Originally posted by painres
Experience with sick family members or volunteering in a hospital, does not prepare one for the experience of medical school and residency, or give adequate exposure to the health care field.. Many people are in love with the IDEA of being a doctor, and dont know what it truly entails. For a teenager to say they do is presumptious in my book.
I'm a 3rd year MD student (male, 27) and just happened upon this thread wondering what pre-nursing students were talking about.
I have to echo some of the comments I see here. I can't even begin to describe, for someone who is 17, the changes that happened to me since the time I was that age. Like you, and many others, I was in LOVE with the idea of being a doctor. I wanted to be a doctor since I was in sixth grade! My mother was frequently sick due to SLE, and also battled cancer. I loved science, and serving humanity through various projects (tutoring, big brother/sister, emt, etc.). I loved reading books about medicine- all of this before even graduating high school.
Side note: I had a high school sweetheart I was deeply in love with, and thought I would marry. Within two months of starting college, both of us discovered we were way to young to make that kind of committment. We split up, but are still friends to this day.
I attended a good college and majored in neurobiology, did some research, and graduated with honors. In college I read books about different medical specialties, watched videos of surgery at the local medical school, and wanted more than anything to be a surgeon. I got a master's and worked for a year before starting medical school. The application process was draining, and it took me two tries before getting in. I was so driven, it didn't matter. I would have applied ten times if I needed to. That's how committed I was to becomming a physician.
I plowed through the first two years of medical school, which were a bit of a shock. The volume of information you are required to digest just to keep up with your classmates is overwhelming. It's hard not to go a little insane, everyone does. By the time we all took Step 1 of the boards, we were pretty beaten up, but excited to start clinical rotations third year.
Rotations have gone well, but the cumulative stress I experienced over the last 10 years finally hit me. I've changed. The idealistic values that drove me to endure endless hours of work in pursuit of my goal have given way to a more defensive posture. It's no longer entirely, or even mostly about "the patient", and "helping people". While I still enjoy helping people, and love learning about the new people I meet every day, my top priority is my future lifestyle. I used to want more than anything to be a surgeon, but now I cringe in disgust at the notion of working the kind of hours expected in residency and practice. I am now gravitating toward anesthesiology- a field that is intense, but has a very controllable lifestyle. I am no longer in love with the idea of being a doctor. Reality has set in- and being a doctor really looks like any other job to me. I know it looks different from the other side of the med school admissions process, but once you're colleagues are all doctors, and you are fully conversant in medicine, it ceases to be special in the way it is before you come to medical school.
The point of all this is to hopefully impart a sense of gravity to the decision to pursue medicine as a career. The level of determination needed to become a doctor is probably not present in someone who is wrestling between medicine and nursing. If you were cut out to be a doctor, the choice would be obvious. The fact that you strongly believe you are with the person you will eventually marry demonstrates your innocence.
My advice, similar to that of others here, is to ENJOY LIFE NOW. Don't base any decisions you make on the plans of your significant other. Go to college, DON'T MAJOR IN NURSING. If you do end up going for medicine, admissions committees will not respect a degree in nursing. Find some other (academic) area of interest, and fall in love studying it. Concurrently, complete the pre-med curriculum, and see if you have the "intestinal fortitude" to handle (a tiny fraction of) the workload in medical school.
Medicine can be truly wonderful, and there is no other place I'd rather be, but comprehending the magnitude of the committment involved in becoming a physician is simply beyond your years. Take it slow, you have lots of time to make up your mind.
Craig, M3
Finch/CMS
Personally, if I had met the guy I wanted to marry, I would probably go for nursing. But everyone is different.
