I consider this very sad fact when I hear people saying how this and that is gross and how this and that is better than the other. I don't think those people are truly meant to be Doctors. Historically people became doctors because they wanted to help people, heal people and were fascinated how human body works. Nowadays, a lot of people turned it into a way to get prestige and income. It is truly sad. On SDN, there are so many conversations and arguments about MD, DO, Podiatry and such, trying to compare them. You can often read between the lines of a lot of pre-med student's posts that they think about prestige, recognition, income and reputation rather than patient care and the outcome of care. In most countries, healthcare providers get the lowest income compared to other careers, and people still went for medicine because it was their true calling.
I hear so many people say that podiatry or some other medical careers do not pay enough as compared to MD/DO doctors. I feel like if salaries for physicians would lower below 100-150K, more than half of the people would never even think about medicine.
I personally think that nobody should get discouraged from the medical field they choose. Everyone should choose a career where they will be a best fit, where they will enjoy it, where their true calling is, where they feel more comfortable and where they believe they can be an asset.
Our thinking should be about patients, their quality of care and outcome of that care. If someone is not ready to experience the gross part about medicine, they should go into a different field. No matter what specialty you are in medicine, be it podiatry, cardiology, family medicine, neurology, pediatrics, ER, surgery, dermatology or anything else, you should always be ready to experience anything. Primary focus is patient satisfaction.
From lots of volunteering and shadowing, I have seen that even oncologist/hematologists, neurologists and some other "nice" specialists are ready to do anything that is best for the patient. When I shadowed one really awesome young Neurology/Palliative care doctor, I have seen how he loves to help people and would go extra mile to meet the needs of the patient. 99% of the time he examined patient's feet as well. There was a lot of "gross" part involved, but I have never seen him even to show or mention that he doesn't like it. There is a lot to see: drunk patients sometimes, angry relatives, end of life situations and decision-making, vomiting in front of you, feeling responsible for someone's death or negative outcome of care, difficult and uncooperative patients and so on and so on. If a person is not ready to experience it all and feel rewarded because at the end its someone else's life getting saved or improved, then they should find another career.
I feel like a lot of pre-meds want to go to medicine to wear white coat, collect income to have nice houses and cars, to have recognition and respect among peers, have recognition from their family and do the most comfortable specialty as possible. Very sad.