quitting MD program

[yohimbine1]

PSYCHIATRIC STIGMA follows you everywhere you go for the rest of your life

Ok I dunno about the validity of the site but I have read about this phenomenon elsewhere too.

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[Rendar5]

The article seems a bit out of date. Perhaps any attendings can comment on whether they're required to reveal on job applications, residency applications, etc. whether or not they've ever spoken with a psychiatrist or received therapy. I personally don't recall anything like that on med school apps, and it certainly is not on ERAS (just checked)

 

[psy]

This may piss some people off but the OP could just go visit the Dental Thread. They have several 2nd-3rd year med students trying to switch out of med school and into dental school. They would have to take a few extra classes but the rest can be waived. After that you go into dental residencies and such. If money and life style is your main concern why not just go to dentistry and leave the scrub work to us?

 

[yohimbine1]

pre-allo

 

[Rendar5]

pre-allo

???

 

[QofQuimica]

Check out the thread where Law2Doc is getting pilloried for suggesting that a quadraplegic applicant may have difficulty completing the manual requirements of traditional medical education.

He's not trashing the kid. He's not telling him he won't be able to do it. He's just saying that many of the clinical requirements at most schools would be daunting to an applicant without full use of his/her arms and legs.

He, apparently, is being ridiculously negative.

That pretty much sums up the forum for me.

That OP has an awful lot of inconsistencies in his story. What makes you so sure it's not just some kid out of school for the summer with too much time on his hands? Maybe I just had more immature friends in high school and college than a lot of you did, but I think a kid playing a prank on SDN is the most parsimonious explanation.

 

[yohimbine1]

???

It was in reference to the preceding post(er). It was snide actually.

If money and life style is your main concern why not just go to dentistry and leave the scrub work to us?

 

[Law2Doc]

That OP has an awful lot of inconsistencies in his story. What makes you so sure it's not just some kid out of school for the summer with too much time on his hands? Maybe I just had more immature friends in high school and college than a lot of you did, but I think a kid playing a prank on SDN is the most parsimonious explanation.

Yeah, that thought crossed my mind considering in one post he is using specialized software just to type on a computer but in another he claims he has decent use of his hands and could probably suture. I think the topic is a good one, though. But even if he's on the up and up, I think he's hugely underestimating the hurdles ahead of him. Maybe he'll find a school that wants to push him through as a publicity stunt, like the couple of unique types for whom massive accomodations have been made in the past. But with record numbers of applications and a bona fide shortage of physicians looming, I gotta think at least some schools are going to have concerns with an applicant that very well might not ever get a residency because he cannot possibly do a prelim year without similar accomodations at that level.

 

[riverie]

The article seems a bit out of date. Perhaps any attendings can comment on whether they're required to reveal on job applications, residency applications, etc. whether or not they've ever spoken with a psychiatrist or received therapy. I personally don't recall anything like that on med school apps, and it certainly is not on ERAS (just checked)

Attendings at my school have said that when applying for a Texas medical license, you are required to disclose if you have had one of the following diagnoses in the past -- depression, bipolar, schizophrenia and something else I am not recalling.

 

[Rendar5]

Attendings at my school have said that when applying for a Texas medical license, you are required to disclose if you have had one of the following diagnoses in the past -- depression, bipolar, schizophrenia and something else I am not recalling.

Borderline Personality Disorder? lol yikes that would make a scary doctor.

 

[Anka]

The article seems a bit out of date. Perhaps any attendings can comment on whether they're required to reveal on job applications, residency applications, etc. whether or not they've ever spoken with a psychiatrist or received therapy. I personally don't recall anything like that on med school apps, and it certainly is not on ERAS (just checked)

But it is on the application for licensure in at least some states; as well as on at least some employment forms once you match.

 

[Terpskins99]

Wow, there are a lot of obnoxious comments in this thread. Anyhow...

Greetings all, I am just finishing 2nd year and about to start on the wards. I get the impression the work hours and treatment I am looking at are pretty dehumanizing and frankly, crappy. I am thinking of quitting, mostly because my debt is below $10K right now and it won't hamper me too much. From reading other posts it seems like many other contemplate such a course, but cannot, from accumulated debt. Do you just keep pushing yourself despite your realization of how unpleasant it is? Is it really worth it?

My personal opinion, but absolutely positively STAY in medical school. Go the distance and finish it up. Others may disagree, but the hard part is over. Many people find themselves demoralized by the end of their 2nd year. Why wouldn't you be? You've just gotten through two years of absorbing an incredible volume of information while getting grilled mercilessly via one written exam after another. Oh yeah, and you just took Step 1. EVERYONE is spent at this point.

But guess what? Now that you're doing rotations, you FINALLY get to do "doctor" stuff. You get to work in a clinical environment, assist in surgery, talk to REAL PATIENTS... in other words, you get to do the stuff that probably attracted you to medical school in the first place.

Now, if all that isn't enough to convince you to stick around... perhaps this will: there's no rule that says you have to practice medicine with a medical degree. MD's are coveted in many other fields (law and business come immediately to mind). Robert Jarvik, the skinny gray-haired dude in the windbreaker jacket advertising Lipitor, finished medical school just to pursue research and later develop the first artificial heart. Michael Crichton got his MD from Harvard and ended up writing books about man-eating dinosaurs as well as producing a corny television show that vomited back pseudo-megastars like George Clooney. Interested in politics? I can't even imagine the number of PAC's looming over Capital Hill that would LOVE to hire an MD to speak on their behalf.

 

[Megalofyia]

There some people that went on to become pretty successful after dropping out of medical schol:
Gertrude Stein -- attended and dropped out of Johns Hopkins.
Lu Xun -- Chinese writer who abandoned his medical studies to pursue his literary career.
Che Guevara
Prof Robert Solomon -- quit med school to become a professor of philosophy. He wrote many books on existentialism.
Roald Amundsen -- quit medical studies to become an arctic explorer. The first man to captain a ship through the Northwest Passage.
James Joyce - became a famous writter
John keats - author
Juilia Quinn - romance novelist
William S Burroughs
Charles Darwin
Frédéric Bazille
Helen Zia
Galileo

 

[Rendar5]

I wrote Michael Crichton, but then realized he actually did graduate.

 

[piss ant]

There some people that went on to become pretty successful after dropping out of medical schol:
Gertrude Stein -- attended and dropped out of Johns Hopkins.
Lu Xun -- Chinese writer who abandoned his medical studies to pursue his literary career.
Che Guevara
Prof Robert Solomon -- quit med school to become a professor of philosophy. He wrote many books on existentialism.
Roald Amundsen -- quit medical studies to become an arctic explorer. The first man to captain a ship through the Northwest Passage.
James Joyce - became a famous writter
John keats - author
Juilia Quinn - romance novelist
William S Burroughs
Charles Darwin
Frédéric Bazille
Helen Zia
Galileo

Good point. Hey OP, maybe you can drop out and be the next Galileo.