I;m surprised that there such a large bias for children of doctors to go into medicine. If all of the negative stuff people say to keep you from going into medicine was actually true it would be doctors who would be most capable of stearing their children awya from a career in medicine.
If you consider that there are about 800,000 doctors in the US and maybe 1/2 of them are of the age where they could have a child that is applying to med school, then there are only 400,000 families that can respond yes to having a parent who is a doctor. With a population of 300,000,000 and again guessing 1/2 of the people could have kids of the age to be applying to med school there are 150,000,000 who could select no to the poll question. Assuming this forum has a random sampling of premeds the results for a parent as a doctor should be multiplied by 375. Right now there are 12 yes's and 37 no's, after correction there are over 120 times as many premeds with a parent who is a doctor
I'd say that those of who have parents who are physicians are often pushed away as much as (if not more than) anyone else -- esp. since we actually see the lifestyle physicians live. I have always been one to discourage people from going into medicine b/c it is a difficult lifestyle but so glamorized by Hollywood and b/c it isn't something you can do for yourself or for the ones you love. If either of those are your primary motivation, you're going to miserable. You do it largely out of charity. Unfortunately, from what I've seen, a lot of people still don't realize that as premeds.
I think one reason you see a lot docs' kids go into medicine is the same reason you see kids of parents of any profession pursue that profession -- it's something they are likely to be good at naturally and something they were raised around. While I am very aware of the difficulties, I have my dad's desire to seek a challenge as well as his generosity and love of serving. The latter two I could have fulfilled in psych but I wanted more of a challenge and I couldn't stand to always live with such a limited understanding of the human body. Being as I was the kid that took apart complex devices (electronics, appliances, mechanical devices, etc.) to see how they worked, it only makes sense I would want to have a deeper understanding of the way the human body works.
OTOH, I tend to give a bit of resistance to people who state they're "going to be doctors" but have little to no understanding of what a doctor's life is like simply b/c I don't want them to walk into this blindly as that would be doing them a huge disservice. I guess I would be of the opinion that the premed with physician parents probably has a better understanding of the life of a physician (at least in his/her parent(s)' specialty(ies)). It would seem that should let to less questions and concerns of an applicant's understanding of what it means to be a physician.
...As far as advantages, one thing that I haven't seen mentioned is connections. I know when I brought up schools for the first time to my dad (a clinical MD who also does a fair amount of research on the side and sits on a number of administrative and academic committees), he saw a few (and/or didn't see a few) that he was like "oh yeah, I'm having dinner w/ so-and-so who teaches/is PI of a lab/is director of _____ there next week" or "why aren't you applying to [top 10 research institution]? The director of _____ there is a PI on [national study my dad is PI of for our state's branch]." While I don't know how much those connections will actually help, it wouldn't surprise me if they had some influence on the outcome of admissions at certain institutions. I've had other docs tell me things along the lines of "nepotism is only bad if it means you get
without being qualified" and "medicine is a family business." lol... not sure how I feel about that, but apparently having a well-connected parent who is an MD isn't exactly a bad thing or looked down upon! It simply means I have access to opportunities the average premed may not have access to. It also means, however, that I am probably expected to have a stronger app by medical schools and have the opportunity (and perhaps even responsibility) to help connect others with those resources.
My dad even tried to convince me not to go into medicine!
