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That quote is from "The Gay Science", by the way, if anyone is interesting in reading up
BEWARE OF MEDICAL SCHOOL
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Wrigleyville said:
you're not kidding - a real SDN legend
why was this thread bumped anyway
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Brickhouse said:
I thought it appropriate reading for all the entering ms1s (like myself). And there are some posters in that thread that are now doctors that were pre-meds when they posted and still frequent this site.
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ha
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Vox Animo said:
That's really deep man. Good luck in med school.
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apocalypse3678 said:
haha, i love that question. Number one, you know that it's not possible to move at the speed of light. So suppose you are moving at C-x where C is the speed of light. take the limit as X approaches 0 but doesn't = 0. Now remember the theory of special relativity. An object moving at .9999C + the headlights on that car would be equal to .99999999999C because of Einstein (time dilation) and some dude whose last name starts with L who actually developed the equation that einstein needed.
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maver1ck84 said:
Not to be picky, but I don't think you answered his question (or at least, I didn't get it). I believe he's asking the following:
Would the light turned on *inside* the car appear to increase slowly from its source? Would it turn on "normally" i.e. instantaneously? Or would the light take a near infinite amount of time to reach the eye?
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Hurley7,
I applaude you for making the right decision. There is a lot that goes into becoming a medical student (not even a doctor) and I know it wasn't an easy decision.
That being said, a lot of people actually find medical school to be the exact opposite of what you are saying. For some, medical school is the stage where they actually get to study what they want/feel free (fill in the blank).
In terms of stress, I believe people's reaction to current stress is only a function of how much stress they've experienced before. I was talking to one of the guys who hosted me (when I was applying to med school) and he told me how med school is like a gulp of fresh air compared to the horrible things he had to face while growing up. A lot of people were complaining and he was so grateful and happy to be there. I thought it was all for show... but having known him a little better...I realized it was all so real. You could literally see how excited he was in his eyes!
The "medicine does not have the prestige/money it once did" is really an overkill. Medicine is by all means one of the most prestigious professions in our world today. Regardless of what people say, saying" I'm a doctor" earns you more respect than virtually any other profession out there.
I guess the way you see money also has to do with how much money you were exposed to growing up. Personally, I will feel more than privileged to earn anything in the six figures.
I applaude you for making the right decision. There is a lot that goes into becoming a medical student (not even a doctor) and I know it wasn't an easy decision.
That being said, a lot of people actually find medical school to be the exact opposite of what you are saying. For some, medical school is the stage where they actually get to study what they want/feel free (fill in the blank).
In terms of stress, I believe people's reaction to current stress is only a function of how much stress they've experienced before. I was talking to one of the guys who hosted me (when I was applying to med school) and he told me how med school is like a gulp of fresh air compared to the horrible things he had to face while growing up. A lot of people were complaining and he was so grateful and happy to be there. I thought it was all for show... but having known him a little better...I realized it was all so real. You could literally see how excited he was in his eyes!
The "medicine does not have the prestige/money it once did" is really an overkill. Medicine is by all means one of the most prestigious professions in our world today. Regardless of what people say, saying" I'm a doctor" earns you more respect than virtually any other profession out there.
I guess the way you see money also has to do with how much money you were exposed to growing up. Personally, I will feel more than privileged to earn anything in the six figures.
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Haven't had time to read the whole thread, so don't know if this has already been said.
I know quite a few med students who do not plan on practicing. However, they do plan on finishing med school. Having an MD will open up so many doors if one chooses not to be a doctor. This is why I can't understand the OPs decision. He had already finished most of first year, and years 2 and 3 go by so quickly. Year 4 is a joke especially if one is not pursuing a residency. If you decide early on in med school that you don't want to practice, you can basically just float for the next couple of years (ie don't need to stress about a great Step 1 score, residency apps, etc). Just suck it up for a couple of years and you'd be in a much more comfortable situation than simply having just a biology degree. The OP stated that he could not see himself in medicine, but I don't believe he said anything about med school itself. What's wrong with just completing the degree and then searching for another job?
I know quite a few med students who do not plan on practicing. However, they do plan on finishing med school. Having an MD will open up so many doors if one chooses not to be a doctor. This is why I can't understand the OPs decision. He had already finished most of first year, and years 2 and 3 go by so quickly. Year 4 is a joke especially if one is not pursuing a residency. If you decide early on in med school that you don't want to practice, you can basically just float for the next couple of years (ie don't need to stress about a great Step 1 score, residency apps, etc). Just suck it up for a couple of years and you'd be in a much more comfortable situation than simply having just a biology degree. The OP stated that he could not see himself in medicine, but I don't believe he said anything about med school itself. What's wrong with just completing the degree and then searching for another job?
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Medrad...the quote you posted gave me a whole new insight on life!! In the past year, after being accepted to numerous med schools, I have questioned my desire to pursue a career in medicine...I could never understand if the questioning was because deep down I didn't want to go into medicine and now that I completed the challenge of getting accepted-it wasn't really what I wanted...OR...if it was solely because of anxiety-it's a big step and an expensive one at that, so I just had "cold feet"....I have been battling this question all the way up until last week, when I found a place to live in the city of the medical school where I will be attending....and the quote that you just posted made me realize that if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing!!! Thank you so much, you really don't know how much it helped!
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I am still entering my 2nd year of post-bacc premed, and while I still feel very positive about my decision, here is the main thing that gives me some hesitance:
Sacrificing my formative years (I'm 24 now).
It gives me great worry sometimes that while the sacrifice has such a worthy and desirable end result, I will miss out on the most fun years of my life and regret it later. I want to be a doctor. It is not that I'm lazy, and it is not that the content of the things I'll be doing will not feel worthwhile. The problem is I'll be putting my life on hold and missing my last chance to be a youth.
I have many friends who are fully in the workplace right now. Many are making great salaries (including one friend making $500,000 grand annually at age 24!). Of course, most are only making comparatively meager salaries right now. Many of them dislike their current jobs, or like them very much but are exhausted by long hours. Here's the difference between their situation and mine: Even if they work very long, exhausting hours, even if they work every day till 9 at night and need to be asleep 2 hours later, those are THEIR 2 hours. Once they are out of work, they are out of work. No matter how bad work is, that time is theirs to do whatever they want (go bowling, watch TV, go on a date, etc.) and they need not feel guilty that they should be doing something else. I will not have that feeling for such a long time. No matter how much or how little free time I have as a med student (and to a degree a resident, and obviously in both cases "how little free time") I will always know that that free time isn't mine, that I should be studying.
There is also the fact that during these formative years that I'm sacrificing I will have little money to enjoy whenever I do have some free time. I won't be working much, and while my parents will support me and I'll have some loans, those amounts will be meager. This further limits my abilities to enjoy my formative years.
So therefore, my problem is not that I don't want to do the things that I need to do in med school, nor that I don't really want the result. What gives me hesitancy is sacrificing my formative years.
So here's what I ask: Am I being overly negative? Am I exaggerating perhaps a bit about the enormity of the sacrifice? How much of a life do some of you feel that you are enjoying? Do you feel like you are sacrificing your formative years? Obviously some of the gunners do indeed sacrifice every bit of time, but do many of you feel you are succeeding or will succeed and yet still enjoy these formative years in a way that you will still have tons of fun memories to look back on later?
An in this respect, is residency different then med school?
Sacrificing my formative years (I'm 24 now).
It gives me great worry sometimes that while the sacrifice has such a worthy and desirable end result, I will miss out on the most fun years of my life and regret it later. I want to be a doctor. It is not that I'm lazy, and it is not that the content of the things I'll be doing will not feel worthwhile. The problem is I'll be putting my life on hold and missing my last chance to be a youth.
I have many friends who are fully in the workplace right now. Many are making great salaries (including one friend making $500,000 grand annually at age 24!). Of course, most are only making comparatively meager salaries right now. Many of them dislike their current jobs, or like them very much but are exhausted by long hours. Here's the difference between their situation and mine: Even if they work very long, exhausting hours, even if they work every day till 9 at night and need to be asleep 2 hours later, those are THEIR 2 hours. Once they are out of work, they are out of work. No matter how bad work is, that time is theirs to do whatever they want (go bowling, watch TV, go on a date, etc.) and they need not feel guilty that they should be doing something else. I will not have that feeling for such a long time. No matter how much or how little free time I have as a med student (and to a degree a resident, and obviously in both cases "how little free time") I will always know that that free time isn't mine, that I should be studying.
There is also the fact that during these formative years that I'm sacrificing I will have little money to enjoy whenever I do have some free time. I won't be working much, and while my parents will support me and I'll have some loans, those amounts will be meager. This further limits my abilities to enjoy my formative years.
So therefore, my problem is not that I don't want to do the things that I need to do in med school, nor that I don't really want the result. What gives me hesitancy is sacrificing my formative years.
So here's what I ask: Am I being overly negative? Am I exaggerating perhaps a bit about the enormity of the sacrifice? How much of a life do some of you feel that you are enjoying? Do you feel like you are sacrificing your formative years? Obviously some of the gunners do indeed sacrifice every bit of time, but do many of you feel you are succeeding or will succeed and yet still enjoy these formative years in a way that you will still have tons of fun memories to look back on later?
An in this respect, is residency different then med school?
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lk, I will just say that I have been out of undergrad for exactly 8 years (I can't believe it's already been that long), and would kill to go back in time and kick my own a$$ as a 21 year old for thinking I didn't want to waste my 20's in school...Instead, I've wasted my 20's working a bunch of jobs that paid decently, but I really had no passion for. Now my dream is to enter med school at the age of 31 (next year, I'll be 30 at the end of this month).
I can honestly say that the only worthwhile thing I've done since graduating college in my personal life is get married. The formative years aren't all they're cracked up to be in the view of this poster.
I can honestly say that the only worthwhile thing I've done since graduating college in my personal life is get married. The formative years aren't all they're cracked up to be in the view of this poster.
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lk2230 said:
Like college, med school is what you make of it. Carve out time for what you enjoy doing.
And residency is much, much worse than med school. I know attendings who have quit medicine because they couldn't take being on call anymore.
Z
zimmie256
Taurus said:
I've heard that this was more true of your first year of residency and then things settled down again... Is this bad information??
R
R.P. McMurphy
wow, I was in high school when this thread started 
has everyone responding to this been on SDN that long??
has everyone responding to this been on SDN that long??
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Ik...I don't know where you stand in the application scheme of things, but at every school I interviewed at, students raved on all the partying they do as a med student. Hell yeah you bust your a$$ studying long hours each day, but after the exam is finished, you party like a rock-star. At many schools, the students have socials and formals (most schools have this the first year after Anatomy)-and at one school, the DEAN arranges happy hour at surrounding bars. So don't look at medical school as a dark cloud of unsocialness, you will definitely study harder than you have your entire life, but you will also have free time and meet a lot of great people to spend your free time with. Hope this helps!
By the way...I'm going to the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine next year-3 minutes away from South Beach!!
By the way...I'm going to the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine next year-3 minutes away from South Beach!!
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At the risk of being a broken record, this is a thread from 2002.
Also, if you're inside that car when you switch the headlights on, assuming that the car is moving at some allowed relativistic speed and not actually C, the lights will appear to turn on normally. Nothing will seem out of place to you.
Also, if you're inside that car when you switch the headlights on, assuming that the car is moving at some allowed relativistic speed and not actually C, the lights will appear to turn on normally. Nothing will seem out of place to you.
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apocalypse3678 said:
First, you can't travel the speed of light. Secondly, light travels the same speed no matter what your frame of reference, so the same thing that always happens when you turn on your lights would happen. That's only challenging if you havn't had physics 2 and you're also not einstein.
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I didn't go through the whole thread, so if I am repeating something that has already been said, or am way off topic, please forgive me:
But I can totally relate to Hurley about being a fence-sitter. But my issue isn't the fact that my interest in medicine has waned - it has only grown stronger. My issue has been my other interests. I am very passionate about visual arts (graphic design, illustration, film, etc...), so another possible career for me would be an art director at an ad agency or design firm. But I don't know, I mean I know I would love doing it - but in the end I am really just going to be selling products and ideas for corporations. When I think of it like that, it kind of diffuses the passion a bit. Medicine strikes different cords in me. I would much rather learn about medical science, than spend 3 hours in a class critiquing someone else's art. I like that fact that medicine is a profession that is at the forefront of life - if there is a natural disaster, you can directly apply your skills to the situation. Seeing the doctors at the Astrodome, and at the George R.Brown Convention center here in Houston during the Katrina influx - just doing there jobs and being of service, was very inspiring to me. I remember telling myself, "I wish I was already a doctor." But these are just a few of the many reasons why I am on the medical track, and not the creative one.
But I still have my fears and doubts about the choice. I still wonder if I am kidding myself - maybe I want o be an artist deep down inside, I just don't want to admit it. Who knows
But I can totally relate to Hurley about being a fence-sitter. But my issue isn't the fact that my interest in medicine has waned - it has only grown stronger. My issue has been my other interests. I am very passionate about visual arts (graphic design, illustration, film, etc...), so another possible career for me would be an art director at an ad agency or design firm. But I don't know, I mean I know I would love doing it - but in the end I am really just going to be selling products and ideas for corporations. When I think of it like that, it kind of diffuses the passion a bit. Medicine strikes different cords in me. I would much rather learn about medical science, than spend 3 hours in a class critiquing someone else's art. I like that fact that medicine is a profession that is at the forefront of life - if there is a natural disaster, you can directly apply your skills to the situation. Seeing the doctors at the Astrodome, and at the George R.Brown Convention center here in Houston during the Katrina influx - just doing there jobs and being of service, was very inspiring to me. I remember telling myself, "I wish I was already a doctor." But these are just a few of the many reasons why I am on the medical track, and not the creative one.
But I still have my fears and doubts about the choice. I still wonder if I am kidding myself - maybe I want o be an artist deep down inside, I just don't want to admit it. Who knows
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jophe said:But I still have my fears and doubts about the choice. I still wonder if I am kidding myself - maybe I want o be an artist deep down inside, I just don't want to admit it. Who knows
Do both. Where there's a will, there a way. Find a way to have art in your life too. It's possible.
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Bluntman said:LOL...Is that little asian baby trying to eat that dog?! Perhaps this proves that the tendancy is a genetic trait rather than cultural.
LOL that's horrible. Baby is *sucking* on the puppy - not eating it! I keep telling everyone that. Glad it made you laff - I still laff every time I see it!
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Centinel said:
My dream is to be an ob/gyn - but with the constant discouragement from every single person I tell, I'm now sort of leaning towards GI - maybe I should change my title...."future poopshoot doc"?
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hurley7 said:
Hmmm, considering I have buddies who pull down 750K year and work less than 40 hours/wk, I have to say it aint that BAD. Its not up there with making 10 million/year pitching for the Yankees and getting BJs from fans after the game but it aint mining coal in WV either. Somewhere in between.
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LADoc00 said:The problem with your pic is the baby looks Asian, could be Korean so maybe thats the misunderstanding.
ok this is just hysterical. Really.
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hurley7 said:
You sound like a very mature person. Unlike many on this site and elsewhere you seem like you will not live and die pre-med. From your post it seems like you have the personality of an MPH. If lucky you would probably be able to travel. Climb the ladder of international organizations and charities in your free time. And may I say that if your story is true you are very courageous, not many people would even consider what you decided to do. If medicine becomes re-romantic to you in the future do not be afraid to reapply because quite frankly the profession deserves people like you
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Last I heard he was off running a hedge fund.Frank Hardy said:You sound like a very mature person. Unlike many on this site and elsewhere you seem like you will not live and die pre-med. From your post it seems like you have the personality of an MPH. If lucky you would probably be able to travel. Climb the ladder of international organizations and charities in your free time. And may I say that if your story is true you are very courageous, not many people would even consider what you decided to do. If medicine becomes re-romantic to you in the future do not be afraid to reapply because quite frankly the profession deserves people like you
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hurley7 said:
This is a completely false statement. There is ample time to pursue other interests.
I never missed a televised Mavericks game the entire season over the past 2 years of medical school.
GO MAVS!
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•••quote:•••Originally posted by vyc:
•i'm not a fence-sitter, but it'd be interesting to hear your story... why don't you start?•••••maybe he or she is on the waitlist, and they wanna see some movement
well buddy...you should be a little more specific...like USC made me miserable, NUMS, they are not understanding, blah blah...I mean be more specific, so that if you do accomplish in scaring someone, it is the school that ur interested in :wink:
nice try Machiavelli
pssssssht, this reminds me of the time I had to drop out of law school, and I was like close to taking the BAR exam.....aka drinking, and learning how to make mixes...
well anyone, we were in this sexual harrasment class to learn about all the legal issues, and after office hours, my professor flashed her panties at me, I mean she wouldn't....and even if I asked her to stop she became so much more aggresive. She thought, this is a typical sexual harrasment scenario
well anyway, to make a long story short, I told her that I am with another wonderful middle aged woman already (apparently she took offense to the another middle aged women) and that I was fulfilled sexually in every way possible....
I also apparently blabbed that she happened to be the Dean's wife....and the word got around
needless to say, they threw me out of law school....well I hope that doesn't happen again...
OMG!
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Wtf dude.
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Cirujana is getting chewed out in allo forums, and cross-posted in the SUNY Buffalo threads ranting about some random thing. Probably a troll so pay no heed
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Forget medicine, you should be a necromancer with a bump like that.
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Now taking applications for the position of the Dark Lord Sauron, class of 2019
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did you just bump a thread from 2002
I was like 5 when this was made
Dear lord I'm old.
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