Nasrudin]

There's getting lot's of pointless degrees and then there's just being a natural human being with interest in multiple domains of existence.

Myself, I will not go quietly. I will continue to play my guitar to riotous crowds. Even if I'm alone in my apartment. Imagining everything.

Sure. Being brilliant at what you do is valuable. But the route towards that brilliance is not linearly correlated to immersion into modern industrial concepts and sexless Protestant exclusion of distraction.

The point about academics is ironic. Because they emphasis a ridiculous level of specialization. To the extent of making themselves useless.

Going forward I think a person should think of the development of multi-dimensional awesome ness of the self. And market that as the product.

That's what I'm doin.

And I think, if you have the sense to join my cult, you'll follow me. Don't at your own peril in the End Times.

 

[Law2Doc]

There's getting lot's of pointless degrees and then there's just being a natural human being with interest in multiple domains of existence.

Myself, I will not go quietly. I will continue to play my guitar to riotous crowds. Even if I'm alone in my apartment. Imagining everything.

Sure. Being brilliant at what you do is valuable. But the route towards that brilliance is not linearly correlated to immersion into modern industrial concepts and sexless Protestant exclusion of distraction.

The point about academics is ironic. Because they emphasis a ridiculous level of specialization. To the extent of making themselves useless.

Going forward I think a person should think of the development of multi-dimensional awesome ness of the self. And market that as the product.

That's what I'm doin.

And I think, if you have the sense to join my cult, you'll follow me. Don't at your own peril in the End Times.

There a huge difference between having multiple interests like "playing guitar", and saying you are going to try and practice competently at two full time long houred professions simultaneously. Hobbies are great, everyone should have one or two. Full time careers however you need to do one (at a time), and not dabble.

 

[QofQuimica]

There's getting lot's of pointless degrees and then there's just being a natural human being with interest in multiple domains of existence.

Myself, I will not go quietly. I will continue to play my guitar to riotous crowds. Even if I'm alone in my apartment. Imagining everything.

Sure. Being brilliant at what you do is valuable. But the route towards that brilliance is not linearly correlated to immersion into modern industrial concepts and sexless Protestant exclusion of distraction.

The point about academics is ironic. Because they emphasis a ridiculous level of specialization. To the extent of making themselves useless.

Going forward I think a person should think of the development of multi-dimensional awesome ness of the self. And market that as the product.

That's what I'm doin.

And I think, if you have the sense to join my cult, you'll follow me. Don't at your own peril in the End Times.

I would argue that while becoming a Renaissance man is a good goal from the perspective of your own personal growth and self-actualization, it's not generally what the modern employer wants to pay you for. Thus, as long as you are in a position where you are forced to work for money, you are kind of boxed in to provide the kinds of single-specialty services that employers want from employees. The answer, to my mind, is to put yourself into a position where you can make paid work optional. Then you can spend your time learning and doing what matters to you instead of what matters to whomever has the ability to pay you. If you've never read the Early Retirement Extreme book by Jacob Lund Fisker, I highly recommend it. And prepare to have your mind be blown.

 

[Nasrudin]

Yeah. Maybe it was a tedious topic.

I'm just reacting to the emphasis on what employers value. And the idea of specializing accordingly.

I just think that leads to sadness. Despair. Moral decrepitude. Humorlessness. And general unfunkyness.

So, I plan on making something of renaissance .... what a lovely word by the way... not just the accumulation of this and that thing for the articulation of comparative sophistication... but the real meaning... a phase of growth, creativity, rebirth and transformation. And putting it into my work. Or die tryin.

But then again... I have the benefit of singular private practice and styling myself in any direction I want. Calling it Nasrudin therapy. And setting up for come who may.

That and i fight for souls. at the edge of civilization.

(can a mf'er get some finger snaps up in this b!tch. haha)