How many were full of it at their interviews?

[H_Caulfield]

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(OB/Gyn, neurology, neurosurgery, rad onc, and perhaps others are exempt from the following tirade....)

I, for one, was honest at my medical school admissions interview. That aside, does no one else think that there's something seriously wrong with the trends in residency selection? I've been looking into different fields for a couple of years now, but it wasn't until I saw a published list of "most competitive" programs that I became so cynical. Plastic surgery, dermatology, ENT facial plastics, anaesthesia, radiology...

Seriously, if I didn't know any better I'd think that people were simply not AT ALL interested in saving or prolonging lives; once they match, do they duck away from their former interviewers? Sort of like "hey, yea, I know you gave me the green light due to all that stuff I told you four years ago about keeping people alive and comfortable, but...well...I've decided to do boobs, pimples, tonsils, nose jobs, look at pictures and/or help out a surgeon who doesn't have time to keep looking at those monitors because he's actually DOING SOMETHING...

Now, before you all jump down my throat, hear me out: I realize that plastic surgeons perform life-altering reconstruction, that dermatologists deal with melanoma, that ENTs do complex things involving the thyroid and oncology, that radiologists indirectly save lives by formulating a diagnosis and consulting with other physicians, and that anaesthesiologists keep the patient alive during surgery. In spite of this, however, they are STILL, inarguably, all of the fields which are furthest removed from helping people in a VITAL way. They DO help, but only secondarily, tertiarily, or psychologically. Thus, I do genuinely believe and acknowledge that we need all of these physicians; I merely want to complain about the fact that they've established a monopoly over all of the highest-achieving students in any given medical school class. Lately I see very few exceptions to this latter statement, and anyone who can correct me, or provide for some counter-examples, would help me not to be so disgruntled (believe it or not, I don't WANT to be).

I've done well enough to get into any of the abovementioned fields (except for maybe integrated plastics), so to the guy who's all prepared to come on and tell me that I'm just "jealous": go away. I AM a little aggravated, personally, that the two fields which traditionally and inevitably deal with most life or death issues, reachable via INTERNAL MED or GENERAL SURGERY, now carry some sort of stigma. The student who holds true to what he spewed on interview day, by actually going into a medical or surgical field to perform essential, life-prolonging work, can no longer proudly tell anyone what he is doing without them necessarily assuming, "oh, he must be at the bottom of his freaking class." NICE! Glad that someone who wanted to work with peripheral, marginally threatening problems and elective procedures gets more respect than I do for wanting to FIX A KIDNEY.

This is only a rant, not a question. I'm not asking why things are the way they are; it's obvious. People care a GREAT DEAL more about pay and lifestyle than they do about the subject matter upon which their practice is based. That's fine...it's also the attitude upon which all business is based. Still, I wouldn't have expected the trend to be so uniform; I'd have guessed that many more people were actually concerned about looking every morning into the bathroom mirror to see a guy who'd been on the front line the day before, bringing somebody back from near-death (even if it WERE at 9pm and he didn't have any cosmetic lotions to sell at the receptionist's desk to supplement his income).

Seeing that internal medicine and surgery, the fields upon which all of the medical profession are essentially based (and most other fields ARE, practically, concerned with peripheral and sometimes even optional matters), are always within the "least competitive" or "moderately competitive" sections on these match evaluations...well...it just makes me wonder how it's possible that so many students' are willing to sell their noble aspirations to the highest, least-demanding bidder.

 

[dilated]

What an incredibly presumptuous thread. Have you ever considered that people might find IM or GS BORING? "saving lives" does not make appys or managing diabetes more exciting if you are not interested in them.

Besides, nobody ever asked me if I was going into medicine to "save lives" at an interview and if they had I would have stared at them with a blank look on my face at the sheer idiocy of the question. Whatever it is that causes your obsession with being "a guy who'd been on the front line the day before, bringing somebody back from near-death", please recognize that it is your own personal issue and not our problem.

 

[oudoc08]

This is the most self-righteous BS I've ever heard. You need to get off your high horse.

 

[njbmd]

Medical school graduates go into whatever field interests them, thankfully. It's nice that everyone has different interests and that there are many different specialties out there to satisfy those interests. One man's boredom is another man's passion. Lifestyle is just as good a motivation as anything else and kudos to those folks who love the lifestyle specialties but they were not for me. I would never criticize anyone for the specialty that they choose anymore than I want to be criticized for my choice.I see the OPs point but I am too busy "livin my dream" to worry about what someone else chooses to do with their career.

 

[swpm]

HC, it's simpler than all that indignant crap you just posted.

The vast majority of med school applicants have no idea what they're getting themselves into. Their "experience" with medicine amounts to a bit of shadowing, or volunteering at an ER. They know med school is "hard" and that white coats are noble and they think that spending an afternoon healing the sick in a pleasant corner office sounds pretty keen.

Then they rotate through GS and IM and discover how much of medicine is just flailing around at noncompliant patients with self-inflicted disease. They see just how beat down and unhappy the interns & residents are as they trudge down to the ER to admit gomer #6 at 3 AM. And they're two years, a lotta effort, and $100K into a career that doesn't look like quite so much fun any more. So they pick a specialty that doesn't involve so much futile patient contact, or one that pays well enough to make up for all the negatives.

There was never any dishonesty or misrepresentation to the med school's admissions committee. They were just four years younger, and they didn't know the first damn thing about medicine or what they would want four years hence.

 

[H_Caulfield]

HC, it's simpler than all that indignant crap you just posted.

The vast majority of med school applicants have no idea what they're getting themselves into. Their "experience" with medicine amounts to a bit of shadowing, or volunteering at an ER. They know med school is "hard" and that white coats are noble and they think that spending an afternoon healing the sick in a pleasant corner office sounds pretty keen.

Then they rotate through GS and IM and discover how much of medicine is just flailing around at noncompliant patients with self-inflicted disease. They see just how beat down and unhappy the interns & residents are as they trudge down to the ER to admit gomer #6 at 3 AM. And they're two years, a lotta effort, and $100K into a career that doesn't look like quite so much fun any more. So they pick a specialty that doesn't involve so much futile patient contact, or one that pays well enough to make up for all the negatives.

There was never any dishonesty or misrepresentation to the med school's admissions committee. They were just four years younger, and they didn't know the first damn thing about medicine or what they would want four years hence.

Thanks; I like your way of viewing it, and hope that I'll be able to adopt it and feel altogether better about the whole thing. I do, however, believe that students of dermatology- or integrated plastics-caliber could land residencies and subsequently professorships at hopkins or penn, and eventually put themselves into a position where they'll see only real, legitimate cases destined for the medical journals. People who bail on medicine, after seeing how indigent and unappreciative it is, are also bailing on the potential to contribute to advancement in those fields. I just believe that a person with a 260 on the usmle should be putting his/her mind toward atherosclerosis, not cleft palates and accutane.

 

[megadon]

One way of looking it, there are a couple of others. At our school, #1 in 2007 went FP. The reason the ROAD program is so competitive is by a large amount driven by lifestyle, stable, 8-5 job, less call, etc. There are other self-selection reasons, if you realize you hate interacting with patients, radiology is a good field to go into (how do you hide a dollar from a radiologist, put it on a patient). I want to go IM, I want to be a GI. Unfortunately I also have the grades to make this great dream possible, C=MD. As far as choosing specialties, a term I have grown to hate, multi-factorial.

 

[-Goose-]

I've done well enough to get into any of the abovementioned fields (except for maybe integrated plastics), so to the guy who's all prepared to come on and tell me that I'm just "jealous": go away. I AM a little aggravated, personally, that the two fields which traditionally and inevitably deal with most life or death issues, reachable via INTERNAL MED or GENERAL SURGERY, now carry some sort of stigma. The student who holds true to what he spewed on interview day, by actually going into a medical or surgical field to perform essential, life-prolonging work, can no longer proudly tell anyone what he is doing without them necessarily assuming, "oh, he must be at the bottom of his freaking class." NICE! Glad that someone who wanted to work with peripheral, marginally threatening problems and elective procedures gets more respect than I do for wanting to FIX A KIDNEY.

Dude, that was some rant.

From your previous posts, it seems like you are waffling b/t cardiology and CTS, both of which are very demanding and competitive fields (well, cards is competitive right now). (end ego strokage.)

t also seems that you have a complex that you might be training alongside people from less competitive schools (DOs, IMGs, oh no!)... You're really going to have to get over this.

Otherwise, I agree with alot of what you have to say... I think that declining physician reimbursements will eventually scare away alot of the people who are into medicine for the $$ and hopefully drive people into fields that they are truly interested in... It will be interesting to see what happens.

Or everyone and their brother will gun for plastics. 🙂

 

[-Goose-]

and surgery is becoming very competitive, if it makes you feel any better.

 

[smq123]

Gosh, I have so many questions for you....

Question #1: What year in med school are you?

If you're an M1, M2 or (like me) a new M3 - you shouldn't talk. It's hard to blame people for wanting to have a real life and raise their kids well. And some people really seem to actually love the ROAD specialties, for many reasons.

(OB/Gyn, neurology, neurosurgery, rad onc, and perhaps others are exempt from the following tirade....)

Oh. You have to be an MS1. Ob/Gyn is remarkably non-competitive right now, in many parts of the country. Neurology is more competitive, but it's no where near rad/onc or derm or anything.

I've done well enough to get into any of the abovementioned fields (except for maybe integrated plastics), so to the guy who's all prepared to come on and tell me that I'm just "jealous": go away.

Um....a previous post mentioned that, a year ago, you were an MS1. How can you POSSIBLY say that you've "done well enough" to get into a highly competitive field unless you've taken USMLE 1/2? Until you've done at least your core rotations?

I AM a little aggravated, personally, that the two fields which traditionally and inevitably deal with most life or death issues, reachable via INTERNAL MED or GENERAL SURGERY, now carry some sort of stigma. The student who holds true to what he spewed on interview day, by actually going into a medical or surgical field to perform essential, life-prolonging work, can no longer proudly tell anyone what he is doing without them necessarily assuming, "oh, he must be at the bottom of his freaking class." NICE! Glad that someone who wanted to work with peripheral, marginally threatening problems and elective procedures gets more respect than I do for wanting to FIX A KIDNEY.

Question #2: Who told you these lies?

Seriously, no one cares. If someone tells me he/she wants to do family med, I assume that it truly interests them. The assumed "prestige" issue is something that a lot of MS1s focus on, but it falls by the wayside as you progress through med school.

Seeing that internal medicine and surgery, the fields upon which all of the medical profession are essentially based (and most other fields ARE, practically, concerned with peripheral and sometimes even optional matters), are always within the "least competitive" or "moderately competitive" sections on these match evaluations...well...it just makes me wonder how it's possible that so many students' are willing to sell their noble aspirations to the highest, least-demanding bidder.

Question #3: What gave you the impression that everyone who enters competitive specialties gave up their noble aspirations?

Ophtho is NOT concerned with just cosmetics or trivial stuff. Trying to fix cataracts and glaucoma is huge. Diabetic retinopathy is a big problem facing this country.

Do you know what doctors in "cushy" specialties do? Dermatologists do a LOT of research into serious skin disorders - pemphigus vulgaris, psoriasis, etc. The dermatologists at my school who run research labs work from 7 am to 7-8 pm, 6 days a week. They work very hard, but what they do is genuinely important.

Question #4: What about pathology?

Pathology is a remarkably good lifestyle specialty. I have no idea why pathologists even have pagers, because there are so few conceivable path emergencies. Pathology is not competitive, though.

****************
** Not all med students who go after derm are interested in just the good lifestyle and great pay. It's an interesting mix of pathology, research, and clinical medicine, which (for some people) is really great. It's got it's own frustrations though - there are still very few good medications that you can use to reliably treat skin conditions with minimal side effects. Many serious skin conditions don't have very definitive treatments. For a lot of people, that kind of nebulous, vague approach stimulates them to do more research.

** Just because someone goes into internal med or general surgery doesn't mean that they're mediocre students. Some internal med sub-specialties are very lucrative and competitive - notably, GI and interventional cardiology. Many very good students prefer those fields.

** You're seeing the issue as too black-and-white - a good lifestyle specialty may have "low" pay, while higher paying specialties may have terrible lifestyles. Endocrinology and ID are good "lifestyle" subspecialties. There are a few emergencies, but not many. They don't pay as well as other fields do, though. On the flip side, ortho is very competitive and pays extremely well. But the hours are hard and long, and they expect a lot out of you.

Also, not all "cushy" specialties deal with stupid issues. Ophtho, like I've mentioned, is competitive, but it deals with something that, while not life-threatening, is certainly extremely important.

Calm down a little. It's not as big a deal as you're making it out to be.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

Thanks; I like your way of viewing it, and hope that I'll be able to adopt it and feel altogether better about the whole thing. I do, however, believe that students of dermatology- or integrated plastics-caliber could land residencies and subsequently professorships at hopkins or penn, and eventually put themselves into a position where they'll see only real, legitimate cases destined for the medical journals. People who bail on medicine, after seeing how indigent and unappreciative it is, are also bailing on the potential to contribute to advancement in those fields. I just believe that a person with a 260 on the usmle should be putting his/her mind toward atherosclerosis, not cleft palates and accutane.

I think the problem is that you are blaming students who excel for not going into "more noble" fields when the system doesn't really reward it, whether its through compensation or through work hours or whatever metric you want to use to cite why a certain specialty is preferred over others.

Using your logic, all top med students should be tracked into academic positions where they will do research to promote medical discovery and advancement...however wonderful this would be, it is inherently flawed to force students to choose to do something when they would rather do something else. This isn't even considering the fact that academic physicians arent compensated nearly as well as private practice physicians.

 

[lord_jeebus]

A desire to save or prolong life is not a prequisite for medical school admission. I don't recall any interviewer protesting when I said I was interested in interventional pain, which arguably is a lifestyle field that neither saves nor prolongs life.

I am perfectly satisfied to improve the lives of others. This can be done through any medical specialty.

When you say that someone with a 260 should be focusing on atherosclerosis, what do you mean? Anyone can prescribe statins and control blood pressure, or conduct a blinded study of an investigational medication. Should they drop out and become PhDs researching this phenomenon?

Perhaps it is a little sad that our best and brightest go into the practice of treating benign skin lesions, but I blame the system that encourages them to do so. Our best and brightest in society also work crazy hours to make rich people richer, invent better devices for killing millions of civilians with a single bomb, or to sue people for things they weren't responsible for. Should we force them into internal medicine? No one is under any obligation to go into any field they don't like.

I know plenty of people with scores and evaluations good enough for any specialty who chose internal medicine or general surgery, if that makes you feel better.

 

[Blade28]

I'll quickly add to what njbmd already said...try to keep an open mind as you start your MS-II year, keep your options open during your MS-III year, and see what happens. You might be surprised at how your outlook changes.

 

[Raidergate]

(OB/Gyn, neurology, neurosurgery, rad onc, and perhaps others are exempt from the following tirade....)

I, for one, was honest at my medical school admissions interview. That aside, does no one else think that there's something seriously wrong with the trends in residency selection? I've been looking into different fields for a couple of years now, but it wasn't until I saw a published list of "most competitive" programs that I became so cynical. Plastic surgery, dermatology, ENT facial plastics, anaesthesia, radiology...

Seriously, if I didn't know any better I'd think that people were simply not AT ALL interested in saving or prolonging lives; once they match, do they duck away from their former interviewers? Sort of like "hey, yea, I know you gave me the green light due to all that stuff I told you four years ago about keeping people alive and comfortable, but...well...I've decided to do boobs, pimples, tonsils, nose jobs, look at pictures and/or help out a surgeon who doesn't have time to keep looking at those monitors because he's actually DOING SOMETHING...

Now, before you all jump down my throat, hear me out: I realize that plastic surgeons perform life-altering reconstruction, that dermatologists deal with melanoma, that ENTs do complex things involving the thyroid and oncology, that radiologists indirectly save lives by formulating a diagnosis and consulting with other physicians, and that anaesthesiologists keep the patient alive during surgery. In spite of this, however, they are STILL, inarguably, all of the fields which are furthest removed from helping people in a VITAL way. They DO help, but only secondarily, tertiarily, or psychologically. Thus, I do genuinely believe and acknowledge that we need all of these physicians; I merely want to complain about the fact that they've established a monopoly over all of the highest-achieving students in any given medical school class. Lately I see very few exceptions to this latter statement, and anyone who can correct me, or provide for some counter-examples, would help me not to be so disgruntled (believe it or not, I don't WANT to be).

I've done well enough to get into any of the abovementioned fields (except for maybe integrated plastics), so to the guy who's all prepared to come on and tell me that I'm just "jealous": go away. I AM a little aggravated, personally, that the two fields which traditionally and inevitably deal with most life or death issues, reachable via INTERNAL MED or GENERAL SURGERY, now carry some sort of stigma. The student who holds true to what he spewed on interview day, by actually going into a medical or surgical field to perform essential, life-prolonging work, can no longer proudly tell anyone what he is doing without them necessarily assuming, "oh, he must be at the bottom of his freaking class." NICE! Glad that someone who wanted to work with peripheral, marginally threatening problems and elective procedures gets more respect than I do for wanting to FIX A KIDNEY.

This is only a rant, not a question. I'm not asking why things are the way they are; it's obvious. People care a GREAT DEAL more about pay and lifestyle than they do about the subject matter upon which their practice is based. That's fine...it's also the attitude upon which all business is based. Still, I wouldn't have expected the trend to be so uniform; I'd have guessed that many more people were actually concerned about looking every morning into the bathroom mirror to see a guy who'd been on the front line the day before, bringing somebody back from near-death (even if it WERE at 9pm and he didn't have any cosmetic lotions to sell at the receptionist's desk to supplement his income).

Seeing that internal medicine and surgery, the fields upon which all of the medical profession are essentially based (and most other fields ARE, practically, concerned with peripheral and sometimes even optional matters), are always within the "least competitive" or "moderately competitive" sections on these match evaluations...well...it just makes me wonder how it's possible that so many students' are willing to sell their noble aspirations to the highest, least-demanding bidder.

How old are you, 18?

1. Surgery is very competitive, and has been for a couple of years.

2. I don't blame anyone for not wanting to be "on the front lines bringing someone back from the brink" when they're 50 years old. Medicine is a job, a fairly lucrative and interesting one, but at the end of the day it's still just a job. Spend some time on the wards and in the ER, outside of MS1 or MS2 shadowing, and get a real feel for what being on the front line is like. Pretty much a damn beatdown if you do it enough, truth be told. There's tons of nights I wished I'd have picked plastics, radiology or something of the sort.

3. To each his own, as far as I'm concerned. Anyone who can graduate from medical school, pass step 1 and 2, and complete a residency, can be trained well enough in whatever field they choose to do a good job. There's like 4000+ internal med spots filled every year. I don't think they'll be hurting too bad. 🙄

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

I don't agree with what the OP said, but I do kind of embrace it's spirit.

To me, it's kind of a "dirty little secret" of medicine that some of the people with the best minds and most skill are working the hardest to get the positions that will pay them the most for the least work.

Personally, I can't blame them. Someone tells me "Well, you're going to get paid X amount of dollars to work backbreaking hours managing uncurable chronic conditions in a population who does their best to undo all the good you've done for them. Or you can get paid, 3X or 4X with a better schedule to work with patients who are actually happy to work with you" and suddenly Derm starts sounding a lot better.

 

[Dzeteo]

Well, seems like everyone has hit some very good points. I am only beginning first-year in a few weeks, so am new to all these issues and discussions, but agree that it is okay to work hard for a desirable lifestyle.

The OP has one major assumption which makes the rant too harsh: that we all interviewed and gave the impression of wanting to save lives and that it was our primary objective to do so. Sure, I would like to and am certain that I will.

But I made it very clear in my interview that I would like to enter medicine to make $$$! Yes, I said it. And my I told my interviewer why: to support overseas medical missions work that I am directly involved in. My hope is to make some major cash, so that I can support an overseas project in medicine and practice in a developing nation during off weeks/months from US work.

So, I will work my tail off to get into the highest paying specialty I can manage and enjoy--the one that I can live with for the rest of my life; while raising my kids and spending time with my wife. Nothing wrong with using all of my mental powers to enter into a high paying specialty with a good quality of life. Afterall, it's a job and I don't want to be doing my 'job' around the clock, especially when I want to see my children grow up and raise them properly.

I can see how you (OP) would be frustrated, but you are only frustrated because you assume too much about all of our intentions.

 

[Umbra]

....as much as the OP is getting bashed on here, I do wonder how well answering some of those "how do you fit our school's mission of service?" essays would have gone if we were all matching for plastics or derm....

Just sayin'.

 

[postbacker]

Well, seems like everyone has hit some very good points. I am only beginning first-year in a few weeks, so am new to all these issues and discussions, but agree that it is okay to work hard for a desirable lifestyle.

The OP has one major assumption which makes the rant too harsh: that we all interviewed and gave the impression of wanting to save lives and that it was our primary objective to do so. Sure, I would like to and am certain that I will.

But I made it very clear in my interview that I would like to enter medicine to make $$$! Yes, I said it. And my I told my interviewer why: to support overseas medical missions work that I am directly involved in. My hope is to make some major cash, so that I can support an overseas project in medicine and practice in a developing nation during off weeks/months from US work.

So, I will work my tail off to get into the highest paying specialty I can manage and enjoy--the one that I can live with for the rest of my life; while raising my kids and spending time with my wife. Nothing wrong with using all of my mental powers to enter into a high paying specialty with a good quality of life. Afterall, it's a job and I don't want to be doing my 'job' around the clock, especially when I want to see my children grow up and raise them properly.

I can see how you (OP) would be frustrated, but you are only frustrated because you assume too much about all of our intentions.

Ummm, if I were an adcom interviewing you, I would have tossed your app in the trash, but I would have made a "friendly suggestion" that you go directly into investment banking, make tons more money than you ever will as a doctor, plus start making it right away, so that you can do your wonderful charity work...

 

[BlackSails]

Ummm, if I were an adcom interviewing you, I would have tossed your app in the trash, but I would have made a "friendly suggestion" that you go directly into investment banking, make tons more money than you ever will as a doctor, plus start making it right away, so that you can do your wonderful charity work...

Perhaps he finds banking boring and tedious? There is nothing wrong with making money doing something you enjoy.

 

[postbacker]

Perhaps he finds banking boring and tedious? There is nothing wrong with making money doing something you enjoy.

No, nothing wrong with making money. But that poster thinks he found a "clever" way to reveal his motivation for money, and I frankly don't find it very clever or convincing, and I also don't find it to be a very good way to go about it...

If your motivation is to make a lot of money to fund overseas missions, I argue that there are far more lucrative ways to do it than embarking on a 10 year medical education, incurring tons of personal debt, and very possibly not ending up in one of the high paying specialties...

So don't miss my point - if his motivation for money is as altruistic as he said, and if I had been his interviewer, I would have grilled him on it...I think it is very poor justification for going to med school...

 

[sirus_virus]

(OB/Gyn, neurology, neurosurgery, rad onc, and perhaps others are exempt from the following tirade....)......


Seeing that internal medicine and surgery, the fields upon which all of the medical profession are essentially based (and most other fields ARE, practically, concerned with peripheral and sometimes even optional matters), are always within the "least competitive" or "moderately competitive" sections on these match evaluations...well...it just makes me wonder how it's possible that so many students' are willing to sell their noble aspirations to the highest, least-demanding bidder.

Dude, you are putting way too much thought into this whole thing. This is a simple case of REAL LIFE. The standard for success in America today is money and free time. The more of those two things you have, the happier you are(supposedly).

 

[ertepnf]

When I interviewed, I told anyone who asked that I was most interested in pathology or radiology, although I thought I'd probably change my mind over four years (pathology shoulda been on the list, considering the other fields you included). By writing about path on my essay, I think I made it clear that I was interested in the area.
So, I guess I won't have anything to worry about - I was straightforward!


Seriously though...I heard that a lot of med students enter with all sorts of ideals, but leave med school looking at medicine as a job, not as a way to save lives. I'm a pretty idealistic person, but I think by the end of it, I'm going to be more focused on getting the job done, you know?

 

[dutchman]

well...it just makes me wonder how it's possible that so many students' are willing to sell their noble aspirations to the highest, least-demanding bidder.

Noble aspirations what the hell is that? Since when did IM and surgery become the measure of nobility? I don't know what you spilled in your own interview, but most of us never said anything about wanting to go into IM or surgery. Yes, everyone claims they want to "help people", but that's just pre-med code for "let me in".

 

[TheAmazingGOB]

Sorry to be Mr. Obvious, but people should go into what they feel like doing and where they best fit in. I suggest you talk to people in the so-called "life saving" specialties and I think you'll be surprised. I remember one of my interviewers at a med school was a cardiothoracic surgeon and he said saving lives gets old. I couldn't believe what I was hearing until I really thought about it. He probably saves 2 to 3 lives every day. I'm sure it's awesome at first but at the end of the day, it's still his job and after doing something hundreds of times it's sure to lose it's magic. He probably has patients and families who are really grateful for what he's done and express that to him and he probably has patients who get mad at him for giving them a scar an inch longer than he said it would be.

 

[TheMightyAngus]

Dude, if you want to get accepted to med school, you have to play the game. Simple as that. You have to say you love volunteering in soup kitchens, pushing patients around in wheelchairs, sequencing gene A4CS345 for some rare neuroblastoma that affects 1 in 10,000,000 births, etc.

Adcoms aren't interested in people who are in it for a stable job/nice salary/prestige/etc. Why would they be, when there are thousands of other idealistic applicants that say the above?

But once you get accepted, who cares if you follow through with you what you said on your application? No one. They know you're a naive little twenty-something who has no concept of what it's like to be a practicing doctor. They know priorities change. They want you to go into whatever aspect of medicine you want. That's why you don't pick a specialty until, for all intents and purposes, you've experienced what you like and what you don't.

 

[gro2001]

The two contrasting attitudes to medicine: idealism and its-another-job, are both very appropriate at different stages in life. Theres nothing wrong for a freshly minted MS0 to be idealistic about medicine, infact thats the norm. Its also the norm to become more of a realist (and maybe even a little jaded) with the passing of years. And thats how it should be. Imagine if a young MS0 (no offense to the non traditionals) is so coldly realistic about medicine? Wouldnt that kind of put you off?

 

[sirus_virus]

OP, I don't even know why you are complaining. If you like those specialties, you ought to be happy they are not competitive. Matching should be easy for you.

 

[Abilene85]

I went with the “helping people” cliché during my interviews. I don’t think I was “full of it,” because I do intend to help people by being a doctor. I might become a surgeon, put my hands on a broken heart, and fix it. I might become a dermatologist and remove flappy skin things from someone’s face – okay, so I didn’t SAVE A LIFE, but I did improve someone’s quality of life. Maybe I’ll get really involved with public health and end up working to bring universal care to patients I will never even meet. Who knows where I will be in 3-4 years when I will be making these decisions. I’m sure interviewers know that 99.9% of us have no idea what specialty we will pursue. But the reason I didn’t say “I want to save lives” was because I’m not sure I will be in a position to be saving lives when I start practicing medicine.

In conclusion, I guess you can say I am a super fabulous person because I didn't tell a lie! Go me.

 

[DocYuki]

Dude, if you want to get accepted to med school, you have to play the game. Simple as that. You have to say you love volunteering in soup kitchens, pushing patients around in wheelchairs, sequencing gene A4CS345 for some rare neuroblastoma that affects 1 in 10,000,000 births, etc.

Adcoms aren't interested in people who are in it for a stable job/nice salary/prestige/etc. Why would they be, when there are thousands of other idealistic applicants that say the above?

But once you get accepted, who cares if you follow through with you what you said on your application? No one. They know you're a naive little twenty-something who has no concept of what it's like to be a practicing doctor. They know priorities change. They want you to go into whatever aspect of medicine you want. That's why you don't pick a specialty until, for all intents and purposes, you've experienced what you like and what you don't.

Amen. Period.

 

[Dzeteo]

Ummm, if I were an adcom interviewing you, I would have tossed your app in the trash, but I would have made a "friendly suggestion" that you go directly into investment banking, make tons more money than you ever will as a doctor, plus start making it right away, so that you can do your wonderful charity work...

😉 'Ummm', it's great that you completely missed my point. I WANT to do medicine, it's my passion. AND, if I can be passionate in my job and make great money to support my 'wonderful charity work', that is just the cherry on top. Just like you can't answer any 'what are my chances' questions about anyone on the site, your baseless dismissal of my app is misguided. Sure, there is money to be made in lots of places, but medicine is where I want to put my life's effort.

 

[postbacker]

😉 'Ummm', it's great that you completely missed my point. I WANT to do medicine, it's my passion. AND, if I can be passionate in my job and make great money to support my 'wonderful charity work', that is just the cherry on top. Just like you can't answer any 'what are my chances' questions about anyone on the site, your baseless dismissal of my app is misguided. Sure, there is money to be made in lots of places, but medicine is where I want to put my life's effort.

You don't have a clue...

 

[Dzeteo]

You don't have a clue...

...😕...you're right...I'll withdraw from medical school.