How bad really is med school?

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It's not bad at all. Its mostly fun, sprinkled with some frustration and stress. No good things are stress free, and med school is a good thing. I treated it (thus far) as a 7-5 job and occasionaly pulled a few extra hours. Its fun stuff that you're learning, amazing skills and nothing better then the moment when your brain goes *click* and everything makes sense!
Dude this sounds so reasonable, 7-5 sounds great, get like 3-4 hours for your self and what you wanna do, honestly better than some jobs, feeling pumped tbh now
 
I hear ya, that was similar to the approach I took for the MCAT. The material on that test was SO boring though I’m hoping that most of the material is at least a bit more fun.

It is way better than MCAT material but eventually you dont care anymore. It doesn't matter how fun the material is when you are forced to study for months on end. In the beginning, I enjoyed the material, but eventually the topic didn't matter I was just studying to get through it. There is a reason its called a grind. The material isn't hard (99% of the time) there is just so much to get through in 2 years.
 
Dude this sounds so reasonable, 7-5 sounds great, get like 3-4 hours for your self and what you wanna do, honestly better than some jobs, feeling pumped tbh now
Does your school have mandatory attendance?
 
I hear ya, that was similar to the approach I took for the MCAT. The material on that test was SO boring though I’m hoping that most of the material is at least a bit more fun.
The mcat material itself is nothing like what youll learn in med school. Its filled with useless info youll never use or see again. The material in med school is much more interesting. The time you spent studying for the MCAT weeks before the exam will be what med school feels like all the time
 
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Dude this sounds so reasonable, 7-5 sounds great, get like 3-4 hours for your self and what you wanna do, honestly better than some jobs, feeling pumped tbh now
It all depends on how well you want to do. If youre wanting a competitive specialty you feel stress like all the time. Start out busting your butt to over compensate but after a while once you find your groove and you find you could care less about a competitive specialty then its not really all that bad and you can get by without a whole lot of constant stress. My advice is prepare for the worst-I know I want to do university/academic IM as a DO which is sort of competitive but nothing like derm plastics ortho etc but regardless I feel the need to make sure I am on my game all the time which is stressful for me personally. Some of my friends wanting Peds or FM at community programs that literally dont care where they go arent really that stressed all the time
 
Hey guys aspiring pre-med here and i just wanted to ask really what is it like for you guys in med school? Idk recently i've just been talking to a few of my older friends who are 2,3,4th years and they literally seem like their soul's been sucked out of them, many questioning if they would do it again. It worries me because they were all at 1 point like me excited, ambitious pre meds, so what gives? Studying for the mcat I avg anywhere from 7-9 hrs a day, i enjoy it; science is cool, i go to the gym, hang out occasionally, life is nice, like what changes? I assume this is how a typical medical student has his schedule, maybe ramped up a bit during exam week? Should I just not listen to them and do my thing or is there something i'm missing here?

Hey OP. First of all, congrats on your acceptance to med school, that is a great accomplishment and you should always be proud of that.

As you can probably see from a lot of people here, different people have different evaluations of how hard med school is. For me personally, it was extremely difficult and I did not finish the program. I have a previous post from several months ago that talks about why I left and it actually is also an article on the home page from a couple weeks ago, but understand that some people will be in the bottom 5% working thier butt off just to pass/survive and that was me throughout my time in school.

My best advice for you is to be positive, be very flexible with your study habits, and go in with the expectation that this will be the most challenging curriculum you've had before but that you're capable of handling it. Keeping that in mind and staying focused and disciplined throughout the 4 years is what will get you through, don't worry about how much or how little studying others around you are doing.
 
Just finished MS1. It was a hellish grind at times (neuro/msk), but largely reasonable. I hear MS2 gets a lot better here, which I'm hopeful for. Our into path course made the material significantly more interesting and easier to study IMO. Ultimately, it's a grind, but so is working and I think a lot of people on here forget just how hard people work for even a 60k job, and you'll walk/crawl out of this earning many times that.
For the most part, we are a bunch of kids who come from upper middle class families; therefore, most of us do not know how hard other people have it.
 
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Thanks for the insight avagadro. Out of curiosity if boards were once for licensure purposes and actual scores were less important what determined specialty of choice back then? Who you know? The tier of your med school? How would they strat applicants? Not trying to get off topic but just curious
Back in the Old Timey Days, there weren't as many med schools or grads as there are today. There was a scarcity of specialists. My town of 10,000 people didnt have a cardiologist, pulmonologist or even a general internist. A few general surgeons and GPs. No pediatrician
You had to drive 40 mint to see any aspecialist. This shortage of specialists opened the door for IMGs and they filled the specialty gaps in rural America. So, getting placed in a specialty residency wasnt nearly as competetive as today. In my case I targeted the residency I wanted and spent 2 elective months there. The university where I was faculty looked at the med school the applicant graduated from, giving huge preference to the Ivys or top 20. When I was on the resident selection committee, no one ever mentioned boards scores, only failures. LORs were very important. If a dept chair wrote you a letter, it was a big plus. This was 20 yrs ago, so look at how things have changed. It ain't right, it's just the way it is. Right now it's the only game in town, so you gotta play or go home
 
can you sleep 8 hours every night or is some sacrifice expected?
 
can you sleep 8 hours every night or is some sacrifice expected?
Most times yes. Sometimes it varies because of test schedules. Most of the time there aren’t issues with making it like a normal job. However, the people who have never worked before get thrown off by the time commitment. It really isn’t that bad except for the crazy times, but those fly by quick
 
Yeah spring M2 by far worst. You said youre about to be a second yr resident what specialty are you in? How much harder is res than med school?

I'm a psychiatrist and for me residency is infinitely better. Even my medicine and neuro rotations were far better than med school because I'm actually getting to treat patients with plans I come up with (obviously with attending approval) and get paid for it. There are weeks when it's worse time-wise (I've had two 90+ hour weeks), but even then I think the actual work is so much more enjoyable. The only part I really hate is the administrative/bureaucratic crap that sometimes comes up, but even that is alright most days.

I think the difficulty will depend on many things like what field you're in, what program you're at (malignant vs. supportive), how well you work in teams, how well you can deal with administrative stuff, etc. The most miserable people I've met are the ones who were study robots who never really enjoyed clinical rotations, but most people do just fine where I'm at.

There were a ton more spaces. I have a family friend who’s a retired pediatrician that trained in the early 70s. He was baffled to learn that ortho was competitive. He said only the dumb jocks did it

My mentor in UG was a DO orthopod who went to med school in the late 80's/early 90's. He said when he applied for residency he didn't even need a Step 1 score and just sent applications to places in locations he wanted to live and got interviews at all of them. Things got competitive with boards when there was a drastic increase in med school graduates, and it's no coincidence that the most competitive fields are the highest paying for lifestyle fields (neurosurg, plastics, ortho, derm) while the lower paying fields remained wide open.

Also, back then orthopods weren't paid as much as they are now compared to other physicians. I believe the 80's were the golden age when reimbursement sky-rocketed and a decade or so after that "competitive" fields started to emerge. Residencies really started using board scores to differentiate applicants around 2000 as it became a standardized method of comparing people across all schools. Even now things have changed. 10 years ago no one who killed Step 1 took Step 2 until after interview season because residencies didn't care about it as much and a poor score could kill their app. Conversely, people who had mediocre Step 1 scores would take Step 2 and try and kill it to show that their Step 1 score was a fluke. Now residencies value Step 2 scores more and at a lot of places you have to have one to be considered for an interview, but this is a relatively new phenomenon.

It is way better than MCAT material but eventually you dont care anymore. It doesn't matter how fun the material is when you are forced to study for months on end. In the beginning, I enjoyed the material, but eventually the topic didn't matter I was just studying to get through it. There is a reason its called a grind. The material isn't hard (99% of the time) there is just so much to get through in 2 years.

This x100. I loooooved med school and really enjoyed studying at first. After a couple months though it just gets repetitive and starts to get really tedious and boring. Even when you switch systems/subjects, it's only refreshing for the first couple of days and then it's a grind again. I think this is part of why I like clinicals so much better, because every rotation was a genuinely new experience (also helped that I was at a new hospital almost every month).

can you sleep 8 hours every night or is some sacrifice expected?

Most of the time yes. I'd sleep a little less on weekends before tests, and some rotations may cut into you sleep schedule or life balance pretty heavily (typically surgery), but overall as long as you're efficient and organized one should be able to regularly get 7-8 hours of sleep every night.
 
I'm a psychiatrist and for me residency is infinitely better. Even my medicine and neuro rotations were far better than med school because I'm actually getting to treat patients with plans I come up with (obviously with attending approval) and get paid for it. There are weeks when it's worse time-wise (I've had two 90+ hour weeks), but even then I think the actual work is so much more enjoyable. The only part I really hate is the administrative/bureaucratic crap that sometimes comes up, but even that is alright most days.

I think the difficulty will depend on many things like what field you're in, what program you're at (malignant vs. supportive), how well you work in teams, how well you can deal with administrative stuff, etc. The most miserable people I've met are the ones who were study robots who never really enjoyed clinical rotations, but most people do just fine where I'm at.



My mentor in UG was a DO orthopod who went to med school in the late 80's/early 90's. He said when he applied for residency he didn't even need a Step 1 score and just sent applications to places in locations he wanted to live and got interviews at all of them. Things got competitive with boards when there was a drastic increase in med school graduates, and it's no coincidence that the most competitive fields are the highest paying for lifestyle fields (neurosurg, plastics, ortho, derm) while the lower paying fields remained wide open.

Also, back then orthopods weren't paid as much as they are now compared to other physicians. I believe the 80's were the golden age when reimbursement sky-rocketed and a decade or so after that "competitive" fields started to emerge. Residencies really started using board scores to differentiate applicants around 2000 as it became a standardized method of comparing people across all schools. Even now things have changed. 10 years ago no one who killed Step 1 took Step 2 until after interview season because residencies didn't care about it as much and a poor score could kill their app. Conversely, people who had mediocre Step 1 scores would take Step 2 and try and kill it to show that their Step 1 score was a fluke. Now residencies value Step 2 scores more and at a lot of places you have to have one to be considered for an interview, but this is a relatively new phenomenon.



This x100. I loooooved med school and really enjoyed studying at first. After a couple months though it just gets repetitive and starts to get really tedious and boring. Even when you switch systems/subjects, it's only refreshing for the first couple of days and then it's a grind again. I think this is part of why I like clinicals so much better, because every rotation was a genuinely new experience (also helped that I was at a new hospital almost every month).



Most of the time yes. I'd sleep a little less on weekends before tests, and some rotations may cut into you sleep schedule or life balance pretty heavily (typically surgery), but overall as long as you're efficient and organized one should be able to regularly get 7-8 hours of sleep every night.
awesome post. thank you
 
can you sleep 8 hours every night or is some sacrifice expected?
No reason why you shouldnt be able to get 8 hours in M1 and M2 if attendance is not mandatory. I averaged 7-8 hrs per night all of M1 and did well. pretty much went to bed and woke up whenever I wanted to and still had plenty of time to study and do well. Exam days I averaged 5 probably just from drinking too much coffee and having 8am exams etc
 
It's rough like they say it is.
But whenever it gets rough, I realize, I'd be much more unsatisfied with life if I weren't in med school.

On top of that, this first year has been amazing. I met the love of my life and the future looks ohh so bright!

If you can see yourself doing something else with your life, do that instead, becuase you won't last the 8+ years that goes into this gig.
But if you can only see becoming a doctor, then you owe it to this aging population to serve!
 
M4 has been rough so far for me because I am on a sub-i and doing 13 hour days. Rotations can be hard, but some are enjoyable and i like it a lot more than m1 and m2
 
Practicing Psychiatrist.

Med school is bad. Many people will hit the wall where studying with intensity isn't good enough - you are no longer above average. Now you will have to bust your academia to survive. I recall frequently 12-15 hour days studying (or waking at 3-4AM just before tests to cram more,) and often hitting the wall of slowing mentation due to inattention from fatigue/boredom. Not boredom in traditional sense but just a yearn for something else besides studying all day long. When faced with upcoming exams, you have no choice but to grind and get it done. The breath of fresh air was the hours following a test, and then again the reality of the next test deadline would start to sink in, and cycle repeats. (school was rolling classes and rolling tests, I selected that over the class/test block schools intentionally).

There will be classmates who cruise thru and just simply have the right study habits that work for them and are able to put in less time (they are a minority). However, odds are, that won't be you. Others I observed had families and truly had to limit their study time to still keep their home life together. But it will leave very little room for much else. Perhaps some self care for exercise. Perhaps some time with extended family if they live in the area. Perhaps the local bar with classmates if in that life stage still. But often you will find yourself devoted to your books. I missed a grandmothers funeral for med school. Only to later learn that some students had been granted test delay/make ups for family events like this, but it was not advertised - I am resentful of this.

Some 3rd/4th year rotations were exhausting with hours, and then reading once home. I fell asleep with face in book numerous times. Stress of knowing that each rotation could be a land mine of one nurse, one resident, one staff doc who might only remember one minor fault and blow it out of proportion. It takes a lot of effort to bring 100% student cheerful to every rotation. Avoid the landmine topics of religion, politics. Keep your jokes simple enough to tell to a kid. To feign interest in every rotation, to see the positive of the experience while in the grind of that moment. There is the very real risk one trivial mistake out of all the weeks would be the one thing they would throw into eval. This is an important lesson and foreshadowing for the rest of your medical career. One drop of blood in the water and sharks will circle - it doesn't take much, so always have to bring your A game. Elicit feedback often to sniff out if an evaluator smelled blood so you can do something about it. And when you get feedback, stay quiet, look interested and ONLY respond, "thank you for the feedback." Doing that is one of the hardest things for people to do, but is so very an important lesson to practice or heaven forbid learn the hard way. Medical school trains you to bring your A game for those times in residency and beyond when you are exhausted, get paged at 2AM, and the clueless nurse, or brand new nurse brings up an issue that can wait for the AM day shift, or presents a problem about a patient but has no clue what's going on with the patient or the answer they seek is in the progress note of the doc earlier that day - but they didn't read the note. Like much of the medical training process the suck is real while marching through it, but at the end of it, you develop a survival skill set to put on your rose colored glasses and say, 'that wasn't so bad, I'm glad I had that experience.' At the end of medical school, and even to this day, I'm glad I experienced medical school, the pain, the suffering, the joy, the everything, it really is an exposure to our complete life cycle that will put a lot of worldly BS into perspective, and I wish every person could some how experience medical school and all the life experiences it entails. However, if I had to repeat medical school again now as an immigrant to another country, nope, hell no, hard pass, once was enough.

There are rotations, classes, classmates, etc that are positive. That you will be engaged with, feel energy and excitement towards, and gleefully find the fun of learning about. "huh, so that's why that is that way..." "who knew, that's a variant of normal!" etc. Or trouble pausing a text chapter because of how interesting it is. But overall don't count on there being more joyous moments in comparison.

Licensing exams just suck. Constantly looming over you until you knock out step/level III. Hahaha, but oh yeah, then there is board certification, oh, and if you do a fellowship? LOL, you get another large test!

Medical school, residency, and active practice will continue to be stressful at all stages - it just morphs. Try, as difficult as it may be, to find some semblance of work life balance even in medical school. Those skills will serve you well. But fear not, one way or another at some point of your career you will be hit with something and a switch will flip and work life balance becomes more than just a phrase. Being a doctor, being psychiatrist means less and less with each passing day. I can do [insert job here] and be just as happy, or happier.

Pick your residency with self truth (if you are able to pick). I had no intention to be a psychiatrist going into medical school but got hit with realization in 3rd year, "[expletive] I actually like psych..."

There are better jobs, better careers, better options in life than being a physician. But whatever it is that lit your fire to make this choice, you better remember what it is and why, because that fire will be needed during those coming days, nights, weeks of suck. Helping people isn't a good enough reason either. My electrician helped me keep wiring from burning down my home, my plumber helped me get water into my home again, I am very grateful for their services.

In summary: Med school bites. Know why you are doing it. Good luck.
 
That was me and it was way worse the first 2 years. But I had mandatory attendance so they wasted 30-40 hours a week of my time. As said above, it’s a full times job worth but if you have your school wasting full time hours then Medical school becomes terrible

For the love of all that is holy I hope I get into a school that doesn’t require lecture attendance.
 
If you think about it medical school is about 25 to 30 credits a semester. Think about the effort you used to study in college and multiply it by two or three in some cases.
The upside is that the more you study, the more you learn what is your most efficient study routine. (Whether you prefer visual, auditory kinesthetic) Lectures are recorded so you can speed up lectures or rewind if needed. Many students use anki to study. Studies show the most effective way to study is to do spaced repetition of the material.
 
The funny thing is I did and chose mine. I thought sdn was overblown about mandatory attendance
Mandatory attendance is horrible. It makes things so much worse. My current thoughts as my last week of summer vacation is coming to an end.
 
I enjoyed mandatory attendance, worked well for me. But I guess it really depends on your learning style/personality.
 
If you could do med school in your hometown with family it wouldn't be bad at all. Basically an 8-6or7 job. Which is basically like the real world haha. What sucks is up rooting for med school.

Med school would be a lot less stressful if from day one you were FMFL as well (family med for life)
I.e. curriculum is pass/fail and so are the boards. No matter what they actually are 😉
 
I've also been doing some research in dental, seems like dental - OMS is a much easier way/ less competitive to enter the surgical field than through medical school, but idk how i feel studying dentistry for 4 years
Can confirm, I had a friend who dropped out of med school after his second year cause he came to this same conclusion. Hes now in his 3rd year of OMFS residency. A lot of places make their OMFS guys do the 2 years of school to get an MD tho, making the residency 6 years.
 
Can confirm, I had a friend who dropped out of med school after his second year cause he came to this same conclusion. Hes now in his 3rd year of OMFS residency. A lot of places make their OMFS guys do the 2 years of school to get an MD tho, making the residency 6 years.
That probably makes sense since medicine has a bunch of people who only care about status... They study like crazy as nothing else matters.


Do OMFS docs make 400k+/year? while having a good lifestyle. General surgeons make that much and surgery is not an extremely competitive specialty for US MD applicants...
 
The funny thing is I did and chose mine. I thought sdn was overblown about mandatory attendance

Agreed. I honestly thought the students on here were spoiled or being bratty. I’m three weeks deep and it is definitely counterintuitive. Sigh... Only two more years, right?
 
Do OMFS docs make 400k+/year? while having a good lifestyle. General surgeons make that much and surgery is not an extremely competitive specialty for US MD applicants...
It's 3-600k with your own practice.

The funny thing is I did and chose mine. I thought sdn was overblown about mandatory attendance
Same. It was only 80% "mandatory" but ended up being a huge time sink. Ended up sitting in the back corner and just pounding Anki cards for 2 years.
 
My "80% mandatory lecs" aren't so mandatory. They take attendance sporadically through the wk, so even if you miss the full week, you are getting counted off 1-2 days per week. You get 11 of those per block, so you could miss literally every single day except for a couple wks.
 
Practicing Psychiatrist.

Med school is bad. Many people will hit the wall where studying with intensity isn't good enough - you are no longer above average. Now you will have to bust your academia to survive. I recall frequently 12-15 hour days studying (or waking at 3-4AM just before tests to cram more,) and often hitting the wall of slowing mentation due to inattention from fatigue/boredom. Not boredom in traditional sense but just a yearn for something else besides studying all day long. When faced with upcoming exams, you have no choice but to grind and get it done. The breath of fresh air was the hours following a test, and then again the reality of the next test deadline would start to sink in, and cycle repeats. (school was rolling classes and rolling tests, I selected that over the class/test block schools intentionally).

There will be classmates who cruise thru and just simply have the right study habits that work for them and are able to put in less time (they are a minority). However, odds are, that won't be you. Others I observed had families and truly had to limit their study time to still keep their home life together. But it will leave very little room for much else. Perhaps some self care for exercise. Perhaps some time with extended family if they live in the area. Perhaps the local bar with classmates if in that life stage still. But often you will find yourself devoted to your books. I missed a grandmothers funeral for med school. Only to later learn that some students had been granted test delay/make ups for family events like this, but it was not advertised - I am resentful of this.

Some 3rd/4th year rotations were exhausting with hours, and then reading once home. I fell asleep with face in book numerous times. Stress of knowing that each rotation could be a land mine of one nurse, one resident, one staff doc who might only remember one minor fault and blow it out of proportion. It takes a lot of effort to bring 100% student cheerful to every rotation. Avoid the landmine topics of religion, politics. Keep your jokes simple enough to tell to a kid. To feign interest in every rotation, to see the positive of the experience while in the grind of that moment. There is the very real risk one trivial mistake out of all the weeks would be the one thing they would throw into eval. This is an important lesson and foreshadowing for the rest of your medical career. One drop of blood in the water and sharks will circle - it doesn't take much, so always have to bring your A game. Elicit feedback often to sniff out if an evaluator smelled blood so you can do something about it. And when you get feedback, stay quiet, look interested and ONLY respond, "thank you for the feedback." Doing that is one of the hardest things for people to do, but is so very an important lesson to practice or heaven forbid learn the hard way. Medical school trains you to bring your A game for those times in residency and beyond when you are exhausted, get paged at 2AM, and the clueless nurse, or brand new nurse brings up an issue that can wait for the AM day shift, or presents a problem about a patient but has no clue what's going on with the patient or the answer they seek is in the progress note of the doc earlier that day - but they didn't read the note. Like much of the medical training process the suck is real while marching through it, but at the end of it, you develop a survival skill set to put on your rose colored glasses and say, 'that wasn't so bad, I'm glad I had that experience.' At the end of medical school, and even to this day, I'm glad I experienced medical school, the pain, the suffering, the joy, the everything, it really is an exposure to our complete life cycle that will put a lot of worldly BS into perspective, and I wish every person could some how experience medical school and all the life experiences it entails. However, if I had to repeat medical school again now as an immigrant to another country, nope, hell no, hard pass, once was enough.

There are rotations, classes, classmates, etc that are positive. That you will be engaged with, feel energy and excitement towards, and gleefully find the fun of learning about. "huh, so that's why that is that way..." "who knew, that's a variant of normal!" etc. Or trouble pausing a text chapter because of how interesting it is. But overall don't count on there being more joyous moments in comparison.

Licensing exams just suck. Constantly looming over you until you knock out step/level III. Hahaha, but oh yeah, then there is board certification, oh, and if you do a fellowship? LOL, you get another large test!

Medical school, residency, and active practice will continue to be stressful at all stages - it just morphs. Try, as difficult as it may be, to find some semblance of work life balance even in medical school. Those skills will serve you well. But fear not, one way or another at some point of your career you will be hit with something and a switch will flip and work life balance becomes more than just a phrase. Being a doctor, being psychiatrist means less and less with each passing day. I can do [insert job here] and be just as happy, or happier.

Pick your residency with self truth (if you are able to pick). I had no intention to be a psychiatrist going into medical school but got hit with realization in 3rd year, "[expletive] I actually like psych..."

There are better jobs, better careers, better options in life than being a physician. But whatever it is that lit your fire to make this choice, you better remember what it is and why, because that fire will be needed during those coming days, nights, weeks of suck. Helping people isn't a good enough reason either. My electrician helped me keep wiring from burning down my home, my plumber helped me get water into my home again, I am very grateful for their services.

In summary: Med school bites. Know why you are doing it. Good luck.
Off base, but what did you enjoy so much about psych?

I've always thought internal or gen surg was the route for me. But I think psych is an field is interesting and the growing need for them is apparent in this country. Def have it in the back of my mind as something to pursue. And you don't need killer boards scores for it, also a plus.
 
That probably makes sense since medicine has a bunch of people who only care about status... They study like crazy as nothing else matters.


Do OMFS docs make 400k+/year? while having a good lifestyle. General surgeons make that much and surgery is not an extremely competitive specialty for US MD applicants...
OMFS would not be for me. They usually get a few months of anesthesia training, around 6 mos, and give anesthesia in their offices. Not the type of practice that would interest me
But, wisdom teeth pay the Bill's. Someone has to remove them.
 
Can confirm, I had a friend who dropped out of med school after his second year cause he came to this same conclusion. Hes now in his 3rd year of OMFS residency. A lot of places make their OMFS guys do the 2 years of school to get an MD tho, making the residency 6 years.
Don't you have to finish dental or med school to become an maxillofacial surg?

I actually shadowed one. Loved it.
I was under the impression he did both dental and med school?

How can you drop out of med school and become one?
 
Don't you have to finish dental or med school to become an maxillofacial surg?

I actually shadowed one. Loved it.
I was under the impression he did both dental and med school?

How can you drop out of med school and become one?

You do dental school then have to be top of ur class and apply to omfs residencies and some of those offer 2 year md program along with the 4 year omfs residency. The only benefit of doing the md I think is to do plastics later on down the road. If you only care about extractions and implants aka money makers then you should just do the 4 year residency. Omfs is great but I also shadowed one for a few days and after the first day it got boring cuz all he did was extractions and implants.

I think med specialties that can make just as much as omfs is ortho but with ****tier hours early on and after u practice for a bit and cut down hours you’ll still make a lot. Optho has a high earning potential. There was a GI resident ama earlier in the md forum and he said they make 700k in private practice. There’s enough money to go around in medicine and omfs that you shouldn’t drop out and do omfs just cuz u see 400-600 k lmao.
 
It’s like everything else. When you went to college you freaked out and then realized it wasn’t that bad. When you’re in Med school you freak out and then realize it’s not all that bad. Just finished my first intern month and yeah med school was pretty damn cush especially the first 18 months and all of 4th year. I’m sure everybody looks back on intern year and laughs too. That’s just life. We always think it’s tough until that next stage hits us.
 
It's worse than you expect, but it's not immediately apparent. You make one sacrifice here, another there, doesn't seem so bad. Eventually, the sacrifices start adding up, and you're one sacrifice away from regretting the whole thing.

(damn I get dark during Step 2 board studying).
 
Off base, but what did you enjoy so much about psych?

I've always thought internal or gen surg was the route for me. But I think psych is an field is interesting and the growing need for them is apparent in this country. Def have it in the back of my mind as something to pursue. And you don't need killer boards scores for it, also a plus.
Its real. Its impactful. It intellectually resonated with me. Seeing Capgras lead to a state hospitalization for a patient who had several kids - and no longer being safe to be around the kids was an eye opener. It took the specialty from being some I was suspicious of and had mixed feelings about, to one of legitimacy when I saw certain delusional/psychotic patients. I simply found my self reading more and more of a Kaplan Saddock text and wanting to ask the staff docs at that time more and more questions about nuances. Even substance abuse disorders, what met criteria and what didn't, and then reflecting back on college experiences and thinking, 'wow, those individuals likely met criteria.' It opened my eyes to an additional new lens of how to view the world. I also liked that field hadn't been as reductionist to 'check box medicine' and for better or worse was still infused with 'the art of medicine'. I liked that the practice settings were wide open, and even the fears of a med student with closing doors, that some fellowships were still open, too, in case I made the wrong choice. Long story short, I foresaw myself being able to do the job for the next 30-40 years*. Even now when I think I have seen it all, I get a patient that presents in a way I didn't expect and I still get "huh" moments. Psychiatrists are similar to lawyers, no one wants them around until they are needed and then they are very wanted.

*These days I'm more open to the idea of retirement or even early retirement.
 
That probably makes sense since medicine has a bunch of people who only care about status... They study like crazy as nothing else matters.


Do OMFS docs make 400k+/year? while having a good lifestyle. General surgeons make that much and surgery is not an extremely competitive specialty for US MD applicants...
Yeah they do make that much and the lifestyle is good if they dont do trauma call. Plus its a subspecialty surgery so it has that going for it. If I knew I only wanted surgery or something like facial plastics or ent I would consider the dental route. Its much less trouble to get in, probably since your not required to have a residency at all for general denistry although the 1 year residency are starting to become a thing.
 
You do dental school then have to be top of ur class and apply to omfs residencies and some of those offer 2 year md program along with the 4 year omfs residency. The only benefit of doing the md I think is to do plastics later on down the road. If you only care about extractions and implants aka money makers then you should just do the 4 year residency. Omfs is great but I also shadowed one for a few days and after the first day it got boring cuz all he did was extractions and implants.

I think med specialties that can make just as much as omfs is ortho but with ****tier hours early on and after u practice for a bit and cut down hours you’ll still make a lot. Optho has a high earning potential. There was a GI resident ama earlier in the md forum and he said they make 700k in private practice. There’s enough money to go around in medicine and omfs that you shouldn’t drop out and do omfs just cuz u see 400-600 k lmao.
Omfs is a lot more than extractions and root canals if they want it to be. Top of the class is not a requirement either. My friend who is doing it now was merely average on boards and class rank and came from a lower tier dental school. He did have to do a prelim year, but we have had the conversation why he went to dent and he definately did think it was much easier to go OMFS than ENT or plastics.
 
You do dental school then have to be top of ur class and apply to omfs residencies and some of those offer 2 year md program along with the 4 year omfs residency. The only benefit of doing the md I think is to do plastics later on down the road. If you only care about extractions and implants aka money makers then you should just do the 4 year residency. Omfs is great but I also shadowed one for a few days and after the first day it got boring cuz all he did was extractions and implants.

I think med specialties that can make just as much as omfs is ortho but with ****tier hours early on and after u practice for a bit and cut down hours you’ll still make a lot. Optho has a high earning potential. There was a GI resident ama earlier in the md forum and he said they make 700k in private practice. There’s enough money to go around in medicine and omfs that you shouldn’t drop out and do omfs just cuz u see 400-600 k lmao.
I shadowed an 8 hour surg where the guy was taking cancer out of this dudes jaw.
Pretty sure he did nose jobs too.

I recall him letting me take is porsche out to get pizza for the office.

Now I'm 2 wks deep in OMS2 year, praying survive this year haha.
 
Don't you have to finish dental or med school to become an maxillofacial surg?

I actually shadowed one. Loved it.
I was under the impression he did both dental and med school?

How can you drop out of med school and become one?
So he completed his second year of med school and then dropped out and reapplied to dental school. He then completed dental school and then applied to residency. He had to do all 4 years of dental and got no credit from the med school stuff. Presumably he could do the dmd/md if he wanted, but at this point he doesnt care.
 
I shadowed an 8 hour surg where the guy was taking cancer out of this dudes jaw.
Pretty sure he did nose jobs too.

I recall him letting me take is porsche out to get pizza for the office.

Now I'm 2 wks deep in OMS2 year, praying survive this year haha.

D school is easier for sure. I have several friends in d school as I was previously interested in it myself. The thing is no job can replace a physicians job and once you realize it it’s hard to go back. I’m aware that oral surgery can do a lot of cool stuff. In the er where I worked we had to call them a couple times for some fractures along with ent
 
Honestly, it's not the schooling that is bad. It's the people. They can make things MUCH worse.

Never have I ever met a bunch of millennial whiny, narcissistic, stuck-up, lying, and selfish people with no life experience that have never worked a job out in the real world and all of a sudden think they are god's gift because they have a short white coat but still lack common sense.

Maybe it was just my year but man oh man... ever since 3rd and 4th year have allowed me to RARELY meet or come together with my class maybe once every couple months... life has been soooo much better.

Seriously.
 
D school is easier for sure. I have several friends in d school as I was previously interested in it myself. The thing is no job can replace a physicians job and once you realize it it’s hard to go back. I’m aware that oral surgery can do a lot of cool stuff. In the er where I worked we had to call them a couple times for some fractures along with ent
A lot of oral surgeons are MD now. Where I am training they have 2 routes to become an oral surgeon. One is 4-year where they don't get an MD degree, the other is 6-year, which award you an MD degree. I still don't get the appeal of that 6-yr program if both have the same scope...
 
A lot of oral surgeons are MD now. Where I am training they have 2 routes to become an oral surgeon. One is 4-year where they don't get an MD degree, the other is 6-year, which award you an MD degree. I still don't get the appeal of that 6-yr program if both have the same scope...

I've met two surgeons who did that, decided to leave OMFS behind and enter the match to do a medical specialty. One was a general surgeon and I can't remember what the other one did. Talk about a long route....

Outside of that "benefit" I don't really see what the point is with getting the MD degree either.
 
A lot of oral surgeons are MD now. Where I am training they have 2 routes to become an oral surgeon. One is 4-year where they don't get an MD degree, the other is 6-year, which award you an MD degree. I still don't get the appeal of that 6-yr program if both have the same scope...
Its for the boarding and keeping the scope. If you just do the four years and you want to stay boarded many states require you to be on a hospital staff/affliation. The hospitals will then put you on their trauma call and you end up with terrible payer mix. Whereas if you are boarded as MD, hospital priveleges have nothing to do with board certification, and you are protected from attempts to lessen your scope. Is it worth it? I think most of the time its not, but denistry is kind of the wild west, root canals can and are done by regular old general dentist, so having an extra scope is worth something.
 
I had a few friends start med school a year ahead of me and they warned me that it was miserable. I set my expectations low. I think this was helpful.

That being said, I had a lot of fun in med school. There was a period in second year (arguably the busiest year) where I was in two volleyball leagues, a basketball league, a bowling league, went to trivia every Monday, played the dating field, and still had time to hit the slopes on the weekends. I essentially had something fun to do every night of the week. I met a lot of great people. I felt it was easy to make friends because you’re in a tight-knit community of people going through the same life-altering experience as you, all of relatively similar intelligence. I consider a few to be some of my closest friends. I met my fiancé in medical school. I am very happy I chose to go.

There are plenty of reasons why people may not enjoy it. I think social isolation is a big one. Struggling to pass when going full throttle can be super discouraging. I also think a lot of students have mild identity crises as they realize they are not the smartest people around anymore and they can’t fall back into their comfortable social dynamics. If you want to go into ophthalmology, then your level of misery is dependent on how well your level and type of intelligence is suited for the setting. I think if you go in humble, ready to work hard and make friends then you will be setting a good foundation. You’ll hopefully figure out your ceiling early on by starting off working as hard as possible and then adjusting accordingly.
 
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It did not for me cause we
Have mando 8-4. So 2 hours a day wasn’t enough

2 hours? What are you doing in all the hours that you have to be in school?!
 
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