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- Mar 30, 2008
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I am not going to sugar coat this at all...at this point the repercussions of lying to myself would be worse than whatever negative things you all will certainly have to say to me here.
I have been accepted to medical school. After much long and careful introspection, I am afraid matriculating might be the wrong choice, even though I desperately want to be wrong about that.
I am 30 +/- 10%. I am married. I have a job/career. I am moderately compensated. My spouse also has a career. We have no children. My spouse wants me/us to go.
The unguarded truth:
My desire to go to medical school is a result of dissatisfaction with current (and foreseeable) conditions/ hope for greater satisfaction (As I suspect most choices for change are). Specifically, I am unhappy with my job AND what I will call, my station in life.
I'll try not to waste time with why I am dissatisfied, but will instead indicate my hopes for a career in medicine (you can generally safely infer that the strengths I see in medicine are weaknesses I see in my current career).
1) I consider medicine universally important and necessary (i.e., very few things more important). I want to spend my time doing something I value/consider important. Also very much related to this truth, I desire a career where I am not continually concerned about losing my job, the status of the job market if I do, and where I will have to live to get a job/where I can't live because of the field I am in. I also desire compensation sufficient to purchase a house and raise/send children to college. I am going to have to go back to school to achieve this.
2) It may sound/actually be egotistcal but, I desire a position of leadership. In most situations, I feel that I can/should be trusted with big/the final decision and I desire others to feel the same way. In contrast, I am not happy as a supporter (WE have come up with this great idea. YOU go make it happen for us). I would like a chance to invest all of my faculties into making important/significant/worthwhile decisions/be viewed as someone capable of this task.
3) I don't like school or learning. Given a free choice between studying and playing I would always choose the later. I would prefer a job where I just pursue my hobbies for pay, but such jobs either don't exist or are incongruent with the other goals I have listed here. Of the subjects that I do enjoy (though less than my hobbies), the sciences are high on the list. I would probably put wildlife/marine/fisheries biology at the top, but organic chem., physics, physiology would also be high on the list. To head-off any suggestions regarding a career in wildlife biology, let me just say that I am very familiar with advanced careers in that field and they are not hands on enough (all reports/ no playing around with lizards/fish/animals) where as individuals with terminal degrees in medicine actually get to deal with their subject matter directly (people).
4) I do want to help people. I don't think there are many other fields where the potential for this is as great. Similarly, I don't think there are many other ways that you can help another human being that can have such a large impact. I am primarily interested in helping the rural underserved. However, before you think there may be some ray of hope for me yet, I am fairly certain that I only want to help others because it benefits me (i.e, it makes me feel good, needed, intelligent, important, like a good person, better than, happy to make people happy, etc).
Since I could hit almost all of these thing by being a PA or a PT, it is clear to me that issue no. 2 is a very big part of my motivation to pursue medicine, as I really don't have the drive to continue my education toward a PA or PT degree.
Are these motivations insufficient to get me through med school? Will I find that what I am seeking will not be provided by a career in medicine? I am particularly interested in input from docs, residents, MS4s, MS3s, and nontrads. Feel free to PM me if you are more comfortable with that. If you can restrain yourself at all, please resist the desire to post about what a horrible person I am. If you can't help yourself, be honest with me and yourself and post for everyone to see.
Thanks
EDIT: here is the meat of my questions distilled down.
med students,residents,physicians who had similar motivations, did med school/residency/practice chew you up and spit you out thinking that you would have been better off doing something else or did you find that your motivations sustained you through the pressure and the eventual benefit was worth the sacrifice? The last part of the question is primarily for doctors and last year residents. Is the money, job flexibility/security, knowledge that you are working in a field that deals with some of the most important issues in human life, knowledge that you are more socially valuable than many others, perception that you are more intellectually capable than others, positive feelings from helping others existent and rewarding/satisfying?).
I have been accepted to medical school. After much long and careful introspection, I am afraid matriculating might be the wrong choice, even though I desperately want to be wrong about that.
I am 30 +/- 10%. I am married. I have a job/career. I am moderately compensated. My spouse also has a career. We have no children. My spouse wants me/us to go.
The unguarded truth:
My desire to go to medical school is a result of dissatisfaction with current (and foreseeable) conditions/ hope for greater satisfaction (As I suspect most choices for change are). Specifically, I am unhappy with my job AND what I will call, my station in life.
I'll try not to waste time with why I am dissatisfied, but will instead indicate my hopes for a career in medicine (you can generally safely infer that the strengths I see in medicine are weaknesses I see in my current career).
1) I consider medicine universally important and necessary (i.e., very few things more important). I want to spend my time doing something I value/consider important. Also very much related to this truth, I desire a career where I am not continually concerned about losing my job, the status of the job market if I do, and where I will have to live to get a job/where I can't live because of the field I am in. I also desire compensation sufficient to purchase a house and raise/send children to college. I am going to have to go back to school to achieve this.
2) It may sound/actually be egotistcal but, I desire a position of leadership. In most situations, I feel that I can/should be trusted with big/the final decision and I desire others to feel the same way. In contrast, I am not happy as a supporter (WE have come up with this great idea. YOU go make it happen for us). I would like a chance to invest all of my faculties into making important/significant/worthwhile decisions/be viewed as someone capable of this task.
3) I don't like school or learning. Given a free choice between studying and playing I would always choose the later. I would prefer a job where I just pursue my hobbies for pay, but such jobs either don't exist or are incongruent with the other goals I have listed here. Of the subjects that I do enjoy (though less than my hobbies), the sciences are high on the list. I would probably put wildlife/marine/fisheries biology at the top, but organic chem., physics, physiology would also be high on the list. To head-off any suggestions regarding a career in wildlife biology, let me just say that I am very familiar with advanced careers in that field and they are not hands on enough (all reports/ no playing around with lizards/fish/animals) where as individuals with terminal degrees in medicine actually get to deal with their subject matter directly (people).
4) I do want to help people. I don't think there are many other fields where the potential for this is as great. Similarly, I don't think there are many other ways that you can help another human being that can have such a large impact. I am primarily interested in helping the rural underserved. However, before you think there may be some ray of hope for me yet, I am fairly certain that I only want to help others because it benefits me (i.e, it makes me feel good, needed, intelligent, important, like a good person, better than, happy to make people happy, etc).
Since I could hit almost all of these thing by being a PA or a PT, it is clear to me that issue no. 2 is a very big part of my motivation to pursue medicine, as I really don't have the drive to continue my education toward a PA or PT degree.
Are these motivations insufficient to get me through med school? Will I find that what I am seeking will not be provided by a career in medicine? I am particularly interested in input from docs, residents, MS4s, MS3s, and nontrads. Feel free to PM me if you are more comfortable with that. If you can restrain yourself at all, please resist the desire to post about what a horrible person I am. If you can't help yourself, be honest with me and yourself and post for everyone to see.
Thanks
EDIT: here is the meat of my questions distilled down.
med students,residents,physicians who had similar motivations, did med school/residency/practice chew you up and spit you out thinking that you would have been better off doing something else or did you find that your motivations sustained you through the pressure and the eventual benefit was worth the sacrifice? The last part of the question is primarily for doctors and last year residents. Is the money, job flexibility/security, knowledge that you are working in a field that deals with some of the most important issues in human life, knowledge that you are more socially valuable than many others, perception that you are more intellectually capable than others, positive feelings from helping others existent and rewarding/satisfying?).
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