Is anyone else fed up with these lifestyle threads?
Medicine is a calling for most of us. Much of the reason we are entrusted with the privilege to care for others is that we sacrifice for it. They can count on us. This notion that "well I just want banker's hours, not much to do during those hours, no call, and a lot of money," gives the entire field a bad image.
If you want to play doctor, but not have the responsibilities that come with it, there are other pathways to clinical medicine.
You simply can not expect to have your cake, and eat it too.
Good grief. As a plumb average MS ~ 2 months, can you please tell us more about your "notions of medicine"? Or how much you "will care just as much as any other physician out there"? With the questions you keep asking, you won't. You simply won't. Lots of physicians will care way more than you do. They will work harder than you; they will study harder than you (NB: they never stop studying); and they will spend more time perfecting their craft than you do. And that's just how it is if "lifestyle" is what you're after. Accept it and move on, but why are you lecturing real doctors (and good people) like @neusu about how wonderful you'll be, and how everybody will consider you to be their equal when you don't want to work as hard as they do? Not going to happen. Most doctors strive for balance but anybody who says you can have it all is a fool. You don't want to work that hard? Fine. No shame. Do what feels right. But stop pretending you will be regarded equal to anybody until you actually are.
In the real world, the majority of doctors 1) work really damn hard, and 2) expect to be compensated for it. There is no martyrdom. There are no shortcuts. There are only sharks who want to pick your pockets clean, and patients who need your help.
I don't think that worrying about lifestyle makes you a bad doctor, or an undedicated doctor, or a lazy doctor, either.
To put things in context, I am a primary care physician at a community health center. I see an almost exclusively Medicaid/uninsured population. I work long hours, for low pay. I know that I am underpaid according to market value for my geographic area. But, honestly, me and many of my colleagues would say that we ARE driven by a true calling - a calling to help underserved patients who would otherwise get no care or shoddy care elsewhere.
Despite that "calling," I am still very territorial about my weekends, and do not fault my colleagues for being territorial about their evenings and weekends either. Because, honestly, treating medicine as a calling only gets you so far. Your patients will not care about your wellbeing the way that your parents do. Your patients will not satisfy your need for love and intimacy the way that your spouse does. No matter how much your patients profess to love you, their opinion can easily change the second you deny their pain meds, antibiotics, or turn them away for being excessively late to their appointment.
And, honestly, we can throw around the phrase "medicine is a calling!" all we want, but how far down that rabbit hole do you really want to go? Medicine is enough of a calling for you that you're willing to work over 60 hours a week and take away time from your family. But is medicine enough of a calling for you that you're willing to work at a community health center and make $40K less than you would elsewhere? Is medicine enough of a calling for you that you work for free? Is medicine enough of a calling that you'll retire at 75, instead of 65? Is medicine enough of a calling that you will NEVER take ANY vacation at all?
And I think that we need to stop equating "lifestyle" with "lazy." Because we, of all people, should recognize that life is precious and not guaranteed to any of us - so whatever opportunity we get to maximize the time with people that we love should be taken. I don't think that there is any shame in that.
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