Certainty about committing to medicine

[The_Sunny_Doc]

As a pre-med, how sure can you be about committing your life to medicine?

I'm pretty certain I want to become a doctor (~90%), but I waffled through 3 majors during college and still feel uncertain at times that medicine is right for me.

Perhaps it's just the nagging feeling that indecisive, restless people experience throughout life. I usually feel indecisive about a few different issues at any point in time. Does anyone else feel this way?

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[deleted407021]

It's probably your first year looming ahead that's got you a bit anxious.

I'm not certain about my certainty...but I can give reasons for medicine being an attractive field for me. This is a copy/paste from my career outline I made for a class assignment.

1. Why do I want to be a physician?
   1. Humanism
      1. physicians can have a positive and lasting impact on many people
      2. physicians are provided with the tools necessary to be effective humanists within and without their scope of medical practice
      3. physicians have the ability to relieve suffering in its many forms
      4. I am very interested in providing free care to underserved populations in a free clinic setting
      5. I am interested in becoming a physician-educator, sharing my knowledge to help students achieve
   2. Societal Influence
      1. physicians, by virtue of their broad education have the capacity to be very effective science communicators and educators
      2. physicians are often advocates for positive change within society and for the safety and health of individuals and communities
   3. Autonomy and Authority
      1. physicians are the leaders of the healthcare team and a physician is responsible for making the most important decisions for patient care
      2. since physicians have full practice rights, they have the ability to open their own practices on their own terms
      3. physicians are called upon in many situations in which their expertise may be applicable
   4. Highly Educated
      1. physicians are very well educated with a litany of tools and understandings gained over at least 8 years of college education
      2. physicians are well informed and responsible members of society
   5. Finances
      1. most physicians achieve financial stability
      2. average yearly income for physician men in 2014 was $267,000
      3. physicians have the financial resources to pursue their interests outside of their careers such as their families, hobbies and non-medical endeavors

Overall, I want to make a positive impact and actively make the world a better place to live in. I could accomplish this through any number of different careers. I happen to enjoy medicine, the little bit of it I've seen, at least.

 

[NeuResurgens]

Love this reply up here. ^ there are all kinds of reasons to like medicine. For me, I always just knew and nothing has been able to dissuade me. However, I'm sure it's not like that for most people. Committing to a career can be scary just because of the possibility of choosing wrong, but as long as you get enough exposure to the field and have a good idea of what physicians do and what you want to do, you should be able to tell. The ability to contribute substantially to society is the ultimate draw to medicine for me.

 

[natti101]

For me, it was when I couldn't imagine being fulfilled doing anything else with my life. There are a lot of careers in which you help people and impact their lives, but medicine excites me. The problem solving nature of it draws me, and the ability to develop a plan, with the focus of the human body, and implement it while working with others and truly impacting people...I don't think I would ever get bored of it. Certainly, it would be a life-long learning experience. And it's a career that demands the ability to work with others and manage people effectively, while putting patients first - that's challenging and fun to me.

My interest in medicine as a science has always been solid, but my shadowing and volunteer experiences have really emphasized all of the above things for me...and it's really reassured me that this is what I want to do.

I'm confident that I could succeed in a number of fields (as most pre-meds probably could), but when I think of those options, despite it being an easier road, I just don't get excited. It's a privilege to be able to study what I love. Before applying, I sat down with myself and made sure that even if I was making "only" $110,000 per year and would be paying loans for a while, even if the glory of medicine was rapidly disappearing, even if I was losing much of the autonomy of practice, even if I would have days that made me want to cry and lament my lack of sleep, even if I had to mentally make it through days in which my efforts seemed futile...this is still what I want to do, and it still seems very worth it.


These are very idealistic musings...and I'm sure a couple years down the road, I may be scoffing at my naivety 😛 but I'm also confident that I'll be able to retain some measure of this, that I'll be able to continually remind myself of how lucky I am to get to do what I love.

 

[pageantry]

I'll just say I'm similar as a waffle-human and in terms of what's really interested me so far in shadowing. Writing and re-writing my personal statement has really helped. I've created stacks and stacks of docs that clarify my motives to me.

Nevertheless, I go through lots of moments where I'm like lol nothing matters, I should invest in real estate and drink banana rum hot chocolate for a living.

But, that said, the most profound moments I've ever had have been in the context of medicine. Being near birth and death and agony is existentially bracing in a way that banana rum hot chocolate, sadly, is not. I need that to be a complete person, so, here we are.

 

[Mad Jack]

You won't know until it's over, unfortunately. I still don't know how I feel about it 2/3 of the way through first year, and don't see that changing any time soon. Not only can no premed answer this for you, you probably won't be able to answer it for yourself for a good, long while.

 

[NickNaylor]

I continued to have doubts through the first two and a half years of medical school. It wasn't until more than halfway through the clinical year that I became confident in my choice. The best you can do is do lots of research on both the career and the path to get there and be honest with yourself. As long as you're being true to yourself and understand what medicine is about, you'll likely be fine. Even then, though, there's still a chance that you may find that it wasn't quite what you signed up for.

 

[Dandine]

I've sort of come to the conclusion that you'll never really know for sure. I mean, you probably have to like what you do to some extent, but you can't like everything. And at this point I've realized that medicine is one of those fields where it's going to be hard to like everything (n = 1).

I see medicine not so much as a goal but as a journey. If something goes wrong I think of dealing it, however I deal with it, as a way to grow stronger. I'm only pre-med now, so I'm kind of worried this thinking will change once I'm in medical school...but hopefully the "get stronger" mentality will stick.

Another way to think about it is this: even if you really aren't sure about how committed you are, the fact that you're still sticking to it says *something* about what you're interested in, even if you don't know for sure what it is.

 

[The_Sunny_Doc]

It's probably your first year looming ahead that's got you a bit anxious.

I'm not certain about my certainty...but I can give reasons for medicine being an attractive field for me. This is a copy/paste from my career outline I made for a class assignment.

1. Why do I want to be a physician?
   1. Humanism
      1. physicians can have a positive and lasting impact on many people
      2. physicians are provided with the tools necessary to be effective humanists within and without their scope of medical practice
      3. physicians have the ability to relieve suffering in its many forms
      4. I am very interested in providing free care to underserved populations in a free clinic setting
      5. I am interested in becoming a physician-educator, sharing my knowledge to help students achieve
   2. Societal Influence
      1. physicians, by virtue of their broad education have the capacity to be very effective science communicators and educators
      2. physicians are often advocates for positive change within society and for the safety and health of individuals and communities
   3. Autonomy and Authority
      1. physicians are the leaders of the healthcare team and a physician is responsible for making the most important decisions for patient care
      2. since physicians have full practice rights, they have the ability to open their own practices on their own terms
      3. physicians are called upon in many situations in which their expertise may be applicable
   4. Highly Educated
      1. physicians are very well educated with a litany of tools and understandings gained over at least 8 years of college education
      2. physicians are well informed and responsible members of society
   5. Finances
      1. most physicians achieve financial stability
      2. average yearly income for physician men in 2014 was $267,000
      3. physicians have the financial resources to pursue their interests outside of their careers such as their families, hobbies and non-medical endeavors

Overall, I want to make a positive impact and actively make the world a better place to live in. I could accomplish this through any number of different careers. I happen to enjoy medicine, the little bit of it I've seen, at least.

Your post is full of great reminders. Thanks for the inspiration. 🙂

 

[ridethecliche]

I continued to have doubts through the first two and a half years of medical school. It wasn't until more than halfway through the clinical year that I became confident in my choice. The best you can do is do lots of research on both the career and the path to get there and be honest with yourself. As long as you're being true to yourself and understand what medicine is about, you'll likely be fine. Even then, though, there's still a chance that you may find that it wasn't quite what you signed up for.

Do you think that this doubt was because of the uncertainty involved in moving from your pre-clinical years into a clinical setting and taking on a role in patient care?

Like "Oh, I have a theoretical understanding of how everything is supposed to work, but what if I get there and I have no effing clue what I'm doing?" kind of fear?

 

[NickNaylor]

Do you think that this doubt was because of the uncertainty involved in moving from your pre-clinical years into a clinical setting and taking on a role in patient care?

Like "Oh, I have a theoretical understanding of how everything is supposed to work, but what if I get there and I have no effing clue what I'm doing?" kind of fear?

No, it was because it was terribly boring and not at all what I was interested in doing with respect to my actual vocation.

 

[The_Sunny_Doc]

No, it was because it was terribly boring and not at all what I was interested in doing with respect to my actual vocation.

Are you referring to the basic sciences curriculum?

 

[NickNaylor]

Are you referring to the basic sciences curriculum?

Yes.

 

[karayaa]

I don't think it's logical to "know for sure" until you actually experience it, after residency.
Few of my friends who were convinced that they wanted to be doctors, that it was a perfect fit, that it was their passion, stayed the course. Some are nurses and PAs, some are outside of healthcare.

The inherent uncertainty is hard, though, because you need to convince someone that it's a good fit for you, that you're familiar with it, that you love it, even when you're not sure that you do.

 

[Hospitalized]

"The grass is always greener on the other side."

 

[wowsers]

Sounds like you need more clinical experience as well as exposure to other fields. Can't make the choice without a comparison imo