Forget free pens, what about free lunches? (Gotta love those drug reps.) And the periodic free dinners? Think about it. If you get just three free lunches/dinners per week, averaging about $25/meal (yes, they do spend that much, and more), working about 45 weeks a year, over a thirty-year medical career, that's worth... 3*25*45*30 = $101,250! Who said med school couldn't pay for itself?
Also, the fact that people address you as "Dr." rather than "Mr." or "Ms." or whatever. Not quite as cool as, say, "your beatitude" or "the honorable," but still kind of nice.
But seriously, being a doctor is a truly great way to use your innate talents and hard-earned skills to understand the workings of the human body and to alleviate human suffering... two of the great driving forces behind science and medicine. Even if they don't interact with patients on a day-to-day basis, physicians are serving in, arguably, one of the noblest professions in society. Not only does medicine appreciate the fantastic complexity of the human body, but it also seeks to understand it and make it better. Not only does it recognize the immense value of a human life, but it also strives to preserve and honor its dignity.
Depending on your personality, medicine is also great if you love a challenge, love to solve problems, love to teach and to learn, love to communicate with others... sure there are a lot of downsides, but if medicine's the right thing for you, then in the end, I have no doubt that it's really, really rewarding.
