Premed Poll - Are either (or both) of your parents a physician?

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Are either (or both) of your parents a physicians?

  • Neither

    Votes: 216 87.1%
  • 1 Parent

    Votes: 21 8.5%
  • Both Parents

    Votes: 11 4.4%

  • Total voters
    248
just following the crowd eh? strong leadership qualities. I'm going to bed.
Don't forget to brushy brushy.

For anyone here that's been discouraged to enter medicine, did that advice come principally from primary care physicians? Because that's been my experience. I've noticed higher satisfaction among specialists. But obviously, this is purely anecdotal.
My FP urges me to go to dental school. He claims that if given the chance to "do it all again", he would have gone that route.

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For anyone here that's been discouraged to enter medicine, did that advice come principally from primary care physicians? Because that's been my experience. I've noticed higher satisfaction among specialists. But obviously, this is purely anecdotal.

hmm.. I would say that kind of holds true for my experience. But probably because I have had more exposure to primary care physicians. I did have a neurosurgeon try to dissuade me, but he was mostly joking as he told he just finished paying off his college loans a few years ago, and now is footing the bill for his daughter and son's med school. =_= Looked up his salary in the public records after that... o_O he should not have been complaining.
 
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My doctor told me to be a dentist, but my dentist told me to avoid that unless I become an orthodontist. Guess the grass is always greener. My optometrist loves his job though.
 
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Don't forget to brushy brushy.
image.jpg
 
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hmm.. I would say that kind of holds true for my experience. But probably because I have had more exposure to primary care physicians. I did have a neurosurgeon try to dissuade me, but he was mostly joking as he told he just finished paying off his college loans a few years ago, and now is footing the bill for his daughter and son's med school. =_= Looked up his salary in the public records after that... o_O he should not have been complaining.
Was this at UW? I should shadow a neurosurgeon. But I'm afraid I'll get lured in:alien:
 
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On topic though: shadowing really shouldn't be that hard. Find a local hospital's website and search up by specialty. Then call their office and see if you can shadow them. Really shouldn't be that difficult, PM me if you need more help.
 
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Neither and both my parents dropped out of college because of the costs (and this is back in the day when college was way more affordable). My mom wanted to do genetics and possibly medicine, never happened though.
 
No doctors in my family. My family was shocked when I announced my interest in medicine, haha. They are supportive now, but they were very surprised and a little bit discouraging at first just because it seemed so random.

I strongly agree with the sentiment that has been expressed on this thread a few times -- I think that many SDN members seek out online forums and blogs and resources and the like because they are motivated to learn more about medicine and the process of becoming a physician, but they don't have a personal connection to discuss such things with. My parents had no idea what the MCAT was or how applying for medical school worked or that there were things called residencies. The internet was my only way to find out this information, and I think that holds true for a large percentage of the SDN community.
 
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I think to some extent, the SDN community may self select for people who may not have parents or mentors who can guide them through the application process. Perhaps that is affecting the results of the poll? That and the fact that graduate degrees include every other professional and masters degree out there.
That was what I was starting to think. However national statistics on practicing physicians is ~250 physicians per 100,000 people nationally (In my mind that's registering as 0.25% of the total population) Although there are expected biases with respect to the fact that premed still make up a small subset (read: not statistical) of the total population, and SDN an even smaller subset. I doubt this poll has any chance at robustness.

Both of my parents(divorced) are schoolteachers.

It would be interesting to include other professional degrees(dentist, lawyers, etc.) in the data.
I would imagine professional degree statistics would be similar to graduate degree statistics; then again I suppose that assumption would answer my OP.
 
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No doctors in my family. My family was shocked when I announced my interest in medicine, haha. They are supportive now, but they were very surprised and a little bit discouraging at first just because it seemed so random.

I strongly agree with the sentiment that has been expressed on this thread a few times -- I think that many SDN members seek out online forums and blogs and resources and the like because they are motivated to learn more about medicine and the process of becoming a physician, but they don't have a personal connection to discuss such things with. My parents had no idea what the MCAT was or how applying for medical school worked or that there were things called residencies. The internet was my only way to find out this information, and I think that holds true for a large percentage of the SDN community.
I've had to explain to my parents how long the application process is like 20 times. Then my mom always says how she only applied to 3 graduate schools and that seemed like a lot in her day.
 
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Did you dig deep with your parents? They might have unexpected connections.
The first physician I shadowed:
-a parent of a student at the weekend language school my mom is principal at
Second physician:
-college classmate of my dad's coworker
And the first physician recommended me to another one in his hospital who had students frequently.

It is harder to find physicians willing to let you shadow in cities/suburbs. In my experience (3 out of 3) rural hospitals/docs are very happy to have students come in and follow them around for a few days--or even a week! Sometimes staff at the hospital or a local family will even host you.
Yea, I'm trying to work back routes now and any time I can get a real person I ask for "is there anyone else you know who may be open/available." Reducing the cold-calling since it seems to be highly ineffective.
 
Not only is nether of my parents a physician... my dad prosecutes inept doctors for a living. He's a medical malpractice lawyer.

I've heard some awful stories, but they *almost* give me hope that I'll surely be able to get into medical school if I'm already smarter than the doctor who cut off the healthy, non-gangrenous leg...
 
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Pretty much everyone I knew growing up was uneducated and low-income. Becoming a doctor literally never even crossed my mind as an option for real people like me until my senior year in undergrad.

For me growing up, being ambitious meant aiming for a bachelor's degree and a $50k/yr tech job.
 
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LOL at people trusting the poll. Welcome to the interwebz. I'm a fairy from detroit.
 
Pretty much everyone I knew growing up was uneducated and low-income. Becoming a doctor literally never even crossed my mind as an option for real people like me until my senior year in undergrad.

For me growing up, being ambitious meant aiming for a bachelor's degree and a $50k/yr tech job.
"Real people like me?" Come on, man. I grew up on a low income household, too, but that doesn't mean that anyone that didn't isn't a "real person."
 
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hmm.. I would say that kind of holds true for my experience. But probably because I have had more exposure to primary care physicians. I did have a neurosurgeon try to dissuade me, but he was mostly joking as he told he just finished paying off his college loans a few years ago, and now is footing the bill for his daughter and son's med school. =_= Looked up his salary in the public records after that... o_O he should not have been complaining.

There are a lot of studies documenting career satisfaction across specialties, some of which indicate that specialists are generally more likely to recommend their field to others. Here are a couple to mull over if you want...

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/9/166
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=212212
 
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LOL at people trusting the poll. Welcome to the interwebz. I'm a fairy from detroit.
1. The numbers aren't that unbelievable. Plus it's not like this is scientific in any way, shape, or form. Just mere interest.
2. I'm pretty sure you just ruined your anonymity. Note to adcoms: look out for troll fairy from Detroit area.
 
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1. The numbers aren't that unbelievable. Plus it's not like this is scientific in any way, shape, or form. Just mere interest.
2. I'm pretty sure you just ruined your anonymity. Note to adcoms: look out for troll fairy from Detroit area.

With stunning hair and an Atlas physique.
 
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"Real people like me?" Come on, man. I grew up on a low income household, too, but that doesn't mean that anyone that didn't isn't a "real person."
I know that now. But growing up doctors seemed like they lived in a separate world, inaccessible to me. So it didn't even cross my mind to try to break into that world.
 
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One didn't/did finish 8th grade and the other finished high school. Where my parents are from, women tend to go higher up in school than men who have to work.
 
I you asked this in the allo forum, would probably be 5o/50
 
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Nobody in my family, immediate or extended, is a physician. I'm also the first traditional student.
 
What kind of anecdotes do you have? You know physicians who have discouraged you or you know friends with parent physicians that have discouraged them?

The reason I ask is, while I have met some physicians along the way who have discouraged me personally from going into medicine, I have a lot of friends going into medicine because their parents "highly encouraged" them from a young age.

Actually I was classmates with four children of doctors who never had any interest in medicine after seeing what their parents went through. Three of them had surgeon parent(s) and the fourth had a ER doctor parent. I guess growing up seeing the hours, responsibility, and intensity helped them make up their minds quite resolutely.
 
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Actually I was classmates with four children of doctors who never had any interest in medicine after seeing what their parents went through. Three of them had surgeon parent(s) and the fourth had a ER doctor parent. I guess growing up seeing the hours, responsibility, and intensity helped them make up their minds quite resolutely.
My experience with children of physicians has been quite the opposite, hence the sparked interest in response. A larger-than-expected percent (probably close to ~50%) of my premed friends have physicians as parents. Ironically many of them are "less accomplished" in terms of stats and understanding of what constitutes a strong applicant. While most of them know of SDN's existence, few (if any) actually utilize it.
 
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Both my parents are doctors. My parents definitely have had frustrating days where they've told me "don't be a doctor!" but many days, I learn about the good aspects of becoming a physician. There are plenty bad ones (medical malpractice, hostility towards doctors, changes in healthcare, etc); however, there are also the good reasons, like when they can really make a difference in someone's life - diagnosing a rare condition that might have otherwise gone unnoticed, for example.

I don't think it's a particularly genetic reason (as the OP mentioned), either. People like what they know, and I've grown up around medicine. Though there are many more important factors that made me choose medicine, I feel like the fact that I was already sort of 'there' in the first place was a big help.

I wonder if similar statistics might be seen with other professionals, such as lawyers or engineers.

Also, the process of applying to medical schools is VERY different from when my parents were applying to medical school (they are in their mid-50s). Back then, med school was much more affordable, and my parents don't know anything about this application process, except that it seems much more extensive and competitive than when they applied. I have no idea why premeds with parents who are doctors would be under-represented on this forum.
 
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My father's a physician. On one hand, I saw all the cool **** he did, saw the good he did for people, saw how happy he was with his job, saw how he could provide for our family (my mother stayed at home), etc. etc. He's 65 and still fighting retirement. He said he was going to retire 5 years ago. And this year. Now, it's another 5 years. He LOVES his job.

On the other hand, I remember waiting up by the door 11 PM as a 7 year old for him to come home. I remember opening Christmas presents without him, eating Thanksgiving meals without him. I remember painting him a ceramic mug that just said "work and taxes" with pictures of bills/x-rays all over it because that's all I thought he did. I remember him coming to lay next to me at night, and me looping my hand through his belt loop hoping he would stay at home instead of going to work and risking waking me up.

You see both sides. I know people who are heading to medical school who said their parents inspired them. I know sons/daughters of doctors who said their parent is the reason they never, not for a second, considered medicine as a field. It's awesome to get to see so closely the good and the bad, it helps you make a very informed decision of whether medicine is what you really want or not.
 
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Both of my parents are physicians. My mom continues to get on the pressure bandwagon, but my dad is fairly disillusioned with the profession. He's always like, "RUN AWAY!", or "Get a different bachelors degree, go to San Francisco, and join a startup." Let me just say, that Epic Systems is not his friend.

Hahaha! Epic is an awful POS.
 
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I REALLY do not trust the poll results. In my class of 160ish students I probably know 50 or so pretty well, and about 50% of those have a physician parent.
 
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I REALLY do not trust the poll results. In my class of 160ish students I probably know 50 or so pretty well, and about 50% of those have a physician parent.

Yes, definitely. The 186 of us conspired together to say that we actually don't have physician parents. How could I forget the parallel universe where we actually have physician parents? Nothing gets past you, eagle eye.
 
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Both my parents have bachelor degrees and always encouraged me to become an MD if that was what I wanted. I sometimes wish one of them was an MD or DO, just because it would be easier for shadowing purposes.
 
I don't think it's a particularly genetic reason, either. People like what they know, and I've grown up around medicine. Though there are many more important factors that made me choose medicine, I feel like the fact that I was already sort of 'there' in the first place was a big help.

I wonder if similar statistics might be seen with other professionals, such as lawyers or engineers.
My homeboy Lamarck agrees with you. He was on about blacksmiths and forearms, but I suppose the same could be said of any profession.
 
I REALLY do not trust the poll results. In my class of 160ish students I probably know 50 or so pretty well, and about 50% of those have a physician parent.
Perhaps the point to take away is that not only do children of physicians over-represent the pre-med population, but are over-representing, maybe even at a heightened level, the medical student population. Inb4 first generation medical graduate becomes the new URM (although my opinion on that matter is obviously biased).
 
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