COULD you do it again?

Although I am generally content where I am at this point, I most definitely would not do it again knowing what I know now. I wouldn't mind going thru my undergrad years again, even with all the difficulty of my premed courses and chem major, because I loved those courses and I still could do a lot with them if I wanted to. Just wouldn't choose medicine again.

I might choose medicine, but I wouldn't get an MD degree if I had to do it all again. Even as I look back as a non-trad applying to medical school, I really had no true concept of what medicine is really about. I hate to be negative, but the lack of efficiency under which the practice of medicine runs is sickening.

Added to that, for some reason those in medicine like to torture those below them in rank. Third year students are constantly amazed at how quickly residents and attendings have forgotten what it's like to be in their shoes. Interns get completely crapped on by those who were in their shoes just a few short years ago. Senior residents take abuse from above and simply displace it to those below. Attendings take abuse from ungrateful patients who have absolutely no understanding of what their doctor has gone through to get to the point of providing care. It's a completely ******ed social system, something along the lines of a fraternity gone bad. Except that a fraternity that operates like medicine would've been kicked off campus long ago for its sick hazing rituals.

Compare what it takes to get an MD to that required to get a PA or a nursing degree. And I'm not even talking about years of education. I'm talking amount of abuse taken and degree of freedom given up to obtain an MD degree. I rarely meet PAs who are unsupportive of one another, and yet this is almost encouraged during training in the MD world. WTF.

Short answer...no, I don't think I'd do it again. You can help people with just about any job in life, and making a buck is much easier in many, many other fields these days.

docB said:

I was thinking how much work and focus it took to get into and through med school. I kept myself motivated with this dream of being a doctor. Like everyone else I really didn’t know what it was going to be like but I had all kinds of preconceptions to keep me warm at night.

At this point I know that medicine has some good points, lots of bad points and an uncertain future. I have been disillusioned but not in an overly negative way. I have been convinced that medicine is more like any other day to day grind of a job than we’d like to admit. It happens to everyone. Reality pushes out the idealism.

That said I don’t know if I could motivate myself to have the kind of dedication that was necessary to get me here again. I don’t think I could buckle down and survive O-chem again if I had to. Would you be able to put in the long nights on the books knowing what the long nights on the wards are really like? Could you prep for the MCAT without surfing around and looking at business schools? It’s not about would you, could you do it again?

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could i do it again, sure. i did it once, i could do it again.

would i do it again is a different question, lol. i don't think that i would do it again! but, you didn't ask that.

knowing what i know now, it would be damn hard to choose this route again. being on call all night didn't sound bad when thinking/dreaming about being a doctor... dealing with patients at all times of the day sounded good... interacting wiht nursing staff... getting called from the er...

but in the end, for all the negatives, i do enjoy what i do. and for that, i could do it.

I seem to have lost my ability to sit and study for hours on end. I probably could regain the skill, but I'm not 100% certain of that.

I probably answered your question wrong earlier. I believe that I could do it again. I just wouldn't want to.

There is no freaking way I would do this again. I'd rather be an orthodontist or go into business.

I might do it again, but I don't think I could. And I don't mean that I couldn't learn all that crap over again.

What I mean is, once I would get to the wards, first time some snotty OB/Gyn intern, for example, scutted me out I would tell him/her to shove it. I would probably fail out.

Hmm.. unlike the others, I feel I COULD easily do it again.

The question of WOULD I do it again knowing what I know now? No.

I could definitely do the academic stuff again, I loved Ochem and the people who taught those courses (at my program) were great! I worked hard, but I just loved the stuff I learned in physics. Plus, I got to know some really cool graduate students in chem/physics. They were doing some mean-ass stuff.

As for med school and beyond, well let's just say that I agree with what people have said above. And that goes for the ob experiences, and the lack of long-term memory some senior people have. Who was that guy who had the hippocampal surgery and then, every few minutes he would introduce himself all over again? I'd like to think it is a memory thing and not that they are choosing to behave like this towards underlings and students. It takes a huge amount of energy to separate out that kind of behavior from the intellectual enjoyment of providing good clinical care (and seeing some cool cases!) and getting to know some great patients and colleagues.

Not just no... hell no. I like health care though. I actually spend a lot more time than I am comfortable with dreaming about what could have been. I just read that mean incomes for CNA's is @130K. I could have had a life, nice clothes, friends that I liked... going to go cry now.

wow, so many no's on this one.

I would NO DOUBT do the same thing over again. My family is in business and dont' really care what I do and say that I'll probably do some stuff with the family business when I'm done... and even though that might be true, because i'm pretty good in business i think haha, I would do it all over.

Even right now, I'd go back, would seem kind of weird, but I guess if you erased all my medical knowledge, it would be fun again...or maybe I NEED to go back to med school so I can remember some of that stuff.

either way, my answer is a big yes.

ok, i admit, except for the ob part...i dont know if i could do two more months of that...

I think I could but if I got transported back in time, I would have probably gone the dentistry route. It's so much less training and once in practice the hours are nice and the pay is very solid. Play golf on Fridays with the rest of my dentist friends. Oh well.

Do it again? Yes. But I'm an MS4 so what do I know? I may have done pharmacy school prior to med school though as a good backup or stuck with engineering.

Just wondering, but for the people that posted in this thread, what is your specialty?

Oh I love what I do too. It's just tough in the midst of residency not to have some lust over your friends the dentists who make 180k a year and work 4 days a week. Plus, they've been in practice almost 4 years now too.

I'm in ENT.

I would do it again if:

• I dropped the double major, just went pre-med and history.
• I went to a different med school - one that acutally cared about me as a person.
• I stayed in pediatrics and went to the same residency program. My colleages rocked!
• I stayed in pediatric emergency medicine, and hopefully figured out what I wanted to do a bit earlier.

If I had done the above, I probably would have matched into a pediatric emergency medicine fellowship by now. But I wouldn't be making as much money... trade offs, trade offs.

I really can't see myself doing anything other than medicine. There are two times I'm consistently happy - with my husband and at work.

I posted that I wouldn't do it again knowing what I know now, which is true....but man does Gastroenterology kick ass---pun intended!!

Pir8DeacDoc said:

Oh I love what I do too. It's just tough in the midst of residency not to have some lust over your friends the dentists who make 180k a year and work 4 days a week. Plus, they've been in practice almost 4 years now too.

I'm in ENT.

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My good buddy started Dentistry school at the same time as I started med school, but he will be making serious money for at least 3 years while I slave away in residency. Kind of makes me think about listening to my dad and becoming the dentist he always wanted to become.

Looks like I will be renting a room in their triplex until I can make enough money to buy my own..haha.. oh the irony of how doctors are viewed and what we really go through...

I am just a lowly pre-med, but I try to learn from those ahead of me...and boy have I learned a lil bit today. I have a few questions for whoever is qualified to answer though;

I realized that the "no" that I'm hearing are coming mostly from Residents, is it because you guys are worked like modern day slaves or what?

Do you guys think it will be better when you become attendings...maybe your perspectives will change?

I admire medicine, but I also have an original business/investing mind which I constantly think about developing even bigger......now, is medicine really that terrifying down the road or are you beautiful souls just not so fond of your environments? I'm asking because your answers will either cause me to look even deeper into this or just consider it a phase.

Thank you all

FutureeMD said:

I admire medicine, but I also have an original business/investing mind which I constantly think about developing even bigger......now, is medicine really that terrifying down the road or are you beautiful souls just not so fond of your environments? I'm asking because your answers will either cause me to look even deeper into this or just consider it a phase.

Thank you all

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Keep in mind that many physicians lack any real business savvy, so if you are a physician with business/investing savvy, then you will have a guaranteed income to supplement your growing portfolio/assets.

FutureeMD said:

I am just a lowly pre-med, but I try to learn from those ahead of me...and boy have I learned a lil bit today. I have a few questions for whoever is qualified to answer though;

I realized that the "no" that I'm hearing are coming mostly from Residents, is it because you guys are worked like modern day slaves or what?

Do you guys think it will be better when you become attendings...maybe your perspectives will change?

I admire medicine, but I also have an original business/investing mind which I constantly think about developing even bigger......now, is medicine really that terrifying down the road or are you beautiful souls just not so fond of your environments? I'm asking because your answers will either cause me to look even deeper into this or just consider it a phase.

Thank you all

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Non-trad here. I've done business, owned my own business, been sued, sued, made little money, made good money, went to med school...
While you complain about medicine...let me give you a couple of complaints about business.
So, you own your own business: Start up costs - 100K gets you started (and it goes fast!!!). You have rent on a building, equipment, trademarks, insurance, accounting, advertising/marketing (full page ad in yellow pages 100k/year!!). Then you've got to find employees. Now it gets interesting. Whom do you hire? Do you own a contracting firm and need illegals to work for you (pay them cash, know they will be there everyday work hard and long and risk having uncle sam come knockin') or do you hire an american (pay them the same with a check (hope they have a checking acct.) not work as hard (no work ethic left in american labor) and not know if they will show up b/c their girlfriend got drunk the night before and they need to stay with them or they got a DUI last night and could find a ride or they need an advance on their paycheck b/c they got bills (code for need to buy drugs tonight for the party), etc.. Decisions...decisions. Ok, you've got people and a place...where are the customers to buy a service/product that you have that you need them to buy b/c you have bills to pay too. You've gotta sell, sell, sell...something that they NEED..right now!
You've sold a job, now you do the job. Now, you've got to collect the job. You call the customer and can't get a hold of them (shocking!). Two days later (and 15 calls) they call and say...uhhh you left something over here and we didn't know you were finished. You say, we're done, I need to come over and get paid. They say, we will put that in the mail (you say...send it to Mr. Blue...cause you'll be holding your breath!, becoming ever more hypoxic waiting). You end up suing the guy for non-payment, putting a lein on his house so he can't sell it until he ponies up and call him to tell him such. Is it fun yet?
Now, think about that scenerio and multiply it by 15-30 customers a month. Just like medicine..not everyone is happy to pay you! Some are... some aren't. All people don't like to part with a few thousand/ten thousand smackers right before Christmas. But...you've got bills to pay too!
People are people.

I'd do medicine again in a heartbeat!!
Enjoy!

McSnappy said:

Non-trad here. I've done business, owned my own business, been sued, sued, made little money, made good money, went to med school...
While you complain about medicine...let me give you a couple of complaints about business.
So, you own your own business: Start up costs - 100K gets you started (and it goes fast!!!). You have rent on a building, equipment, trademarks, insurance, accounting, advertising/marketing (full page ad in yellow pages 100k/year!!). Then you've got to find employees. Now it gets interesting. Whom do you hire? Do you own a contracting firm and need illegals to work for you (pay them cash, know they will be there everyday work hard and long and risk having uncle sam come knockin') or do you hire an american (pay them the same with a check (hope they have a checking acct.) not work as hard (no work ethic left in american labor) and not know if they will show up b/c their girlfriend got drunk the night before and they need to stay with them or they got a DUI last night and could find a ride or they need an advance on their paycheck b/c they got bills (code for need to buy drugs tonight for the party), etc.. Decisions...decisions. Ok, you've got people and a place...where are the customers to buy a service/product that you have that you need them to buy b/c you have bills to pay too. You've gotta sell, sell, sell...something that they NEED..right now!
You've sold a job, now you do the job. Now, you've got to collect the job. You call the customer and can't get a hold of them (shocking!). Two days later (and 15 calls) they call and say...uhhh you left something over here and we didn't know you were finished. You say, we're done, I need to come over and get paid. They say, we will put that in the mail (you say...send it to Mr. Blue...cause you'll be holding your breath!, becoming ever more hypoxic waiting). You end up suing the guy for non-payment, putting a lein on his house so he can't sell it until he ponies up and call him to tell him such. Is it fun yet?
Now, think about that scenerio and multiply it by 15-30 customers a month. Just like medicine..not everyone is happy to pay you! Some are... some aren't. All people don't like to part with a few thousand/ten thousand smackers right before Christmas. But...you've got bills to pay too!
People are people.

I'd do medicine again in a heartbeat!!
Enjoy!

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mm.. much of what you said does happen here in medicine in private practice. Perhaps you are too young in your career to see it and you might be lucky/unlucky enough not to own your own private practice and have to chase people/companies/reps for whatever.

Either case, it was really a debate of could you and not would you... and since you are an MS... can you really say "could you again" considering you haven't yet even once?

On we continue....

McGillGrad said:

Keep in mind that many physicians lack any real business savvy, so if you are a physician with business/investing savvy, then you will have a guaranteed income to supplement your growing portfolio/assets.

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I plan on using that to my advantage in medicine. But since I have a long way to go, I can't help but wonder why many people are deciding not to do it again. But thanx for the insight though.

McSnappy said:

Non-trad here. I've done business, owned my own business, been sued, sued, made little money, made good money, went to med school...
While you complain about medicine...let me give you a couple of complaints about business.
So, you own your own business: Start up costs - 100K gets you started (and it goes fast!!!). You have rent on a building, equipment, trademarks, insurance, accounting, advertising/marketing (full page ad in yellow pages 100k/year!!). Then you've got to find employees. Now it gets interesting. Whom do you hire? Do you own a contracting firm and need illegals to work for you (pay them cash, know they will be there everyday work hard and long and risk having uncle sam come knockin') or do you hire an american (pay them the same with a check (hope they have a checking acct.) not work as hard (no work ethic left in american labor) and not know if they will show up b/c their girlfriend got drunk the night before and they need to stay with them or they got a DUI last night and could find a ride or they need an advance on their paycheck b/c they got bills (code for need to buy drugs tonight for the party), etc.. Decisions...decisions. Ok, you've got people and a place...where are the customers to buy a service/product that you have that you need them to buy b/c you have bills to pay too. You've gotta sell, sell, sell...something that they NEED..right now!
You've sold a job, now you do the job. Now, you've got to collect the job. You call the customer and can't get a hold of them (shocking!). Two days later (and 15 calls) they call and say...uhhh you left something over here and we didn't know you were finished. You say, we're done, I need to come over and get paid. They say, we will put that in the mail (you say...send it to Mr. Blue...cause you'll be holding your breath!, becoming ever more hypoxic waiting). You end up suing the guy for non-payment, putting a lein on his house so he can't sell it until he ponies up and call him to tell him such. Is it fun yet?
Now, think about that scenerio and multiply it by 15-30 customers a month. Just like medicine..not everyone is happy to pay you! Some are... some aren't. All people don't like to part with a few thousand/ten thousand smackers right before Christmas. But...you've got bills to pay too!
People are people.

I'd do medicine again in a heartbeat!!
Enjoy!

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I appreciate you sharing your experience, but first, I don't have much complain about medicine since I'm yet to even get into the thick of things. And secondly, if I were to go into business, I would do something math/stats related such as finance or even actuary. I understand that it might not be a smooth ride, but neither is medicine.

However, I am still amazed by the amount of "No, I would not do it again" that's on this thread. I hope some of you guys will share your experiences with the pre-meds so we know exactly what we will be facing 4+ years down the line. We get alot of partial information, but we need some real talk!!!!

Thanx y'all. I wish you all the very best.

YES! I would definitely do it again. Going through pre-med and med school again would suck but if the pay-off is being an emergency physician... sign me up.

Emergency Medicine

FutureeMD said:

I plan on using that to my advantage in medicine. But since I have a long way to go, I can't help but wonder why many people are deciding not to do it again. But thanx for the insight though.

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It seems that a good number of current physicians went into medicine for the wrong reasons, or for reasons that do not exist anymore (high pay, respect and relatively unquestioned authority). If you go into medicine with a realistic attitude about the hardships and the will power to choose your specialty by how much you enjoy it (not by the hours or pay) then you will probably do it all over again.

Although I cannot speak from experience, this is the pattern I have seen over the years of talking to physicians in the US and Canada.

I think all your complaints about medicine are actually about the US medical system, and practicing medicine in your country; not about medicine itself.
I really don't want to start a topic about the US medical system so let's just say a big part of your practice is actually being controled by big insurance companies (corportate devils), which makes medicine even more lucrative than in any other country, that, among other things are the reason why the US in NOT the best country to practice medicine, at least not in these days, I still understand you want to work in your home country.

P.d: It seems to me that medicine in the US is sort of "over-specialized" because there are so many physicians, this causes only monotony (doctors work with just a few diseases), of couse this doesn't aply for all specialities...please correct me if Im wrong.

I have also lost the ability to sit and study for hours on end. Getting through a journal article in one sitting is an accomplishment for me these days...

docB said:

So just to clarify, the question is COULD you do it again. Could you motivate yourself to put in the hours of study needed to get through premed, MCAT and med school knowing what you know now at your current level.

The WOULD you do it again thread is here:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=195799
I don't want to stifle discussion but I also wasn't intending to create a redundant thread.

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I could, would, should, pretty much any 'ould' ya got.

Lots of people do in fact do it over again as far as residency goes. Think of all the IMGs who are already established attendings back in their countries but who have to start residency over from day 1 over here. I knew of a surgery resident who was an attending and the chairman of his department in his country but he was back to PGY1 over here. Imagine being at the very top of the ladder and then getting here and being back to an intern taking orders from residents still in their 20s.

Hell's yeah I could/would do it again. Med school was fun and low-stress, intern year is going just fine, and I'm looking at the prospect of a flexible, independent, well-reimbursed career with excellent job security, doing something I enjoy. That's not what I started out to find when I was young and idealistic, but at this point in my life I'm quite happy it found me.

What I *wouldn't* do again was my stinkin' PhD. What a waste of time that was.

(R1 psychiatry)

docB said:

I'm fine with journals. I unwrap them, read the contents and put them on the shelf. No problem.

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I ran out of room on the shelf (some of them are hundreds of pages per issue).

I started cutting out the relevant and/or interesting articles and throwing the rest away.

Now I have a box of articles sitting on my shelf.

Southpaw said:

I might choose medicine, but I wouldn't get an MD degree if I had to do it all again. Even as I look back as a non-trad applying to medical school, I really had no true concept of what medicine is really about. I hate to be negative, but the lack of efficiency under which the practice of medicine runs is sickening.

Added to that, for some reason those in medicine like to torture those below them in rank. Third year students are constantly amazed at how quickly residents and attendings have forgotten what it's like to be in their shoes. Interns get completely crapped on by those who were in their shoes just a few short years ago. Senior residents take abuse from above and simply displace it to those below. Attendings take abuse from ungrateful patients who have absolutely no understanding of what their doctor has gone through to get to the point of providing care. It's a completely ******ed social system, something along the lines of a fraternity gone bad. Except that a fraternity that operates like medicine would've been kicked off campus long ago for its sick hazing rituals.

Compare what it takes to get an MD to that required to get a PA or a nursing degree. And I'm not even talking about years of education. I'm talking amount of abuse taken and degree of freedom given up to obtain an MD degree. I rarely meet PAs who are unsupportive of one another, and yet this is almost encouraged during training in the MD world. WTF.

Short answer...no, I don't think I'd do it again. You can help people with just about any job in life, and making a buck is much easier in many, many other fields these days.

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really nice post south paw.. very insightful post and i hope many people read it


I never wanted to hit so many people during every step of the way for having such a lack of respect for me as a human being. It was like they wanted me to fail. throwing up road blocks.. I met some positive people as well but they were far outnumbered by the jerks. I wouldnt do it again and I absolutely couldnt.. Honestly, I hate to say it but I would rather flip burgers.. or go from one 8 dollar an hour job to the next before i went back..

Part of "Could you do it again" is not just sitting down and memorizing. The "could you" part really depends on how much abuse you took the first time. Those minimally abused probably still have the energy and mental support to redo the whole process again. It's really really hard to learn something if you don't respect why you are trying to learn it. If you hate medicine, it will be hard to convince yourself that you need to know the name of the enzyme missing in the Kreb cycle because someone you meet might have that disease. Rewards (positive reinforcements) do help a person to learn something. Like giving your kid tickets to go to a movie for scoring an A. How rewarded did you feel in your career process?



MDs look at each other as competition because they can't unionize or unite. Since you and the other 5 surgeons in town can't unite on what you should charge for a lap appy, you view the rest as your competition.

Truly, our system is socialized medicine (we just dont know it).

1) EMTALA (nuff said there).
2) Inability to combine fronts vs the combined front of insurance companies.
3) Insurance companies actually base their payments on medicare making it like a single payer system, except that the insurance companies are pocketing profits.

We might as well just make it fully socialized and get it over with. The problem is that the specialties that are making the big $$ will bitch and moan. Tell an intensive cardiologist that he wont be making $350k a year and instead he will make $200k a year but work only half as much and you will watch him get mad. So essentially, we have conflicting ends in the medical field. The specialties closer to primary care would welcome universal healthcare (Family Med, Internal Med, OBGYN, Pediatrics....etc). The subspecialties and specialties far from primary care will have a fit (Dermatology, Radiology, Cardiology, Radiation Oncology, Neurosurgery... etc).

The system can potentially crash when: a) Primary care hits rock bottom and suddenly the mid levels take it over claiming they can do better or b) Subspecialties finally get hit hard enough that they finally agree with the primary care that they should do universal healthcare.

.

I'm kind of surprised at how many people say they wouldn't or couldn't do it again. But I suppose another way of looking at it is that people are saying they wouldn't do twice the amount of schooling for the same pay off?

It's really amazing when you think about some of the FMG's who come over here, already doctors in their home country, and who do residency all over again.