How do you know what you wanted?

What field are you pursuing?

  • Medicine

    Votes: 8 100.0%
  • Pharmacy

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Dentistry

    Votes: 1 12.5%
  • Nursing

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    8

medicallyundecided

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I am certain. The healthcare field is where I want to be. But I am so young and ignorant and naive, I'm not sure which part of the healthcare field I would want to pursue.

In the end, it truly comes down to the five factors: respect, lifestyle, money, passion, or time. And of those five, you are only allowed to pick a few and that is your career.

I have three options: pharmaceutical, dentistry, or medical. Being a pharmacist will enable me to have the lifestyle I want which is to be able to be there for my future kids and husband. I most likely would never have to pick between work and family, which is so essential to living for me. And I would be saving a lot of time. But the downfall is that, of course, a pharmacist does not have the same respect a doctor would have, the pay is much less, and I am lacking the passion it takes to truly love my job as a pharmacist.

Dentistry is almost the best of both worlds. The pay is good. The lifestyle is great. Four year of dental school and you're free! I'll be able to be there for my kid's monumental moments during their childhood. The time it takes is clearly beneficial. There is no residency or internships following dental school to drag your studies out longer. And of course, the respect for dentists are on the come up. Being a dentist is the dream of many young undergrads pursuing the health care field. But the passion is also lacking. Working on teeth is nothing compared to the magnificent works a doctor commits to as he's saving lives.

Lastly, medical school. Becoming a doctor has every single one of those five aspects to the fullest extent...except lifestyle and time. By the time I'm done with my schooling, I'll be all old and crusty. I'm not even sure when I'll get to start my own family! (Starting a family of my own and spending as much time with them as possible is very important to me as you can see.) Respect, money, and passion are definitely showing brightly with medical school... but my lifestyle and time isn't.

And there's also the discussion of WHAT KIND OF DOCTOR I would want to be if I decided on medical school. There is just LOTS to think about when considering my future and I honestly cannot decide right now. I would like to gain more experience and knowledge on all three fields to see which one I feel comfortable pursuing;however, I do not know where to start. I'm planning on doing an internship this summer with UT Southwestern medical center. I supposed that's a start, right?

Anyways, I want to hear about you guy's experience. How did you all decide on what you plan on or are pursing right now? What resources did you use? How did you KNOW that it was the future destined for you?

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A better question is what is it about medicine that you're actually passionate about? Also you're being incredibly picky, life isn't a grocery shop where you pick and choose. You select for a package that has negative aspects and positive aspects. The key is to identify what primary flavor is more important to you and decide whether you're making medical school tacos or lifestyle family sized stir fry.
 
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I'm usually (always) a lurker, but I'll chime in.

Having a salary anywhere over 100,000 puts you in the top 5% of earned income in American families. The key now is to find what field you are interested in. Social status should never be a factor when weighing your value on a career field. Also, podiatrists/optometrists make around the salary range for Pharm and Dental. Not sure why you're naming only these three options. Even as a working podiatrist/optometrist, you either address yourself as a doctor, or as a podiatrist/optometrist. Because you are. You work on ankle & foot, or the eye, respectively.

1. Pharm. No direct patient care. You act as a consultant to people who need medication, and dispense medication. Lots of memorization on all types of medicine. Graduate in six years. If corporate pharmacist, no residency required. Clinical pharmacist, do a residency. Paperwork can occupy up to 1/4 of your workday. Lowest pay among the three listed options (110K+)
2. Dentistry. Good pay at a minimum of 125K a year. Only oral care, but that alone can be life-changing, making another patient's life significantly better. No residency required. Patients are thankful -> low burnout. You can go into orthodontics and expect an even better salary (220K+) Paperwork can occupy up to 1/4 of your workday.
3. Medicine. Most competitive and most sought after. A whole myriad of specialty options you can explore. But if you do Peds, FM, HIV/ID, IM, salary ain't gonna be much higher than Pharm or Dent. Highest burnout rate among the three; paperwork can occupy up to 1/3 of your workday. May be subject to hospital emergency calls unless in specialties like psych, derm, genetics, path, plastics. Note that dermatology and plastic surgery is among the most competitive; do at least 6+ research papers/presentations/case reports, get board scores at the 90%+ percentile, and build great connections with professors and physicians. Obtaining a dream specialty in medicine is very difficult.

This should only be for reference. You can check out what these people do on youtube, but it's definitely best to find some around your vicinity and shadow them. Having shadowed doctors from multiple fields will look good on your resume too, as it informs the adcom that you have a pinpoint focus on what you want for a profession for the rest of your life.
 
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Anyways, I want to hear about you guy's experience. How did you all decide on what you plan on or are pursing right now? What resources did you use? How did you KNOW that it was the future destined for you?
You have way more than the three options you think you have. The best resources to use to decide what you want to do in life are your own life experiences. If you're like most high schoolers, you don't have much yet. Go to college, study what you're interested in, take the pre-med/-dental/-pharm sequences if you want. If you don't, get a job doing something else. If you decide you hate that job, come back and go to medical school.

Kids of all ages think anyone over 25 is ancient. You've got nothing but time. You're not "old and crusty" until suddenly all those pharmaceutical ads on TV are for meds you need.

Social status should never be a factor when weighing your value on a career field.
No reason to kid ourselves here. Social status is a factor for almost anyone facing a decision to go to a terminal-degree professional school, and there's no shame in it. Doctors enjoy a high station in society. But it would be unwise to subject oneself to the brutality of medical training with just the dream of social status to get one through.
 
I'm a first year Med student. I took an unconventional route to where I am today. I taught High school for two years before I enrolled.
I'll lend the same advice to you that I lent to all of my students-

Deciding what you want to do now, for most young men and women, is futile. The next 5-10 years of your life are both unpredictable and formative.
Do not, repeat, do not commit yourself to one path at this stage. You seem to know you generally want to work in a healthcare related field. That's fine. Just keep an open mind.
But how do I do that? Don't I need to start prepping now if I want to be an MD?
Sure. But I think students (and people in general) trap themselves into a narrative they need to follow to their own detriment.

If you want to be an MD- or any of the aforementioned professions- you will not need to commit to that decision fully until after you graduate college. Seriously. You may decide earlier and take proactive steps before then, but there's no need to have an answer now.

Best advice I wish someone had given me (maybe someone did but 17 y/o me didn't listen)-
1) Where you go to college (outside of the Ivy's, Service academies, and the tech schools like Cal Poly and MIT) matters very little. It's what you make of it that counts. You're better off going to the school that is the most financially beneficial (aka cheapest, especially if graduate studies are in your future). You'll be much better served at your local state University with very little debt than straddling yourself with debt at a sub Ivy tiered school (Georgetown, BC, Vanderbilt). At the end of the day, your Undergrad performance is all that matters. A 4.0 from South Western Random State University will open way more doors than a 3.0 GPA from any of the aforementioned schools.

2) Major in something ubiquitous- my recommendation? Math, Statistics, or Computer Science.
A major trap of prospective Med students is majoring in Bio or Chem. These majors are notoriously rigorous, and usually lead to lower overall GPAs. When applying, the GPA is the first screening point. So better to take a less rigorous major and keep that GPA up, and spread out your pre reqs more evenly to enhance performance.
Additionally, the Majors I listed have much better job prospects than a Bio or Chem degree. you decide that Medicine is not your passion, you will not be left with a Bio degree with no idea what to make of it/few job opportunities. If you do commit to medicine- you can fill your electives with the required Pre-Reqs to prepare for MCAT and meet AdCom requirements. The listed majors also require most of the same pre reqs in their curriculum, so it wouldn't be too much of an extra burden.

3) Finally- and perhaps most importantly- do not, do not, do not stress about not knowing what you want to do with the rest of your life. I am nearing 30, and I only just found out for myself. Believe me- I was fine all the years I did not know. Most of my friends still don't. They're all doing fine.

Best of luck and please keep an open mind reading my unsolicited advice. I know some of it is hard to see or understand from where you're at in your life: Looking forward only. I offer this perspective as someone who has made it forward and is now looking back.

-TT
 
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And there's also the discussion of WHAT KIND OF DOCTOR I would want to be if I decided on medical school. There is just LOTS to think about when considering my future and I honestly cannot decide right now.
Worrying about the 'what kind of doctor do I want to be' is the most cart-before-the-horse thought you could have.
Very few people actually get accepted to medical school. Out of all the self-declared 'Pre-meds' at your College/University- only a small minority of them will matriculate to MD/DO school.
On top of that- Medicine is one of the few fields that tells YOU what field you're going to work in. You can influence this decision based on academic performance and clinical skills, but it is a decision that is not in your hands. Everyone wants to be a Cardiothoracic or plastic surgeon. Most end up in internal medicine changing Hypertensive drug doses.

Completely cease pursuing this line of thought. So much must come before that decision is made, and it won't even be made by you.
 
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