Getting some different perspectives

[DrArete]

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[drizzt3117]

Honestly, if you're this worried about things, you shouldn't do it. It's just not worth it if you aren't "all in". Once you start thinking that studying till 2 am on Friday/Saturday night is normal, never seeing the sun on surgery rotation (literally) for two months (or years if that's what you go into) and then there's the time commitment <shrug>

I have been doing what I think is some healthy second guessing the last couple of weeks. I thought previously I was 100% on my decision to pursue medicine, but like I do with many decisions, I have been taking this one apart, and looking at it from different angles. I say healthy, because this is the most significant decision of my adult life and once I start there is no turning back.

Anyhow, while on the black sinkhole of time consumption that is SDN, I came across a couple of threads that have really fueled a lot of reflection on my part:

1. Discussion back and forth between pre meds and pre dents on pros/cons of MD and DDS - http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=600890


2. You are a doc and just had to tell a family a little girl has a brain tumor http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=154841

 

[EJS1979]

Just before I started my postbac, I was having some pretty severe doubts as well and was really starting to regret my decision. I decided to stick with it, though, and moved away from my friends, my career, and my home, and now, after a postbac year of ups and downs and as I look forward to starting med school in August, I am so happy with the direction I took and grateful that I didn't change my mind (though, obviously I haven't yet had to deal with the long hours of med school and residency). From talking to others, I would say my story is pretty common among my classmates; there were three people in my program, however, who decided that medicine was not for them and left the program to return to their old lives.

What I'm trying to say is that questioning such an enormous decision is normal and, you're right, healthy, but questions do not necessarily mean that you shouldn't do it. It's a decision each person has to make for him or herself. My suggestion would be to think back to why you started to go down the medicine road in the first place, and figure things out from there. Good luck!

 

[epione]

Just before I started my postbac, I was having some pretty severe doubts as well and was really starting to regret my decision. I decided to stick with it, though, and moved away from my friends, my career, and my home, and now, after a postbac year of ups and downs and as I look forward to starting med school in August, I am so happy with the direction I took and grateful that I didn't change my mind (though, obviously I haven't yet had to deal with the long hours of med school and residency). From talking to others, I would say my story is pretty common among my classmates; there were three people in my program, however, who decided that medicine was not for them and left the program to return to their old lives.

What I'm trying to say is that questioning such an enormous decision is normal and, you're right, healthy, but questions do not necessarily mean that you shouldn't do it. It's a decision each person has to make for him or herself. My suggestion would be to think back to why you started to go down the medicine road in the first place, and figure things out from there. Good luck!

i agree with you. humans are inquisitive and curious by nature and i personally opine that it's fine to question yourself and ponder the "what if's" from time to time. we're not robots "programmed" to do any one thing, as much as some people may appear to be at times. i'm glad that you're happy with the decision you made and best of luck to you in the future!

 

[klmnop]

while it is normal to second guess yourself, it is not really a great thing for medicine as opposed to other careers. medicine is significantly more rigid than business, polisci, or law degrees.

likewise i would suggest trying to discover what excited you about medicine in the first place, see if these things are truly attainable and make a decision there.

medicine is a marathon not a sprint and quitting half way through will leave you out of energy, penniless, and in the middle of nowhere.

 

[jslo85]

Have you spent significant time shadowing physicians and working with them in seeing patients? If you haven't, I would strongly suggest you start to get a feel of why you want to become a physician.

If you are having doubts in considering other healthcare fields such as Dentistry, I would also suggest that you switch now. My sister is an OB/GYN resident at UofU and even though she absolutely loves what she is doing, there have been many times that she's admitted that if she knew what she had known now, she might have chose dentistry.

It's the practical choice if you want to look at the time, money, stress, etc. Dentists make comparable and at times higher salary than their physician counterparts, not to mention they can balance out their future family life by having 8-5 work schedules and never on call. I don't even think I need to get started on how much an orthodontist makes in relation to his time. I've taken the DAT and shadowed dentists/peridontists but that's to the extent I was willing to go as I realized I could never be satisfied with myself in that way.

I have been doing what I think is some healthy second guessing the last couple of weeks. I thought previously I was 100% on my decision to pursue medicine, but like I do with many decisions, I have been taking this one apart, and looking at it from different angles. I say healthy, because this is the most significant decision of my adult life and once I start there is no turning back.

Anyhow, while on the black sinkhole of time consumption that is SDN, I came across a couple of threads that have really fueled a lot of reflection on my part:

1. Discussion back and forth between pre meds and pre dents on pros/cons of MD and DDS - http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=600890


2. You are a doc and just had to tell a family a little girl has a brain tumor http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=154841

 

[klmnop]

I realized I could never be satisfied with myself in that way.

Same. Type A personality. If you are going to do something might as well do it 100% and live up to your potential. I would feel so useless dealing with mouths all day.

 

[NewmansOwn]

while it is normal to second guess yourself, it is not really a great thing for medicine as opposed to other careers. medicine is significantly more rigid than business, polisci, or law degrees.

Actually, a medical degree is very flexible. Not necessarily more so than the other degrees you mentioned, but certainly no less.

While clinical medicine is the popular choice, an MD can land you a job in bench research, public health work, pharmaceutical development, health care policy, business consulting and hospital administration.

Arete, it's quite normal to feel a little unsure of yourself now. How can you possibly know if medicine is perfect for you without experiencing it? And how could you be expected to truly experience medicine without any medical experience? A tautology, for sure, but a problem we all faced at one point or another.

All I can say is if you've tried something else, didn't feel fulfilled and think medicine might be able to fill in the gaps and make you feel worthwhile, go for it. Health care in the US has a ton of problems, that's for sure, but isn't it going to be cool to say you were on the front lines of the debate and worked hard to make your voice matter? You can be part of the solution instead of a spectator. I'd take that opportunity any day.

 

[klmnop]

While clinical medicine is the popular choice, an MD can land you a job in bench research, public health work, pharmaceutical development, health care policy, business consulting and hospital administration.

Agreed, but this is a relatively narrow range of careers. In fact, for most of these you mentioned it helps to have either a completely different degree, or both. (ex: MBA, PhD, MPH, JD).

 

[paperaeroplane]

I guess that one of the great things about an MD is that each speciality is so different that there really is something for every type of personality out there. For example, a surgeon's day-to-day work schedule is very different than that of a psychiatrist. So, your lifestyle in a way is what you make out of it. If you choose a specialty that you know you have a passion for, then you won't regret your decision. If you choose a specialty that other people think you should choose, then you will be unhappy. At the end of the day, it is about self-assessment and asking yourself what makes you happy. The road to becoming a doctor probably feels impossible a lot of the time, but you won't know if you can do it unless you try. If there really isn't anything else out there that you could see yourself doing, and if you are unsure about whether or not you want to do dentistry, then I would not count out medicine, because it doesn't limit you to a particular sub-field like dentistry would.

 

[jslo85]

Since the OP hasn't even done any of the pre-reqs (I believe this to be true from his older posts), I don't think he even technically needs to decide at this very minute. For most of the professional schools in healthcare, he will need the same pre-reqs anyway such as organic chemistry, gen bio, gen chem etc. so I don't even think he needs to "count anything out" but to keep it in the back of his mind to do some shadowing for all professions in the meantime. He's at the very minimum, a year out from applying to anything so why doesn't he try to get some experience like all these posters have been suggesting to him up till now.

 

[darkjedi]

While the risk and the uncertainty of pursuing medicine is extremely daunting, I see myself enjoying not only the end result of being a doctor, but enjoying the process of learning amazing things in medical school. To me the money is really of no object anymore as I see this as an opportunity to invest in myself and my future happiness.

One year of post-bac is not going to land yourself so far in debt, the only way out of it is to become a doctor. If you find yourself really regretting yourself, drop out of the program and pay off that one year doing whatever you were doing before. It might be a lot of money, but as you said, this is the biggest decision of your adult life, the tuition cost of a postbac program should just be written off as the cost of exploring and discovering what your passion is.

 

[klmnop]

learning absolutely nothing of value except for how to manipulate MS Excel real good

haha, just think of all the possibilities....

 

[MD to be 1 day]

"It might be a lot of money, but as you said, this is the biggest decision of your adult life, the tuition cost of a postbac program should just be written off as the cost of exploring and discovering what your passion is. "

well said, darkjedi.

 

[DrArete]

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[DrArete]

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[DrArete]

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[DrArete]

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[DrArete]

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[BeachBlondie]

Second guessing yourself may lead to the greatest epiphone of your life--at least that's how I ended up switching to medicine.

I had a lucrative career laid out for me at the age of 21. But, when I finally had to make the decision....something wasn't right. I thought that's what I had wanted for so long, so why wasn't I happier? Thus, I took about a year off and did some soul searching. I ended up landing on medicine and love it.

You have to focus on what makes you unique. What are your inherent strengths and how can you exhaust those for the greater good AND for further delving into who you are as a person?

I take a very Socratic approach to life and--in my opinion--the entire thing is a quest to learn and grow as much as possible. So, take some time before you solidify what you're contemplating. Assess what kind of person you are and what you bring to the table of life. In the end, you'll be glad you did.

Go get 'em, tiger.

 

[drizzt3117]

It shouldnt be too brutal for the post bacc, I chose location over the more competitive programs.

you weren't a premed so it's understandable why you don't understand what makes programs "competitive" for the people in it. At Tufts you're going to be graded on a curve against premeds in weed-out classes, have fun with that. A program like bm is designed for students to work hard but almost all of them get As and they're not graded against the undergrads specifically. Adcoms won't give $0.02 about the difference in grading system and will actually value grades from bm higher even tho it's generally easier to get high grades. This is one of the reasons people prefer bm to Penn too.