engineering vs medicine

[sam2345670]

Hey everyone! Thanks in advance for the help! I'm in dire need of some advice on where to focus my time on. So, let me give you somr quick background info.

I pursued the premed idea from a young age and attended a "premed" academy for the last 2 years of high school, and I loved all of it. Also, I held national level leadership positions in very large health-related collegiate student/professional organizations as well other state/local positions in other organizations (not saying it to brag I swear). So, my extracurricular activities are pretty well lined up with going to med school.

For the past 4 years, I have been researching a specific type of cancer treatment that is quite successful, and I have published conference proceedings papers and have delivered several poster/oral presentations at international research conferences, all as a first author. Ive even been a part of some prestigious research programs for students throughout my college career. So, my research game is ok for undergrad I think.

As for my degree, I am a 21 year old 4th year Electrical Engineering student (3.5 GPA; not graduating for another year) who started out as Biomedical Engineering. I wanted engineering as a backup when i first started, but I liked it a bit more than i thought and decided to pursue it fully. Thus, I switched (3/4 of the way through) because having a BME degree wasn't very helpful when applying to most engineering jobs. Here's where it gets odd: I had an internship as an EE for a pretty solid company, and I ABSOLUTELY HATED IT. I just couldnt stand the idea of working in a box for no credit with minimal impact and all that. After my internship, I started a small side business to explore the entrepreneurial world (and I love it).

Lately, everything around me has been kinda hinting towards pursuing medicine again (just all the convos and stuff - im not uber religious). And, I really miss the medical world, and I really hate the engineering world. Any advice??

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[vc7777]

You have to pay your dues as an EE just like you have to in medicine. A single internship shouldn't form your opinion on an entire field anymore than a single rotation in med school should form your opinion on a specialty. But, in both cases, it happens frequently. Which is a little sad. Really, you should keep an open mind.

If you are saying you prefer the entrepreneur lifestyle, I suspect it's is because you have more autonomy in this role. If so, then medicine should be even less appealing to you. In some ways medicine is still a militant/pecking order training and work environment. Moreso than in engineering must you start at the bottom and do unglamorous work for little appreciation. If you are enjoying your freedom in your side gig, then you might be even more miserable during training in medicine.

tldr;. If I was just an engineer this week I might have been bitching at Holiday parties about how much time I spend sitting in cubicles typing away at a computer with nobody around, doing documentation that doesn't affect anyone in the grand scheme. Instead...I was IN that cubicle for 30+ hours shifts (we have an exemption from the work hour rules) upset how I didn't get to spend either Thanksgiving or Christmas with my kids...still doing paperwork that ultimately doesn't affect patient care.

PS This reminds me of a story. I know two brothers who got EE PhDs, let's call them "Fame" and "Fortune". They were both offered positions at Big Blue shortly after graduating. Both were not excited and apprehensive about the job. Fortune's attitude was "I know I'm going to hate this job" whereas Fame thought was "I don't know if I'll like this job, but I'm going to go in with an open mind". Guess what happened? Fortune ended up hating it, quitting and beginning a business of his own that has more or less languished to this day. Fortune made the most of it, found his niche, worked up the ranks, became a full professor and world expert in his field and generally is much more productive and happy individual.

 

[vc7777]

You've gone through four years of a difficult engineering specialty completing the most basic of training. You owe it to yourself to explore it further before abandoning it. Also, note that if you don't get some more practical exposure soon, and you decide to go into medicine, then you might as well have majored in biology for all practical purposes when you complete your medical training.

If your question is "where to focus my time": It's electrical engineering as a career. You are very well positioned to transition to premedical. Keep that in your back pocket. Really, you don't even need to worry about that now.

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[Meridian32]

I agree with vc7777 above. You should give industry a fair chance by working full time for a couple of years, for two reasons.

1) Internships are not really reflective of what full time engineering work is like. Internship projects are seldom consequential, because they are chosen with the expectation that the intern should be able to fail completely without significant consequences to the rest of the team. Full time engineering is more fun and interesting because your work is more consequential and you will be treated like a full part of the team instead of someone who is there for three months and then gone.

2) More importantly, if you go into medicine, I guarantee that there will be many moments - in med school and especially residency - where you will seriously question your decision to become a doctor and wonder what possessed you to go down this road when you could be working half the hours, earning much more, having a social life, owning a house, etc. if you were working in tech. The many frustrations of medicine will get to you, like the fact that you spend more time writing notes than seeing patients or that your patient was readmitted to the hospital for the 10th time because they aren't taking their meds. At these moments, you will wonder whether you should leave medicine for a normal tech career. You will have a serious case of "Is the grass greener on the other side" syndrome. However, you will not actually know that the grass is not greener on the other side if you have not tried engineering full time. No job is perfect, every job has its downsides and the downsides of full time engineering work include bureaucracy, e-mail, the fact that debugging code often feels less rewarding than curing disease, etc. You may know this theoretically now - but I think it is important to work full time for a couple of years to really understand this and give industry a fair chance. Maybe you will like it more than you think and be happy in industry. And if not, that experience will help you during the many moments when you wonder "Should I leave medicine" during your medical training.