I was raised and convinced to see medicine as the best way forward. For a long time, I thought medicine and surgery were the way to go. I'm good with my hands, and surgery is a very technical and manual precision-driven field, more about the methods and the body you have to work with than the patient. However, I've had some recent life events that ultimately got me rethinking my values and the reality of of my time. I'm 24. I never thought of medicine and surgery as a lifestyle, more as a career and a means to an end, taking my experiences from residency to start my R&D-centered enterprise...but I'll be nearly 40 by the time I'm doing that. I'll be spending the rest of my 20s and 30s doing transitory things, and not necessarily what I really want to be doing my life. I think I would love surgery in and of itself, but if it's just me and a marriage to surgery, that sounds like a bit of a lonely career with limited opportunities for broader impact.
Should I stay on the path I'm on, stay on the pipeline till I've at least finished the appropriate residency, or go tech and engineering altogether?
Should I stay on the path I'm on, stay on the pipeline till I've at least finished the appropriate residency, or go tech and engineering altogether?
