Does everyone want to be a doctor?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
B

bobthesun

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Jul 13, 2010
Messages
128
Reaction score
5
I feel like everyone I meet in college or anywhere wants to be a doctor. Is it just me who thinks this? not only that but are there any stats to show that this is the case? besides i read somewhere that more and more people are apply to medical school every year. no source right now. But if this is the case do you think there is going to be a higher saturation of doctors in the future (like what has happened to pathology?)?
Members don't see this ad.
 
bobthesun said:
I feel like everyone I meet in college or anywhere wants to be a doctor. Is it just me who thinks this? not only that but are there any stats to show that this is the case? besides i read somewhere that more and more people are apply to medical school every year. no source right now. But if this is the case do you think there is going to be a higher saturation of doctors in the future (like what has happened to pathology?)?
Click to expand...

I have noticed this too. Ever since the economy tanked everyone says they want to be a doctor since supposedly it is "immune" from the downturn.

I have friends who either switched out of engineering or decided not to do it in the first place because they were worried about the job market for engineers in the future.

I go to a top 5 public uni and my orgo class has about 1500 students in all sections. I would say >90% of these students are "planning" on going to med school :scared:

With every passing year it gets harder and harder to get into Med school. When I start applying to med schools in about 2 years the competition is going to be harsh 😱
 
Last edited:
bobthesun said:
I feel like everyone I meet in college or anywhere wants to be a doctor. Is it just me who thinks this? not only that but are there any stats to show that this is the case? besides i read somewhere that more and more people are apply to medical school every year. no source right now. But if this is the case do you think there is going to be a higher saturation of doctors in the future (like what has happened to pathology?)?
What happened to pathology ?
Click to expand...
 
Members don't see this ad :)
omg yes!

Haha I was talking about this the other day, everywhere I go and everyone I hear wants to be doctors.
 
bobthesun said:
I feel like everyone I meet in college or anywhere wants to be a doctor. Is it just me who thinks this? not only that but are there any stats to show that this is the case? besides i read somewhere that more and more people are apply to medical school every year. no source right now. But if this is the case do you think there is going to be a higher saturation of doctors in the future (like what has happened to pathology?)?
Click to expand...

Well if you think about it there is 300 million people in the U.S. alone.
Only 900,000+ physicians still practice and most are on the verge of retirement.

So the question about saturation, i would think it would take a while before something like that happens, but yea there are many fields that aren't as popular as the others, but since a lot of people are pursuing medicine now and days, they hope to fill those spots.

I guess the part that sucks is competition ;p
 
Heh. Everyone I meet specifically states they *don't* want to be doctors, or were former premed students, or even former med students.

But then again, I hear from my advisors that "lots" of students switched from my former major to my current one, so who knows.
 
Definitely not.

I have two siblings who are smarter and have better GPAs than I and definitely would be accepted. One of them was a chemistry major at Harvard and had a 3.85 GPA.

They cannot think of anything worse than being a doctor.
 
The good thing is that baby boomers are starting to retire. More jobs for us! Also, now's a great time to go into geriatrics 😀

But honestly, when you're starting college, EVERYONE wants to be a doctor. By sophomore year you're taking OChem and/or physics which, at least at my school, cut the population of aspiring med students by 30%. By junior year people are starting to get burnt out, and people are taking the MCAT and getting a dose of reality. A few more people are ditching the med school idea. By senior year, "pre-meds" fall into two categories: those who are applying right away or will apply within the next two years, and those who want to "strengthen their application" and "eventually try for med school". I don't know how many people in the latter category eventually buck up and apply.

Also, more people applying to med school doesn't necessarily imply a stronger applicant pool. The truly passionate and motivated people probably didn't choose medicine because it's a guaranteed job. I'd imagine the competition for top 20 schools won't change much.
 
It was like that before the recession as well. Doctor is one of the more popular career aspirations for students early in college (lawyer is another one). Most never end up doing it for a variety of reasons.

Also, people "wanting to be a doctor" and number of people applying to med school don't have any effect on job-market saturation. Things like number of students accepted and number of residency slots filled do.
 
Well there's no sign's of doctor saturation for a long while. Simply because there is a cap on the number that will be trained yearly. Not to mention most pre-meds don't last, they probably die out in pretty nice increments like 70% first year then ~20% for the next 3 years.
 
bobthesun said:
I feel like everyone I meet in college or anywhere wants to be a doctor. Is it just me who thinks this? not only that but are there any stats to show that this is the case? besides i read somewhere that more and more people are apply to medical school every year. no source right now. But if this is the case do you think there is going to be a higher saturation of doctors in the future (like what has happened to pathology?)?
Click to expand...
You must be a first year in college, in a typical "premed" major. Yes, at that point it will seem everyone wants to be a doctor. By the end of the prereqs 90% will drop their premed ambitions (or those were the numbers where I went to college).

Then you must take the MCAT - about 25% of people who take the MCAT will never do well enough to apply.

Then you have to apply. Currently the admission rate is 50%

So take that 100 people that you meet who want to be doctors. And we are down to 3.75 of them are going to actually get into medical school.

Sure, a lot of young college students "want" to be doctors. Most will change their minds or not get in. There is a limit to the number of medical school spots in the country - so even if they all made it to the application process - there is no concern about saturation ANY time soon.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
I guess this may just be me growing up in Suburbia, but everyone has always wanted to be doctors.

And I'm one of the few I know that will actually become one. But it wasn't until college that I decided that.

Funny the way the world works.
 
That's why we have the pre-reqs like intro bio, chem, and orgo to weed out impurities orthose who cannot handle the material.
 
bobthesun said:
Is it just me who thinks this?
Click to expand...

Yes. Outside of the pre-med/science bubble, very few people have the inclination to attend 4 years of medical school, acquire a large amount of debt, and then go on to a challenging 1-5 year+ residency before they start to make decent money.
 
rafflecopter said:
Yes. Outside of the pre-med/science bubble, very few people have the inclination to attend 4 years of medical school, acquire a large amount of debt, and then go on to a challenging 1-5 year+ residency before they start to make decent money.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but even though I realize this it's hard for me to talk about starting school in social situations without getting a big ****-eating grin and feeling like I'm just the most awesome person ever. While I'm talking I realize I'm being such a d-bag, but I can't help myself. I'm not sure how to handle it.
 
toastedcheese said:
Yeah, but even though I realize this it's hard for me to talk about starting school in social situations without getting a big ****-eating grin and feeling like I'm just the most awesome person ever. While I'm talking I realize I'm being such a d-bag, but I can't help myself. I'm not sure how to handle it.
Click to expand...

Be humble and these people will think that you are the most awesome person ever without having to convince anybody.
 
It is likely that because you are taking pre-req biology courses that the proportion of students that you come across in your classes who want to be doctors would be greater than lets say if you were an art major and took a bunch of art classes.
 
familyaerospace said:
When I started college, I definitely did not want to be a doctor. I was only called to medicine after graduate school.
Click to expand...

what is medicine's phone number? I would like to leave him a message.

Dude hasn't called me yet.

(i had to!)
 
SU1989 said:
👍 I am in my third year and most of my friends already dropped out from being a pre-med. Also, the first meeting of my pre-health organization was packed (literally more than 100 people), but by the end of the year there were no more than 10 people appearing regularly.
Click to expand...
What exactly do you guys do you do in your pre-health meetings?
 
I don't know of anyone IRL who wants to be a doctor ATM. My friends in college who wanted to become doctors are now currently in med school. It would be so much easier if we didn't want to go to medical school, wouldn't it? 🙂
 
It will change. Not everyone makes it through. Half my class dropped their "premed" status after first semester.
 
Adaggiote said:
That's why we have the pre-reqs like intro bio, chem, and orgo to weed out impurities orthose who cannot handle the material.
Click to expand...

And even if they do make it out alive from pre-med status, med school is a whole different ball game in its self that weeds out people.
 
It seems like everyone wants to go to med school. It's scary to think that we all will not make it.
 
My school is notorious for this. I can most definitely say 90 percent of the freshman currently (including myself) are pre-meds. Sure, the numbers will decline, but my school is filled with cut throat "pre-meds" which means more competition..*sigh*
 
If you're a freshman in college, you will definitely meet a lot of "pre-meds", that will change. Also, I tend to think that people in early college shoot for doctor or lawyer because they have a general interest (say in science, or healthcare) but haven't been exposed to much else.
 
bobthesun said:
I feel like everyone I meet in college or anywhere wants to be a doctor. Is it just me who thinks this? not only that but are there any stats to show that this is the case? besides i read somewhere that more and more people are apply to medical school every year. no source right now. But if this is the case do you think there is going to be a higher saturation of doctors in the future (like what has happened to pathology?)?
Click to expand...
I GUARANTEE this is not true. I work at a top Dallas hospital and every student wants to be a RN. Even at school everyone wants to be a nurse. They see me studing at work and ask "Are you in nursing school?" Then when I say no, premed, their eyes get big like "Wow, you want to be a doc?" Where the hell do you guys live? No one I know wants to jump thro the hoops.
 
Doctor246853 said:
I GUARANTEE this is not true. I work at a top Dallas hospital and every student wants to be a RN. Even at school everyone wants to be a nurse. They see me studing at work and ask "Are you in nursing school?" Then when I say no, premed, their eyes get big like "Wow, you want to be a doc?" Where the hell do you guys live? No one I know wants to jump thro the hoops.
Click to expand...

Crazy fools. 🙂 That is how it is here. Everyone wants to be a nurse. I had a few male, laid off auto workers in my gen biology class last semester even who wanted to go into nursing. Unfortunately right now, there aren't a lot of nursing positions available for new grads.
 
StudyShy said:
Crazy fools. 🙂 That is how it is here. Everyone wants to be a nurse. I had a few male, laid off auto workers in my gen biology class last semester even who wanted to go into nursing. Unfortunately right now, there aren't a lot of nursing positions available for new grads.
Click to expand...
I know! Everyone...I mean everyone wants to be a R.N. Its quicker and decent money. No one wants to wait so dam long like M.D.'s Glad I live in Texas I guess...🙂
 
I just checked and see you're a sophomore. It's alright, I'm one too. Since we're still in huuuuge premed prereq classes (unless you're at a small school) and pretty much taking all science courses, we're definitely still very much absorbed into the science world. Of that world, a lot of us are still premeds but I've noticed a considerable few (who I vaguely remember saying they were premed) who are not saying that they are anymore. Just a result of weeder courses I guess.

But still, I think it's more strange that I know nobody who's Pre-Law...I know plenty of Pre-Dent, Pre-Pharm, Pre-Business, Pre-whatever, but no law students. I fully assume that is beacuse we're science majors and we know nobody else outside of those who are in our own classes.
 
Doctor246853 said:
I know! Everyone...I mean everyone wants to be a R.N. Its quicker and decent money. No one wants to wait so dam long like M.D.'s Glad I live in Texas I guess...🙂
Click to expand...

Nursing is great for a lot of people. Most have supported my decision to go back to school, but a few don't understand why I wouldn't want to be a DNP. So many of my nursing friends are going to NP school right now. I just can't stand anymore nursing theory. Heck no.

It was kind of fun...and kind of sad to listen to the students in my general biology class talk about trying to get into nursing school (which is difficult to get into at my school for instance good ACT, 3.7+ GPA, state resident). This is probably what doctors and med students think of us. I'm not sure if I'd do nursing again for personal reasons if I could go back in time knowing what I know now.
 
Maison said:
Huh? What happened to pathology?
Click to expand...

Pathology job market sucks. Every year there are 500+ new graduates on the market, and the market does not need so many. As a result, it's very hard to land a good paying job in private practice, especially in a major metro area.

Don't go into pathology unless you have a guaranteed gig after the residency, or unless you have a dermpath fellowship lined up. Or unless you want to do forensics.

The cause of the oversupply of new trainee is sheer exploitation of residents by program directors. Program directors need warm bodies. Specimens need to be grossed and scut needs to be done. Most directors don't care if residents can find a good job after they graduate... And many FMGs are so desperate to come to US that they take any residency spot they can get.

Could this happen to other fields? It COULD, but I can't predict which ones and when. Technology changes, laws governing medicine change. There are too many variables to account for.

Take home message: having MD and residency under your belt does not GUARANTEE you a job.
 
I see. Thank you.
 
hmmm I think it depends on how big your university is. I go to a really big one and there is this pre-health seminar for freshman that it is "strongly recommended" that we take and out of about 200 kids in that class, maybe like 110 of them are pre-med
 
OP, if you walk into a bio class or any other premed class, a good amount of them will be premed. But there is still a decent amount that is predent, pharm or trying to get a PhD. And when you're in the prereq premed classes you'll have huge classes where it seems everyone is premed, but as time goes on a lot of people drop being premed to become another major or to become predent, etc.
 
Slowpoke said:
what is medicine's phone number? I would like to leave him a message.

Dude hasn't called me yet.

(i had to!)
Click to expand...

LOL. Well I didn't have caller ID on the number he called me on.

Try

800 555 BE MD
 
slowbutsteady said:
Definitely not.

I have two siblings who are smarter and have better GPAs than I and definitely would be accepted. One of them was a chemistry major at Harvard and had a 3.85 GPA.

They cannot think of anything worse than being a doctor.
Click to expand...

Then they must not be as smart as you think... 😀
 
This is definitely a perspective issue. Obviously, in pre-med classes everyone wants to be a doctor. Why else would you sit through organic chemistry? But in every conlaw or political science class, everyone wants to be a lawyer. In both cases, not many will succeed. And in the case of the lawyers, many who do will wish they hadn't.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=law school&st=cse
 
It is like that around here. Mostly it is due to miss information but every year or so all the freshmen fill into the pre-med club and claim to want to be doctors. Majority change to Nurse or PA when they learn about how long it takes vs pay out. Another half quit when they learn what the pre-recs are or get bad grades in them. Even more drop the idea when they learn that a 3.0 is sucky grades and how the application process works. I would say about 5 out of 10 that are left after that are only interested in big school and quit after they can't get in after graduation. Of those that do go on to med school 5 to 10 go on to an MD school, 3 to 6 go to DO schools and 3 ish will go to the Island system of doom and never finish.

Advice at this school is the worst. When we polled people to see what they know about med school. 80 percent never heard of Malpractice insurance. Half thought starting the app process in August was starting early. A few never heard of a DO and of those that did the over whelming majority believed that a DO can not prescribe medicine or do surgery. Majority felt the MCAT was optional. A smaller minority never knew about the pre-recs until senior year.

So keeping just my school in mind, don't worry about the flood of peeps that want to be docs.
 
Also keep in mind that many people use the term premed quite liberally. I've run into many people who say they are premed, but once I start asking questions I found that they actually plan on going into nursing or PA.

In some cases I think they are just throwing around the term to hide their true aspirations, most of the time though, I think it's just that most students don't know jack about what premed is let alone what the actual process is to becoming a doctor. Hence the alarming rate of individuals majoring in premed.
 
so many students in my class said they were planning on med school...now most of those are taking a year off with no plans or soluble mcat scores. so i wouldn't worry
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
Does a DIY postbacc have to be bio?
Replies
3
Views
362
Goro
Goro
L
What does an AdCom want to hear when considering someone on WL?
Replies
6
Views
903
Doodledog
Doodledog
DestinyRoseAndrews
Does everyone need 1000+ hours?
Replies
17
Views
3K
DestinyRoseAndrews
DestinyRoseAndrews
KnownBreakfast1985
Are my chances to be a doctor over because of my IA?
Replies
17
Views
3K
Angus Avagadro
Angus Avagadro
C
Is it normal to be invited to tour a school while on the waitlist?
Replies
2
Views
548
Rachapkis
Rachapkis
Top