How do I decide between doctor or engineer? Is medicine right for me??

[Zohster]

So all my life I have been planning on becoming a doctor. When it came time to choose majors, I decided a major in biology or chemistry just wasn't gonna cut it. I needed a backup major, something to fall back to if I don't make it into medical school. I chose Biomedical Engineering.

I took this summer off to study for my MCAT exam and began EMTing. A couple of weeks ago, I began thinking that maybe I don't want to be a doctor after all, and that maybe I might be happier in engineering. Not gonna lie, I immediately thought of the long hours I'm going to have to work as a doctor (i.e the 24 and 48 hour shifts and the calls in the middle of the night), not to mention the years of schooling and residency I would have to go through. I also thought of my desire of starting a family, and that if I continue on in the medical field I might not have that chance, and even if I did, I would not have the time I want to spend with them. Basically, I don't want to spend my life only focused on my career with no room for anything else in my life. Naturally, I decided to get second opinions.

My family wasn't very happy when I told them I wanted to quit premed and focus on engineering. They claimed that I'm just confused, or that I don't understand that there are specialties out there in medicine which will allow me to work flexible hours. Maybe they are right. However, this does not necessarily mean that they are forcing me. They said I need to really think about it before making this decision.

I stopped studying for my MCAT exam and actually started looking into some engineering internships. I started really thinking about and deciding what I would do in engineering if I chose it. I thought of maybe pursuing a Master's degree in pharmaceutical engineering after my undergrad. This will allow me to go deeper into research and I still get to work in the medical field like I want. Some of my friends began telling me that Biomedical Engineering is not that big in demand for jobs and I'm beginning now to get discouraged all over again.

Basically, my dilemma is this: I don't know whether or not I'll actually be happy as a doctor, and I'm afraid of pursuing it and end up really hating it. Then, it will be too late to explore other fields and I'll feel like I wasted my time and effort for nothing. I also don't want to leave it completely, fearing I might regret that decision later on if my engineering plan doesn't work out.

I realize this decision has to come from me and I have to really think it through, but I REALLY want to hear opinions from other people, especially doctors or already medical students. What is it that makes you know if medicine is truly right for you? How do you know you've made the right decision?

Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

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[kthxbai]

I think you may have better luck posting this thread in the allo forums. We're all pre-meds here, so our answers may not be all too credible when stacked against those of seasoned professionals.

Best of luck to you in your future career path! If you take care to weigh all your passions, I'm sure you'll be happy no matter what.

P.S
Tell you family that since you don't tell them what to do, they need to mind their own business. The nerve of some parents there days... 😉

 

[gyngyn]

I think you may have better luck posting this thread in the allo forums. We're all pre-meds here, so our answers may not be all too credible when stacked against those of seasoned professionals.

Best of luck to you in your future career path! If you take care to weigh all your passions, I'm sure you'll be happy no matter what.

P.S
Tell you family that since you don't tell them what to do, they need to mind their own business. The nerve of some parents there days... 😉

She can't post in allo according to TOS (she's a potential pre-med, not a medical student).

 

[kthxbai]

She can't post in allo according to TOS (she's a potential pre-med, not a medical student).

Nevermind then.

I hope enough medical students troll through here to answer your question properly. I also struggled with a similar dilemma (basic science vs. medicine), and what helped me ultimately decide on the latter is shadowing and working in a clinical lab.

 

[gyngyn]

Nevermind then.

I hope enough medical students troll through here to answer your question properly. I also struggled with a similar dilemma (basic science vs. medicine), and what helped me ultimately decide on the latter is shadowing and working in a clinical lab.

They do!

 

[Ismet]

What's with all these pre-meds lately thinking that medicine is life-consuming??? You have time for a life and a family. I know very few single physicians. Yes, there's a lot of training and long hours, and you need an SO who is flexible and understanding of that, but it's not like you have to devote your entire life to medicine.

Have you shadowed doctors or volunteered in a clinical setting besides EMT? It sounds like you need to get a better understanding of what doctors do. If the thought of long hours and years of training turns you off completely and cannot be offset by your desire to work with patients and treat them, then medicine is not for you. This is not something you should rush to decide right away. You can always take a gap year or two, or even try out engineering and come back to medicine in a few years. Several of my classmates were working engineers in their previous life, one even has a PhD in BME and then decided to go to med school. No one says you have to go to med school in your early 20s.

Slow down, set up some shadowing, and see where that goes.

Granted I'm only in my 3rd year of med school, but I think what I've experienced on my rotations so far has confirmed that this is what I want to do. There's a lot of satisfaction in playing a part in the care and treatment of patients. It hasn't always been fun and games, but in the big picture, I think it's all worth it.

 

[Afford]

You sound like the opposite of me. I wanted to be an engineer since I was young and after shadowing doctors and clinical volunteering, I wanted to be a doctor. I'm taking a gap year working in industry as an engineer to help give me more time to make a choice and be sure of it. I graduated with a biomedical engineering degree from a top 20 school and the job market is tough. Very few people in my major found jobs that directly related to biomedical engineering outside of startups. You can find a job though as there are plenty of jobs that just require a math/science background.

After residency, no one is forcing you to work long hours as a doctor. You can work a few days a week for less pay. I would definitely recommend finding some engineering internships to help give you a better idea of what you really want to do. You should ask your professors because some of them have ties to industries.

 

[redpanda]

Well, as someone who majored in biomedical engineering in undergrad, worked in the pharmaceutical industry for a few years prior to going to medical school, and then going to medical school, I can tell you that it's not the hardest transition in the world to decide to go to medical school after you're already in industry. For me, all the premed courses except one were covered by my requirements for a BME degree.

I worked in early clinical development on the R&D side when I was in industry. Pretty much everything I needed to know in order to do my job (because, really, who the heck knows anything about preclinical development from college?) was learned on the job. I would discourage you from getting a master's in pharmaceutical engineering, because it a highly specialized qualification and it doesn't really advance your cause for promotion or increased responsibility (at least in the firm that I worked in). Not only that, you will notice by doing some online research that the pharmaceutical industry is contracting (as it has for decades) and many people go through the at-least-once-yearly reorganization (aka reshuffle +/- layoffs), which is, at a minimum, highly disruptive. Being in research pharmaceutical development as an engineer really has nothing to do with medicine (I couldn't tell you the mechanisms of the ~50 odd drugs I've done work on) and everything to do with turning out a product that can go into clinical trials.

You will know you've made the right decision when you're happy with what you're doing. For me, I discovered pretty early that I was unhappy in industry, but I stayed for a while to make money/do med school apps and I was perfectly successful that way. When I got to med school, I liked preclinical med school more than my job and I like clinical years even more than that. If you're not sure now, go to industry and come back to med school later if you want. It's certainly easier than going in the other direction.

tl;dr: Go to engineering if you're not sure. Pharmaceutical R&D is not anything like medicine. Don't get a degree in pharmaceutical engineering.