Medical How should I handle unsupportive parents?

[TheBoneDoctah]

Today I heard back with my first MD acceptance! I was so happy since I had worked my butt off to get here - a post bac program, mcat 2x, and worked as a lab manager. I have worked non stop to get to this point which also meant sacrificing my social life. However when I told my mom the good news, she said "oh okay cool" so casually and her boyfriend commented "okay." Not even a congratulations. They then proceeded to comment on how they had wished I did not pursue medicine because of the student loans (even though they're not helping me financially). Has anyone experienced this? It made me feel like all of my accomplishments so far were so easy to achieve and made me feel pretty sad.

That’s unfortunate but the reality for a lot of students. People outside of medicine don’t understand the toll it takes on students trying to get into medical school and they certainly don’t understand the toll it takes getting THROUGH medical school.

Medical school is expensive but not sure why this is their problem if they aren’t forking the bill. Also, there are ways to reduce your medical school bill and/or the amount you eventually pay back.

1. Live frugally during medical school.
2. Only take out what you absolutely NEED for living expenses.
3. After graduation, work for a non profit and have your debt forgiven (not sure how much longer this is gonna stick around)

The last thing is that a lot of students go into super expensive schools and then slower paying specialties. For example, a private school where the tuition is 65-70k a year where they come out 400-500k in debt BEFORE interest and then they go into a lower paying specialty paying 150k. This is not the ideal situation and if you’re gonna do this you need to do the non profit plan I said in 3.

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[Goro]

First off congrats on the accept!!!

Very sorry to hear of your family woes. Sadly, this is not the first time I've seen an SDNer post about something like this. You'd be surprised how many parents are not merely unsupportive, but outright hostile or jealous of their kids' success.

Have you always had a strained relationship with your mom? If not, she might be saddened by the idea that you're moving away, or that you're, well, all grown up now and won't have time for her like you used to. Being a parent myself, I can relate to the latter.

You might consider simply asking your mom why she is acting this way, and tell her how hurt you are

 

[AlteredScale]

First of all. Congratulations on getting your MD acceptance. That is a HUGE accomplishment.

It’s a big risk to go to medical school. You’ll be able to pay off the loans of course. The fact that your family reacted so..apathetically is maybe perhaps because they are very very risk averse.

My family didn’t respond that well when I said I got into a DO school. They didn’t know what it was. So it hurt for sure. But at the end of the day, you have to settle down on only relying on yourself and being proud of your accomplishments because you will battle through this kind of stuff while in medical school and residency. You will have tough Patients, ancillary staff, and attendings who despite your best efforts will provide you with similar responses as your parents did and you have to keep going. So better to make that switch to rely on yourself for positive reinforcement thank anyone else.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Were they cool because you got an acceptance but it wasn't for big-brand name school? Or that you didn't get some amazing miracle scholarship? Yes, there is a point where once your experiences diverge as the first (perhaps) in your family to go to medical school, that your parents probably won't be as excited as you are because they no longer have a common point of reference to your experiences. It is unfortunate and is why we try so hard to make sure that parents are also in the conversation when it comes to getting you to medical school.