Back to computer programming for a living?

[W116]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I'd really appreciate insight from physicians, or people who had professional jobs before medical school.

I utterly hate medical school. Not the people or the school. Just the work. It is so different than my engineering background.

In the short 2 months I've been an M1 I've made some really great friends and like my teachers and some of my class mates.

I was a programmer for 15 years before medical school. I'm thinking about dropping out and returning to programming.

I just feel like I won't enjoy patient care. I thought I would, but realize I'd probably rather be engineering software.

So should this M1 drop out? I've got a family, I'm pushing 40 and I hate my wife supporting the family. If I get a programming job again, I'll make around 60,000 for the next couple years and then likely move up to around 80,000. Nothing near a doctor, but I know I'd enjoy the work more if I get in with a good company. And I could start supporting my family again, and actually seeing them on the weekends instead of studying.

 

[BluMist]

maybe you meant to post in allo instead of pre-medical?

in any case, I'm interested in what your experiences have been. I've been working as an engineer for the past decade and looking to go back to school.

 

[chizledfrmstone]

I'd really appreciate insight from physicians, or people who had professional jobs before medical school.

I utterly hate medical school. Not the people or the school. Just the work. It is so different than my engineering background.

In the short 2 months I've been an M1 I've made some really great friends and like my teachers and some of my class mates.

I was a programmer for 15 years before medical school. I'm thinking about dropping out and returning to programming.

I just feel like I won't enjoy patient care. I thought I would, but realize I'd probably rather be engineering software.

So should this M1 drop out? I've got a family, I'm pushing 40 and I hate my wife supporting the family. If I get a programming job again, I'll make around 60,000 for the next couple years and then likely move up to around 80,000. Nothing near a doctor, but I know I'd enjoy the work more if I get in with a good company. And I could start supporting my family again, and actually seeing them on the weekends instead of studying.

What made you leave programming originally and do you think you will be happy if you went back?

We can't make a life altering decision for you. You worked hard to get into medical school so are you willing to drop it and move on?

 

[chooks]

Yes. You should drop out and consider half year med school tuition to be a wise investment in not having regrets later in life.

Before I get accused of not being supportive or what not, let me assure you that having spent nearly two decades in software development i am very familiar with the field. Ten of those years were as FTE, W2, and 1099 work. I started med school 10 years ago and am now just starting to reach the end and am interviewing for jobs. During med school I worked 3 out of 4 years in a contract software job. My current research is in computational approaches to some medical research areas. Here is why you should leave:

1. You are 2 months in and you hate it. You have MINIMUM 7 more years left. 7 more years of barely seeing your family. Seven more years of constant stress, evaluations, and general hoop jumping. Then the debt repayments.
2. You already hate it
3. See 1 and 2 above.

You're 40 with a family. Time is not on your side with this game. At This point the financial aspects of medicine barely break even. The emotional opportunity costs are just going to get worse. If you like software, then follow your heart with it. There are many exciting things going on in the field and with some medical background you could probably parley this into something lucrative. I don't know what place you are working at where 15 years of experience is making only 60k, but I am sure you could easily do better. Most devs I know make about the same as a beginning family med doc [in the low to mid 100k] at this point in their careers (20 years experience ).

If you were passionate about medicine and couldn't see yourself being happy doing anything else, it might be a different story. But the fact that you can see yourself being happy doing something else, and you already don't like your current medical path does not bode well for your overall medical career and life satisfaction. Failing fast is a feature, not a bug.

I don't mean to crush your medical dreams but it sounds like they are turning into nightmares. Good luck with your decision.

Chooks

 

[bashwell]

I'd really appreciate insight from physicians, or people who had professional jobs before medical school.

I utterly hate medical school. Not the people or the school. Just the work. It is so different than my engineering background.

In the short 2 months I've been an M1 I've made some really great friends and like my teachers and some of my class mates.

I was a programmer for 15 years before medical school. I'm thinking about dropping out and returning to programming.

I just feel like I won't enjoy patient care. I thought I would, but realize I'd probably rather be engineering software.

So should this M1 drop out? I've got a family, I'm pushing 40 and I hate my wife supporting the family. If I get a programming job again, I'll make around 60,000 for the next couple years and then likely move up to around 80,000. Nothing near a doctor, but I know I'd enjoy the work more if I get in with a good company. And I could start supporting my family again, and actually seeing them on the weekends instead of studying.

Before I begin, I should provide you with my own background. I have a bachelor's degree in computer science, worked for a couple of years (i.e. much less than 15 years so I don't have the strong knowledge and experience you have), got accepted to a PhD in computer science at a prestigious place, but then dropped out after less than a year for med school. Personally, I hated the pre-clinical years too, but I liked the clinical years. I sometimes regret quitting the PhD program, but overall I'm pretty happy with my choice.

1) I definitely agree with a lot of what @chooks has said. And he may well be absolutely correct that you should drop out, cut your (thus far very minimal) losses, and save yourself the years of heartache, etc.

2) At the same time, I don't know if I'd necessarily recommend dropping out just yet. I think that depends. Basically, what I'm saying is it's a bit hard to tell whether the two short months you've been in med school are more like a canary in a mineshaft portending a bleak future for you if you continue down this path; or if the two short months are more like how some people hate learning a second language, hate learning all the tedious grammar, hate the mundane work of vocab memorization, etc., but once they do learn the language well enough to speak and read and write in it, then they finally see what it was all for, and they feel as if it's so rewarding and satisfying to know a second language, to be able to read a classic book like Homer's Iliad or Odyssey or Virgil's Aeneid or whatever in its original tongue.

3) Anyway, as for more practical advice: (a) What does your wife and family think? Obviously talk to them about it all. (b) Also I think we're all assuming you have or will have huge loans like most med students (especially since you mentioned your wife is supporting the family). But that may not necessarily be the case. If your loans are fairly small and otherwise quite manageable, say if you have saved up a lot of money from your previous career, or if your wife has a lucrative job, then you might be able to hang on a bit longer. (c) If you don't like patient contact, and given your programming background, radiology would probably be the most suitable field for you. Maybe you can see if you can spend some time with a radiologist (though you might not learn a whole lot as it might be like watching someone play video games rather than playing video games yourself but still have a look at least), talk to radiologists about their field, its present and future prospects, etc., even as an M1? If radiology is the field most suitable for you, and if you don't like radiology, then it'd make more sense to drop out of med school.

There's a lot more to say but I think these should get you started.

 

[Goro]

How did you NOT know what you were getting into????

I'd really appreciate insight from physicians, or people who had professional jobs before medical school.

I utterly hate medical school. Not the people or the school. Just the work. It is so different than my engineering background.

In the short 2 months I've been an M1 I've made some really great friends and like my teachers and some of my class mates.

I was a programmer for 15 years before medical school. I'm thinking about dropping out and returning to programming.

I just feel like I won't enjoy patient care. I thought I would, but realize I'd probably rather be engineering software.

So should this M1 drop out? I've got a family, I'm pushing 40 and I hate my wife supporting the family. If I get a programming job again, I'll make around 60,000 for the next couple years and then likely move up to around 80,000. Nothing near a doctor, but I know I'd enjoy the work more if I get in with a good company. And I could start supporting my family again, and actually seeing them on the weekends instead of studying.

 

[Meridian32]

I'm also a former software engineer (full time for several years) who is now an intern (first year resident) in internal medicine. On the one hand, the first year of medical school is the least like what medicine is actually like, and was also the time when I thought the hardest about quitting medicine and going back to industry. However, med school became more interesting and satisfying with each passing year (because you learn more about disease and start taking care of patients), and I am currently really enjoying residency and feel that this was the right path for me.

On the other hand, if you hate medical school at this point, that is concerning. You weren't specific about what you hate, but there are a lot of things that get worse after first year - the memorization, studying and constant exams will continue through all of med school and your free time will decrease even more during the clinical years. If you really don't think you will enjoy patient care and you are not going to be a pathologist or radiologist, I agree that it makes sense to cut your losses at this point and return to industry (where, as Chooks said, I'd expect you could make significantly more than $60K).

 

[futuremdforme]

You can always move to San Francisco and make $150k. You probably can't buy a house though, lol.

Are there any non-trads at your school (Current or grads) that you can talk to, to see if it got better for them? Any advisor? If you leave, this is it -- medicine is off the table for you. Since presumably you cared about this enough to leave a good job, I'm going to assume that was pretty important to you. What sort of research into medicine did you do ahead of time?

 

[chizledfrmstone]

How did you NOT know what you were getting into????

It should be a requirement to shadow a medical student or resident before applying to medical school.

 

[W116]

Thank you all so much for your responses! So, I worked at a medical billing company doing programming, mostly web stuff. I worked with a lot of physicians marketing their clinics online. I also worked directly on an EMR developing with programmers in India. The pay was low because it was an academic health center and the development was light, a very cush job. I got bored with it. How can one truly know what they are getting into? My wife is a health care provider, I shadowed for close to 100 hours including radiologists. Yes it is like watching someone play a video game and me not having any real idea what is going on! Seeing and experience are two different things.

I paid for my first semester with cash, and maybe can do that again but years 3-4 will be loans as wife wants to buy a house.

I do hate the fact that I'll just about break even financially for such a lot of work. I thought that Radiology would be the rout I would go too, but I don't know if my scores will be high enough, I'm struggling with the amount of material. I like learning things well from the foundation. I'm just not doing that, I'm doing everything I can just to pass. That is what I find most difficult, working really hard and just barely passing. I have NO background in anatomy, physio, etc. Just the bare classes to take the MCAT, and that was 4 years ago! It's the struggling with the unfamiliarity of it all. Most of my class mates are BS/MDs so even in my late 30's there is only 2 others in the class that are older. We do mock patient interviews already. It's OK, I thought I would really like the interaction. I thought I was missing that from my web programming job. But it's just OK, don't really love it or hate it. It's just artificial.

Since my first test, I feel like radiology is off the table. I may have to repeat a class in the summer. Totally bombed the first test, as my daughter came down with pneumonia and I did as well. Since my wife is in health care, she works long hours and every-other weekend. I'm left taking care of my daughter. That was a big reason I did so poorly the first test- That and my lack of background. Things are improving here. But my wife hates me studying all of the time. I can still do it, just going to be some friction until I can catch-up, if ever possible.

So, it's the amount of material - and my unfamiliarity with it, the fact that I don't know if the patient interaction will really make it all worth it. (financially breaking even, or maybe a little ahead). So I went into it for a couple reasons. 1.) I thought I would find it more fulfilling. 2.) I hated being treated like the tech monkey by all the doctors (I know that's not a good reason, but it was a major motivator) 3.) I wanted a challenge (just didn't realize what a challenge it would be on the family) 4.) I really wanted to help people -to feel like I was doing good in others' lives. - wanted to feel more useful than as a "computer guy"

I know no one can make this decision for me. I am only looking for more perspective as a look at my options. It took a lot to get here, I don't want to throw it all away after a couple months. I Don't want to spend another 20K cash either unless I'm sure I want to see it to the end. Maybe the end would be the MD and no residency, and go into bioinformatics at I higher level than I ever could just working in IT? I don't see direct patient care motivating me anymore.

Also, wanted to add, I don't hate all of medical school, made some good friends, like most of the instructors, and administration, and facilities. I really like learning too. Especially the genetics and more technical aspects of process and function.

 

[Dr.Tao]

I know no one can make this decision for me. I am only looking for more perspective as a look at my options. It took a lot to get here, I don't want to throw it all away after a couple months. I Don't want to spend another 20K cash either unless I'm sure I want to see it to the end. Maybe the end would be the MD and no residency, and go into bioinformatics at I higher level than I ever could just working in IT? I don't see direct patient care motivating me anymore..

I'm not a software engineer, but I do have a strong background in bioinformatics (hence the Avatar). I'm actually interested in patient care, but I'm also open to a career Clinical Informatics as well.

I'd hang in there because the medical profession desperately needs Physicians that understand bioinformatics and most Docs I know hate computers with a passion. So you'll definitely be in demand and won't have to bother with patient care.

 

[Mad Jack]

How did you NOT know what you were getting into????

Medical school is very different from what many expect. Not the difficulty, but the very nature of it.

 

[jl lin]

. Most devs I know make about the same as a beginning family med doc [in the low to mid 100k] at this point in their careers (20 years experience ).

👍

 

[jl lin]

It should be a requirement to shadow a medical student or resident before applying to medical school.

IDK, I still don't think it's enough. Hard core clinical experience/exposure is the key. Everyone pooh-poohs that some of us have said more clinical exposure hours in the right places are needed. I think w/o it, you will end up with some sad and sorry percentage of docs that feel absolutely stuck, stuck, stuck. And I think that is really sad, given all the time, money, sacrifices.

 

[jl lin]

Medical school is very different from what many expect. Not the difficulty, but the very nature of it.

Yes Mad Jack, but I think it might be fair for you to share how it was or was not so very different based on your previous clinical experience. It seems to me, that matters. . . a lot.

 

[W116]

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Computer_Programmer/Salary

http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/indianapolis-programmer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,12_IM407_KO13,23.htm

 

[Mad Jack]

Yes Mad Jack, but I think it might be fair for you to share how it was or was not so very different based on your previous clinical experience. It seems to me, that matters. . . a lot.

It's more and less work than I thought it would be. Much more pointless nonsense than I ever could have imagined. A lot more like high school than college, which was surprising. There's a lot of stuff that's off.

Btw, OP, if you don't think you'll like working with patients, I would strongly recommend backing out after the end of the semester. Give it time though- I wanted to quit so bad first semester, but my brain eventually adjusted and I'm fine now. I was careful to burn all my bridges so there was no retreat.

 

[jl lin]

It's more and less work than I thought it would be. Much more pointless nonsense than I ever could have imagined. A lot more like high school than college, which was surprising. There's a lot of stuff that's off.

Btw, OP, if you don't think you'll like working with patients, I would strongly recommend backing out after the end of the semester. Give it time though- I wanted to quit so bad first semester, but my brain eventually adjusted and I'm fine now. I was careful to burn all my bridges so there was no retreat.

Curious about the "pointless nonsense," and it being "A lot more like high school than college." Are you saying these things are not avoidable, in the sense that you can do your work and keep moving with your life?

You and I know by now that there will always be some kind of screwy BS in terms of people dynamics or even administrative dynamics for which must endure.

 

[Mad Jack]

Curious about the "pointless nonsense," and it being "A lot more like high school than college." Are you saying these things are not avoidable, in the sense that you can do your work and keep moving with your life?

You can't avoid the pointless things that are built into the curriculum. As to the high school bit, many things, from AOA membership to committee positions to SGA find awards for traveling to conferences are determined based on who you know and how much they like you. I avoid the petty politics and don't have to worry about the dating nonsense, but it is not without consequence to do so. Regardless, I really like my school and classmates, it's been a good time.

 

[jl lin]

You can't avoid the pointless things that are built into the curriculum. As to the high school bit, many things, from AOA membership to committee positions to SGA find awards for traveling to conferences are determined based on who you know and how much they like you. I avoid the petty politics and don't have to worry about the dating nonsense, but it is not without consequence to do so. Regardless, I really like my school and classmates, it's been a good time.

See, I can see a number of nontrads disliking this sort of thing somewhat. We don't care about the BS politics, and we want to just do our jobs well and live our lives. But regardless of where you work or school, there is some expectation of networking or some permutation of such.

Back to the OP:
In general, and perhaps with the exception of pathology, if you feel that you do not enjoy the science of medicine, as well as the art, and if you find very little satisfaction in treating/caring for patients and dealing productively with their families, I would say, save a boatload of money and leave before incurring anymore massive debt or lost of time and desire to do other things w/ your life. It makes absolutely no sense to continue then, unless perhaps you were interested in moving into the hardcore business arena of biotechnology and medicine or such. But even then, you'd have to suffer through many more years and have debt that you may have no guarantee of relieving anytime soon.

If you are not into people, especially sick and stressed out people, I'd say fly.
It's like working in pediatrics. Some people think, "Oh children are delightful and I love to see them smile and I love to make them laugh...etc." The only thing is, quite often, most often, sick kids are not fun and delightful and smiling. They can be miserable, irritable, mad w/ no compensatory mechanism--and that's if they have enough going on in them to fight in the first place. I personally prefer the fighters, b/c in general, it at least seems that they do better over all. Of course that is a generalization. In reality, it simply may be that my hope rises when I see a seriously ill child get an attitude or fight about them. It certainly beats the sad percentage that no longer has it in them to do so; although they need support, care, and treatment too. When they feel better, they do become more pleasant, and they can, depending upon specifics, rebound quickly--although in the areas I have worked this can certainly vary, b/c of the severity and critical nature of their conditions. From time to time you get a really resilient baby or child that is sweet and strangely happy regardless of all the $^!% they've been through, but this is the exception.

Point is, really sick people, in general, such as, adults aren't generally happy and playful either, although they should/may have compensatory behaviors, which they have learned in order to cope, but they still are often enough challenging Sick kids are even less tolerant--not happy, playful, and have pretty much zip for coping mechanisms. Now that does not even speak of the families with which you should show care and respect, regardless. And it doesn't account for the many, I'll just say "different" personalities in medicine and healthcare. It's people and stress and more people and stress, and then more people and stress. That's what the first 2 years often does not teach medical students, and even years 3 and 4 are only snippets compared with what comes after IMHO.

If you don't love this, or at the very least, like it enough, you will be miserable and so will others around you.

 

[BluMist]

OP, I don't know your exact situation, and have family and financial dependencies certainly complicate the picture.
Maybe I'm reading too much between the lines, but I get the this feeling that you're selling yourself short, regardless of what you decide to do.

When you have 15 years of experience programming, you are no longer just a "programmer". Assuming you quit medicine, you should be looking at higher end of the salary ranges if not a Sr. position.
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Developer/Salary
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/i...veloper-salary-SRCH_IL.0,12_IM407_KO13,31.htm

Seems like your initial school experience has created some doubts internally, but know that your school accepted you with high confidence that you can handle it.
Regardless of what you choose to do, best of luck!

 

[jl lin]

OP, I don't know your exact situation, and have family and financial dependencies certainly complicate the picture.
Maybe I'm reading too much between the lines, but I get the this feeling that you're selling yourself short, regardless of what you decide to do.

When you have 15 years of experience programming, you are no longer just a "programmer". Assuming you quit medicine, you should be looking at higher end of the salary ranges if not a Sr. position.
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Developer/Salary
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/i...veloper-salary-SRCH_IL.0,12_IM407_KO13,31.htm

Seems like your initial school experience has created some doubts internally, but know that your school accepted you with high confidence that you can handle it.
Regardless of what you choose to do, best of luck!

Yes, here's lead SDE:

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Lead_Software_Development_Engineer_(SDE)/Salary

 

[W116]

Definitely agree, been selling myself short. I basically put my career on hold working for an academic health center to pursue medical prerequisites, shadowing and volunteering. I have an MBA, and then took programming classes after I graduated mostly self taught, and took calc, diff eq, linear alg. Because I did not have a CS degree I always sold myself a little short, but knew more about tech and IT and even programming than many of the CS guys I worked with. I just never dedicated myself to the career I was in. Always looking for something else. No doubt if I dedicate 1/2 as much to programming as I will have to dedicate to becoming a physician, I'll be at the top of my field. Not a tech CEO but a top programmer for sure - it comes easy to me.

Same with school. a lot of doubts. This forum is really helping me to uncover things I never thought about. Thank you all.

 

[chooks]

Although I was fairly unequivocal in my initial response, I will say that you are in school at least for the next couple of months, so you may want to see what those hold for you. Many (in fact most M1s I knew) did not particularly care for the Foundation type initial classes that comprise the first couple of months or so. I would continue to try your best and maybe things will improve with different material,. But I would still look very critically (and not self-delusionally) about how you really feel about the current and future demands of training.

To add my 2 cents of patient-reduced specialties, as mentioned earlier pathology is another one with very little patient contact (with notable exceptions based on practice type and sub-specialty). This is the field I am in. It is very tech heavy and my IT background has been nothing but a huge asset (extra money as a resident for helping with projects, high impact journal co-authorship, etc...) You can be fully sub-specialized in 4 years if you plan correctly and it is generally life style friendly both in residency and in jobs. Caveat is that the job market is not the most swimming right now. Also, lots of the material that you probably don't like in your Foundation classes is actually applicable to both passing boards and service work, so you can't just forget your first two years of medical school.

Good luck.

- chooks

 

[QofQuimica]

If you're basically in med school to do radiology or bust, then yes, you should drop out. Odds are good that you will not be competitive enough to become a radiologist, simply because it is a competitive specialty and you are not a particularly competitive med student. Even if you were acing all your courses, no one should go to medical school if one of the competitive specialties is the only specialty they'd be willing to enter. Be brutally honest with yourself here. If you'd be happy as a PCP (truly happy with the prospect of being a PCP), then that's a different story. Get through med school, and you can be a PCP, even if you're not the top of your class. But that doesn't sound like your situation.

The good news is, you're still early enough in the training process where it's realistic to cut your losses and bail. If you're going to bail, you should bail now, while it's still financially and psychologically feasible. The more time that goes by, the tougher it gets financially and emotionally to bail.

Based on what you're saying about liking to study topics in detail, maybe going to grad school would be a good option for you to consider. You can work in bioinformatics as an MS or PhD.

 

[W116]

Good points QofQ..

I've thought a lot about psychiatry, pathology, (bioinformatics, I know that is a new sub-specialty), and I'm sure there are others out there that I just haven't looked at that could be a potential fit.

The hardest thing in all of this is the family situation. I've got no support.

Wife wants me to bail, but I've got this insane drive to attack obstacles and there is just something in me that isn't ready to quit.

I love technical things. I'm a good listener (very introverted).

Still haven't made up my mind, definitely going to give it 100% until the end of the semester and see if I'm any closer to deciding.

 

[BluMist]

Not that I am qualified to speak about your family situation, but you'd really have to make a choice there.

You can also give it 100% if you go back to the software world; again, just don't sell yourself short and you can excel wherever.

Good points QofQ..

I've thought a lot about psychiatry, pathology, (bioinformatics, I know that is a new sub-specialty), and I'm sure there are others out there that I just haven't looked at that could be a potential fit.

The hardest thing in all of this is the family situation. I've got no support.

Wife wants me to bail, but I've got this insane drive to attack obstacles and there is just something in me that isn't ready to quit.

I love technical things. I'm a good listener (very introverted).

Still haven't made up my mind, definitely going to give it 100% until the end of the semester and see if I'm any closer to deciding.

 

[68PGunner]

Good points QofQ..

I've thought a lot about psychiatry, pathology, (bioinformatics, I know that is a new sub-specialty), and I'm sure there are others out there that I just haven't looked at that could be a potential fit.

The hardest thing in all of this is the family situation. I've got no support.

Wife wants me to bail, but I've got this insane drive to attack obstacles and there is just something in me that isn't ready to quit.

I love technical things. I'm a good listener (very introverted).

Still haven't made up my mind, definitely going to give it 100% until the end of the semester and see if I'm any closer to deciding.

I hate to break the bad news to you. But, if you don't have your wife support, you're done. It will only get harder from here especially through your residency years. If she is already sick of this process at this early stage, there is no way in hell she's going to last much longer. At some point, you will need to make a decision: your family or your pursuit of medicine. I pick family 10/10 if given the choice.

 

[W19]

If you're basically in med school to do radiology or bust, then yes, you should drop out. Odds are good that you will not be competitive enough to become a radiologist, simply because it is a competitive specialty and you are not a particularly competitive med student. Even if you were acing all your courses, no one should go to medical school if one of the competitive specialties is the only specialty they'd be willing to enter. Be brutally honest with yourself here. If you'd be happy as a PCP (truly happy with the prospect of being a PCP), then that's a different story. Get through med school, and you can be a PCP, even if you're not the top of your class. But that doesn't sound like your situation.

The good news is, you're still early enough in the training process where it's realistic to cut your losses and bail. If you're going to bail, you should bail now, while it's still financially and psychologically feasible. The more time that goes by, the tougher it gets financially and emotionally to bail.

Based on what you're saying about liking to study topics in detail, maybe going to grad school would be a good option for you to consider. You can work in bioinformatics as an MS or PhD.

There is some self selection in rad, but it's no longer a competitive specialty...

 

[QofQuimica]

I hate to break the bad news to you. But, if you don't have your wife support, you're done. It will only get harder from here especially through your residency years. If she is already sick of this process at this early stage, there is no way in hell she's going to last much longer. At some point, you will need to make a decision: your family or your pursuit of medicine. I pick family 10/10 if given the choice.

Agree.

OP, you've got the best interests of your family to consider; your wife isn't on board; and you don't even like medicine, let alone love it. Don't break up your family out of hubris for a career you don't even want. Seriously, continuing on in your situation is a d*** fool thing to do.

 

[JohnConstantine511]

60,000 is on the low end for software developers. I barely have 5 years of experience and make close to 90K in the mid-west right now. If you are business savy then you could go independent and make a lot more than 60K. Or if your social skills are good, you could go into sales engineering.

 

[esob]

60,000 is on the low end for software developers. I barely have 5 years of experience and make close to 90K in the mid-west right now. If you are business savy then you could go independent and make a lot more than 60K. Or if your social skills are good, you could go into sales engineering.

Yeah, that's on the low end for coders, especially if you have that much experience. Definitely don't do med school if you don't like it though.

 

[Twosides]

.

 

[Law2Doc]

There is some self selection in rad, but it's no longer a competitive specialty...

Match-wise they've definitely had a bad year or two, but numbers wise I think it's still relatively competitive. It's now become the field ortho and ENT applicants soap into if they can't get the specialty they initially shot for.

 

[Law2Doc]

... Nothing near a doctor, but I know I'd enjoy the work more if I get in with a good company. ...

This was the sentence that sold me-- you should definitely bail. If you can picture yourself being happy in another field, and at this point it's mostly about the money, by all means cut your losses.