How often do you think about dropping out?

[Planes2Doc]

Watch Office Space. The fear of the cubicle life helps me move forward.

Something else, might sound pretentious, I don't want to work for someone who is not as smart, or smarter than me. Imagine having to work for the boss's son. Your colleagues and superiors in medicine always have something they can genuinely teach you.

This is exactly what kept me going through first year... I worked in the corporate world. It sucked and was meaningless.

Not all dead-end jobs involve flipping burgers or making minimum wage. I couldn't stand settling. Now the sky is the limit again, and I can dream. It makes the hell of 1st year and some of 2nd year totally worth it.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

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[zero0]

This is exactly what kept me going through first year... I worked in the corporate world. It sucked and was meaningless.

Not all dead-end jobs involve flipping burgers or making minimum wage. I couldn't stand settling. Now the sky is the limit again, and I can dream. It makes the hell of 1st year and some of 2nd year totally worth it.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

So do you fall into the "2nd year is worse" camp? Is it the board prep?

We don't have cadaver lab 2nd year so that in itself is a monumental improvement, but I lay awake at night thinking about what horrible things they've devised instead. Otherwise, I'm fairly optimistic about 2nd year, mostly because the material becomes less mind-numbing. Honestly, who the hell cares if the posterior rectus sheath is continuous with the transversalis fascia or not?

The main issue for me so far has just been motivating myself to give a crap about that kind of stuff. I do well with minimal effort, but I'd like to be able to stomach the material well enough to seriously master it, and I just don't have the requisite ****s for that at this point.

 

[Zywie]

This is exactly what kept me going through first year... I worked in the corporate world. It sucked and was meaningless.

Not all dead-end jobs involve flipping burgers or making minimum wage. I couldn't stand settling. Now the sky is the limit again, and I can dream. It makes the hell of 1st year and some of 2nd year totally worth it.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

If only more people understood this. Medical school is a vacation compared to the hell that is office life. I'll take studying and going to classes over sitting at a computer, going to meetings that prep you for the prep meeting for the actual meeting where nothing gets done only to get stuck hearing about Dave from IT's weekend and Janice from billing's Sh*tty kids all damn day.

 

[thxleave]

If only more people understood this. Medical school is a vacation compared to the hell that is office life. I'll take studying and going to classes over sitting at a computer, going to meetings that prep you for the prep meeting for the actual meeting where nothing gets done only to get stuck hearing about Dave from IT's weekend and Janice from billing's Sh*tty kids all damn day.

Right.... You say that, until you realize that you are getting paid for all that. Also it distracts you from sitting in front of the monitor at work. Not all work places are bad. Example is that my work place has a built in gym, with Zumba classes.

I went opposite direction... medical school to office life. Work is meaningless, but hey I'm home at 5:20PM on a light commute day. Sometimes even 4:30 when the office is slow. Office life beats medicine any day of the week.

 

[68PGunner]

There's issues either way. I'm at a school that had at least 1 test every 2-3 weeks. Second semester of second year we had 19 tests in 4 months. While not having as much material on one test was nice, I also think it made burnout a lot more real. At least with a 5 week block you can take 2-3 days 'off' at the beginning and still catch up. With a test every week or so, if you take a day or 2 off you're either pulling 12-14 hour study days until the next exam or you're screwed. Just try and keep trucking and know that it does (eventually) get better.

Yeah, bro. Last week, we covered 28 hrs of lecture in four days. ROFL. I have been going ham for this entire weekend while the test is still 7 days away.

 

[Planes2Doc]

So do you fall into the "2nd year is worse" camp? Is it the board prep?

We don't have cadaver lab 2nd year so that in itself is a monumental improvement, but I lay awake at night thinking about what horrible things they've devised instead. Otherwise, I'm fairly optimistic about 2nd year, mostly because the material becomes less mind-numbing. Honestly, who the hell cares if the posterior rectus sheath is continuous with the transversalis fascia or not?

The main issue for me so far has just been motivating myself to give a crap about that kind of stuff. I do well with minimal effort, but I'd like to be able to stomach the material well enough to seriously master it, and I just don't have the requisite ****s for that at this point.

I liked second year better, but board study sucked. Anatomy was the worst experience of my life, so first year was my worst.

If only more people understood this. Medical school is a vacation compared to the hell that is office life. I'll take studying and going to classes over sitting at a computer, going to meetings that prep you for the prep meeting for the actual meeting where nothing gets done only to get stuck hearing about Dave from IT's weekend and Janice from billing's Sh*tty kids all damn day.

The worst thing was going to the school's career fair. A bunch of companies, many you have never heard of, asking why you want to work there.

Yes, of course the purpose of my life is to excel at data entry (objective statement on a lot of resumes) to work for your company that makes parts for machines that make parts for machines that make parts.

It was a red-flag when I realized I would have to put effort into carefully formulating answers for interview questions. Once I found the field I wanted to go into, I could speak freely and honestly. No preparation or BS required. If you need to carefulky formulate responses ahead of time, then you may be doing things wrong.

Right.... You say that, until you realize that you are getting paid for all that. Also it distracts you from sitting in front of the monitor at work. Not all work places are bad. Example is that my work place has a built in gym, with Zumba classes.

I went opposite direction... medical school to office life. Work is meaningless, but hey I'm home at 5:20PM on a light commute day. Sometimes even 4:30 when the office is slow. Office life beats medicine any day of the week.

I thought about this of course. The low salary and dead end for dreams ruined it for me. To each their own though.

 

[thxleave]

I liked second year better, but board study sucked. Anatomy was the worst experience of my life, so first year was my worst.



The worst thing was going to the school's career fair. A bunch of companies, many you have never heard of, asking why you want to work there.

Yes, of course the purpose of my life is to excel at data entry (objective statement on a lot of resumes) to work for your company that makes parts for machines that make parts for machines that make parts.

It was a red-flag when I realized I would have to put effort into carefully formulating answers for interview questions. Once I found the field I wanted to go into, I could speak freely and honestly. No preparation or BS required. If you need to carefulky formulate responses ahead of time, then you may be doing things wrong.



I thought about this of course. The low salary and dead end for dreams ruined it for me. To each their own though.

Pretty much. On the average I have it pretty chill. Walk into office at 8AM. Drink coffee and sift through emails till 9AM and catch up on phone calls. Do a work till 11AM, while visiting coworkers for small talk. Go to Zumba or Cycling class for a hour. Eat at desk at 12pm while sifting emails and returning voice mails till 1 pm. Got meetings or work a till 4PM, while visiting other coworkers again for small talk. Then around 4:30PM, slowly wind things down to check what needs to be done for next day. Rinse lather and repeat. Show up to work, do your job, and don't complain? Exemplary employee. Haha. Big fish small pond. Money is alright in the office world. But the amount of work a doctor puts into a hour is way more what I do in a hour. So it's a give a take really.

 

[tennischamp822]

I thought about this of course. The low salary and dead end for dreams ruined it for me. To each their own though.

The salaries don't necessarily have to be that low in office work though. I have a few friends at Silicon Valley tech firms making 200k+ a few years out of college (if you include the stock units that they get & sell every quarter).

 

[AlteredScale]

Before medical school was able to work my first "cubicle" job at ucsd as a admin for a PhD program. Thought I'd hate it but I didn't mind the work. It was nice getting paid decent money, having a nice hour lunch break and getting little perks like having lunch with the PIs of the program and getting to learn more about academia (grant writing and all those damn seminar trip reimbursements). After a few months however, start to realize the redundancy of it all can eventually make you go crazy.

Sometimes when it gets tough, I'll think about "the good ol' days" and wonder if I'd be happier still doing that. Those are the only times I truly think about dropping out. Only happened a few times so far.


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[SansaStarkMD]

Years 1-2 sitting in lecture waiting to get home so you can learn. Years 3-4 standing at the hospital waiting to get home so you can learn. The difference is the material in years 3-4 is what you need to know and you don't have time to learn t when you get home.

 

[Mr Roboto]

There's issues either way. I'm at a school that had at least 1 test every 2-3 weeks. Second semester of second year we had 19 tests in 4 months. While not having as much material on one test was nice, I also think it made burnout a lot more real. At least with a 5 week block you can take 2-3 days 'off' at the beginning and still catch up. With a test every week or so, if you take a day or 2 off you're either pulling 12-14 hour study days until the next exam or you're screwed. Just try and keep trucking and know that it does (eventually) get better.

On average we have two exams a week. The most we've had so far has been like 5 (including practicals). I think that's contributed to my early burnout. It's hard to care about exams when they're so often.

 

[Azete]

Before medical school was able to work my first "cubicle" job at ucsd as a admin for a PhD program. Thought I'd hate it but I didn't mind the work. It was nice getting paid decent money, having a nice hour lunch break and getting little perks like having lunch with the PIs of the program and getting to learn more about academia (grant writing and all those damn seminar trip reimbursements). After a few months however, start to realize the redundancy of it all can eventually make you go crazy.

Sometimes when it gets tough, I'll think about "the good ol' days" and wonder if I'd be happier still doing that. Those are the only times I truly think about dropping out. Only happened a few times so far.


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Medicine is my second career, but it's not my previous career that I look back fondly of -- despite earning far more than I likely ever will as a physician -- it's actually the bartending job I had when I was 22. Like many of us I had the desire to "get more out of life," but the irony is I probably would have been most happy just working the 5-6 hours a night at a resort somewhere and enjoying the rest of my time. No exams, no expectations, no family -- just sunshine and booze.

 

[Zywie]

Right.... You say that, until you realize that you are getting paid for all that. Also it distracts you from sitting in front of the monitor at work. Not all work places are bad. Example is that my work place has a built in gym, with Zumba classes.

I went opposite direction... medical school to office life. Work is meaningless, but hey I'm home at 5:20PM on a light commute day. Sometimes even 4:30 when the office is slow. Office life beats medicine any day of the week.

I worked for quite a few years and made good money in the office life, and it was miserable everyday. Working as a project analyst wasn't as bad because we were tasked with challenging problems, but working as a business analyst was the worst. Mindlessly running excel sheets for 10+ hours a day was a million times worse than medical school, even if I was getting paid.

 

[AlteredScale]

Medicine is my second career, but it's not my previous career that I look back fondly of -- despite earning far more than I likely ever will as a physician -- it's actually the bartending job I had when I was 22. Like many of us I had the desire to "get more out of life," but the irony is I probably would have been most happy just working the 5-6 hours a night at a resort somewhere and enjoying the rest of my time. No exams, no expectations, no family -- just sunshine and booze.

Totally understand. Have a few friends who work at hotels and resorts in San Diego and jeeze, it makes me a bit jealous haha. It's all about delayed gratification now though!





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[Lannister]

Average is good. If you are better than 50% of your classmates, chances are that you have a chance to do any specialty out there with the exception of the top 3-5 specialties out there.

I wish more people on SDN would acknowledge this. I'm just slightly above average and I feel great about it, but everyone here makes it sound like you're failing if you're not first quartile and honoring every rotation.

 

[Atom612]

LOL. On a serious note, if you are insolvent as a practicing physician, you need some financial counseling.

Assuming the PAYE plan w/ loan forgiveness in 20 years, I calculate that even with the tax bomb the interest rate rate for my total loan would be around 2.2% annually, which is an awesome deal. I haven't taken debt degradation due to inflation and income inflation into my calculation.

If I account those factors into my calculation, the real interest rate is probably less than 1%.

I heard most hospitals qualify for PSLF, is this true or am I mistaken?

 

[thxleave]

I heard most hospitals qualify for PSLF, is this true or am I mistaken?

Yeah but most hospitals don't hire you directly. It's through groups which are profit organizations.

 

[Stagg737]

I heard most hospitals qualify for PSLF, is this true or am I mistaken?

You're mistaken. More qualify for PSLF than a lot of people would think, but it still typically has to be a hospital that works with an underserved population. I think most people just don't realize that a lot of urban hospitals can qualify and assume that it's just hospitals in the middle of nowhere that can get that status.

 

[Atom612]

Yeah but most hospitals don't hire you directly. It's through groups which are profit organizations.

You're mistaken. More qualify for PSLF than a lot of people would think, but it still typically has to be a hospital that works with an underserved population. I think most people just don't realize that a lot of urban hospitals can qualify and assume that it's just hospitals in the middle of nowhere that can get that status.

That makes sense, thanks guys

 

[SunsFun]

Totally understand. Have a few friends who work at hotels and resorts in San Diego and jeeze, it makes me a bit jealous haha. It's all about delayed gratification now though!





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Grass is always greener. Working in the industry has its own downsides. Bartending at restaurants and resorts makes you jealous of people doing nightclub gigs. At the clubs any halfway decent bartender wants to be a manager and any halfway decent manager wants to be a part-owner.

 

[soop]

Right.... You say that, until you realize that you are getting paid for all that. Also it distracts you from sitting in front of the monitor at work. Not all work places are bad. Example is that my work place has a built in gym, with Zumba classes.

I went opposite direction... medical school to office life. Work is meaningless, but hey I'm home at 5:20PM on a light commute day. Sometimes even 4:30 when the office is slow. Office life beats medicine any day of the week.

Guess it's the opposite for me. Worked in corporate for a while. Traveled a ton and ate a lot of good food on the company's dime. Didn't enjoy it very much as I found the work to be pointless. Medical school is so refreshing and interesting for me, even MS1 and MS2.

 

[Spectre of Ockham]

Never.

 

[SUCCinylcholine_ON_THIS]

Recent graduate here. Like many others, I had a life and a job prior to medicine. I'm also a veteran and did some time in the service. I think about quitting every day... This was the worst decision I've ever made. Ever. Medical school wasn't challenging for me. It's the culture. This profession is fuc$!?g broken. There's a serious problem when docs are actively steering friends and family AWAY from this abortion of a career. I see it all the time. And I'm tired of all the tight wads who have absolutely no sense of humor. If I hear "professionalism" one more time I swear to god I'm going to punch a baby in the face.


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