Not sure what to do with my life

[Chevalier]

This is not only me venting, but any kind of feedback is apretiated.

I'm currently in my 4th year, out of 6, of my medical school. It's the equivalent of MS3 in the U.S.

I just recently realized that I hate medicine.

I really enjoyed the first 3 years of school, specially loved phys path and farm. However now that I started my clinical rotations everything changed. I've done IM, Surgery and OB/GYN and start Pediatrics next week. The only one I kinda liked was OB/GYN, I hated the others. I mainly have issues with:

• I hate patients. Hate talking to them, hate having to listen to all their problems and hate it when they whine about everything. I have cero empathy for patients.

• I hate it that medical students do ALL the scut work. I spend 8 hours at the hospital every day just wasting my time pushing patients on stretchers or extracting blood (when I was at the postpartum service I extracted 30-40 samples of blood every day) or filling up paperwork. Basically learning nothing (although there's an upside, they let us students do cool stuff like set central iv lines or do lumbar punctures and we deliver most noncomplicated babies. The most impresive thing they have let a med student do here was an apendicectomy but he had to pass the residents test beforehand and a resident obviously supervised)

• I hate 36 hour shifts every 4 days without getting the next day off. And you might even get punished and you don't get to eat or sleep

• Also, to make everything worse. I live in a third world country where we sometimes dont have stuff like tubes for blood chemistries, gloves, masks, sterile cups for urine and we don't always have basic meds like Bethametasone or Ceftriaxone. This week we didnt have urine bags so we had to improvise... And I'm at the biggest hospital in the country....

I've come to realize that I would be miserable if I had to practice clinical medicine (specially in my country) the rest of my life. To be fair i don't even know why I went into medicine, nobody in my family is a doctor. Knowing that I liked basic sciences like Biology and Chemistry I just randomly chose the career. Now I wish to go into reaserch but I'm not sure if MDs have many reaserch oportunities. I might start an MSc on Genetics and Molecular Biology next year and was thinking on doing my elective in Pathology (molecular diagnostics)

I would appreciate any constructive criticism, tips or anecdotal experiences.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[TwinsFan]

Path or rads = less time with patients

 

[bashwell]

This is not only me venting, but any kind of feedback is apretiated.

I'm currently in my 4th year, out of 6, of my medical school. It's the equivalent of MS3 in the U.S.

I just recently realized that I hate medicine.

I really enjoyed the first 3 years of school, specially loved phys path and farm. However now that I started my clinical rotations everything changed. I've done IM, Surgery and OB/GYN and start Pediatrics next week. The only one I kinda liked was OB/GYN, I hated the others. I mainly have issues with:

• I hate patients. Hate talking to them, hate having to listen to all their problems and hate it when they whine about everything. I have cero empathy for patients.

• I hate it that medical students do ALL the scut work. I spend 8 hours at the hospital every day just wasting my time pushing patients on stretchers or extracting blood (when I was at the postpartum service I extracted 30-40 samples of blood every day) or filling up paperwork. Basically learning nothing (although there's an upside, they let us students do cool stuff like set central iv lines or do lumbar punctures and we deliver most noncomplicated babies. The most impresive thing they have let a med student do here was an apendicectomy but he had to pass the residents test beforehand and a resident obviously supervised)

• I hate 36 hour shifts every 4 days without getting the next day off. And you might even get punished and you don't get to eat or sleep

• Also, to make everything worse. I live in a third world country where we sometimes dont have stuff like tubes for blood chemistries, gloves, masks, sterile cups for urine and we don't always have basic meds like Bethametasone or Ceftriaxone. This week we didnt have urine bags so we had to improvise... And I'm at the biggest hospital in the country....

I've come to realize that I would be miserable if I had to practice clinical medicine (specially in my country) the rest of my life. To be fair i don't even know why I went into medicine, nobody in my family is a doctor. Knowing that I liked basic sciences like Biology and Chemistry I just randomly chose the career. Now I wish to go into reaserch but I'm not sure if MDs have many reaserch oportunities. I might start an MSc on Genetics and Molecular Biology next year and was thinking on doing my elective in Pathology (molecular diagnostics)

I would appreciate any constructive criticism, tips or anecdotal experiences.

1) Sounds like pathology would be what would best suit you.

2) MDs have tons of opportunity for research at least in places like the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. So you don't necessarily need a PhD to do research, run a lab, etc. Obviously it wouldn't hurt by any means to have an MD/PhD though!

3) Are you willing and able to move to a developed country (e.g. US, Australia), at least for residency? If so, then it might be a difficult road (especially if you need a visa), but it might be well worth it for you. You'd probably crush Step 1 if you love the basic sciences. Path isn't super competitive to get into in the US (due in part to a gloomy job market), but if you have little or no debt (like many IMGs), then it won't be as bad for you. Even if you can't find a path job in the US after finishing residency, then presumably you could go back to your own country as they would love a pathologist trained in the US (or similar developed nation) and thus you'd have a much better chance at jobs in your own nation.