Really important advice to all premeds

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CaptainJackSparrow83

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This isnt a post to discourage you guys but heres some really important advice I want to pass onto you.

Before you hit that submit button on your applications, or hell before you go to your interview please make sure you are absolutely 100% positive you want to
1. Go through medical school
2. Become a doctor

I say this because it is a very long journey and frankly no amount of shadowing will ever give you a true idea of the tortures you have to deal with medical school.

Do not become a doctor if
1. Its for the money
- Because frankly if you put the same amount of years and effort into another career like engineering or business, you could make the same amount. The only reason those fields have lower salaries on average is the life styles are generally easier
2. Its for the title/for impressing your family
-When you start medical school you stop giving two damns about what the world thinks about you. I have no issues showing up to class or an exam in my underwear if thats what makes my all nighter more comfortable to bear with

Every day will be a repetitive drone of professors reading off powerpoint slides spewing out facts which you need to cram over time into your brain. I am actually starting to get excited about my 5 minute meal breaks where I eat frozen food.

The good news (so ive heard) is life gets a bit better as time moves on, but be prepared for a very very slow moving education.

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This isnt a post to discourage you guys but heres some really important advice I want to pass onto you.

Before you hit that submit button on your applications, or hell before you go to your interview please make sure you are absolutely 100% positive you want to
1. Go through medical school
2. Become a doctor

I say this because it is a very long journey and frankly no amount of shadowing will ever give you a true idea of the tortures you have to deal with medical school.

Do not become a doctor if
1. Its for the money
- Because frankly if you put the same amount of years and effort into another career like engineering or business, you could make the same amount. The only reason those fields have lower salaries on average is the life styles are generally easier
2. Its for the title/for impressing your family
-When you start medical school you stop giving two damns about what the world thinks about you. I have no issues showing up to class or an exam in my underwear if thats what makes my all nighter more comfortable to bear with

Every day will be a repetitive drone of professors reading off powerpoint slides spewing out facts which you need to cram over time into your brain. I am actually starting to get excited about my 5 minute meal breaks where I eat frozen food.

The good news (so ive heard) is life gets a bit better as time moves on, but be prepared for a very very slow moving education.

Agree. Hell, it would be torture to write all those secondary essays / BS your interview if it were for those reasons.
 
"CaptainJackSparrow83"

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"CaptainJackSparrow83"

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Its not really captain obvious though. People wont admit to it but atleast a 1/3 if not half of people go into medicine for the money.
 
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Yeah, it's really not that obvious. I know so many people from undergrad who were pre-med just because their parents wanted them to be. They pulled the whole, "I worked so hard to give you opportunities, go become a doctor to pay me back" card.
 
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Yep, I withdrew from fellowship because I disliked medicine so much. I'm significantly more happy now. It's definitely not for everyone.
 
Yep, I withdrew from fellowship because I disliked medicine so much. I'm significantly more happy now. It's definitely not for everyone.
Did you stick to a career in medicine or change all together?
I picked medicine because 1. It seemed cool to be a doctor 2. my family pressured me to it.
Every day is like waking up to a new nightmare and the only reason I havent filled out that dropout form is its 2 years to me finishing the main hardcore studying/basic sciences vs 3 years of finding a different major/getting a masters degree.
 
Did you stick to a career in medicine or change all together?
I picked medicine because 1. It seemed cool to be a doctor 2. my family pressured me to it.
Every day is like waking up to a new nightmare and the only reason I havent filled out that dropout form is its 2 years to me finishing the main hardcore studying/basic sciences vs 3 years of finding a different major/getting a masters degree.

I'm doing something completely unrelated to medicine. I went back to engineering, which is what I did prior to medical school. I guess I went to medical school because I like science, I like helping others, and medicine can be financially rewarding. I liked the first two years of school, but basically hated everyday after that. Everyone told me to stick with it because "it will get better." But every year that went by got worse and I disliked what I did more and more.

I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just telling you my experience. You might really like medicine. Keep in mind that most of the science courses have little to do with actual medicine. Moreover, 1 or 2 or even 5 years isn't really a big deal in the grand scheme. Its much better having a career you enjoy than one you dread.
 
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I'm doing something completely unrelated to medicine. I went back to engineering, which is what I did prior to medical school. I guess I went to medical school because I like science, I like helping others, and medicine can be financially rewarding. I liked the first two years of school, but basically hated everyday after that. Everyone told me to stick with it because "it will get better." But every year that went by got worse and I disliked what I did more and more.

I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just telling you my experience. You might really like medicine. Keep in mind that most of the science courses have little to do with actual medicine. Moreover, 1 or 2 or even 5 years isn't really a big deal in the grand scheme. Its much better having a career you enjoy than one you dread.

So you liked the science heavy beginning and started to dislike clinical years. Was it because of the ridiculous hours for no/little pay or the increased time with patients or more bureaucracy type of problems? I'm currently trying to go from Eng --> Medicine, so interested to hear your story.
 
I'm doing something completely unrelated to medicine. I went back to engineering, which is what I did prior to medical school. I guess I went to medical school because I like science, I like helping others, and medicine can be financially rewarding. I liked the first two years of school, but basically hated everyday after that. Everyone told me to stick with it because "it will get better." But every year that went by got worse and I disliked what I did more and more.

I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just telling you my experience. You might really like medicine. Keep in mind that most of the science courses have little to do with actual medicine. Moreover, 1 or 2 or even 5 years isn't really a big deal in the grand scheme. Its much better having a career you enjoy than one you dread.

Im not sure if this is too personal but whats your income right now as an engineer ? If its too personal what field of engineering. I was a bioengineer which was pretty useless in terms of finding careers so if I quit I would pick mechanical or computers.
Mechanical would be a little more interesting, computers would give me my dream of being able to travel to India and China with many tech companies or even being able to work from home.
 
Im not sure if this is too personal but whats your income right now as an engineer ? If its too personal what field of engineering. I was a bioengineer which was pretty useless in terms of finding careers so if I quit I would pick mechanical or computers.
Mechanical would be a little more interesting, computers would give me my dream of being able to travel to India and China with many tech companies or even being able to work from home.
I am currently a mechanical engineer making 75k. As far as income goes, engineering will give you a stable financial life if you live within your means. I feel medicine will put you at both ends of the extreme. I expect to be very financially stressed over the next ten years, BUT after that, I'll have more financial freedom than I would as an engineer. Engineers are also not guaranteed jobs like doctors are. I know many many engineers I graduated with that took 6+ months to find a job and I also know unemployed engineers.

Unless you are in management, engineers are just as replaceable as cashiers. Doctors, not so much right now.
 
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Yeah, it's really not that obvious. I know so many people from undergrad who were pre-med just because their parents wanted them to be. They pulled the whole, "I worked so hard to give you opportunities, go become a doctor to pay me back" card.
A kid shouldn't be miserable just because their parents were miserable.
 
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I've had these thoughts about not doing medicine before, but I'm still going to go through with it. I think I'll like it but if I do get sick of dealing with the BS from patients and their families, I'll just switch to the business end of things and do something in health administration, management, pharma, consulting, insurance, etc.
 
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I'm doing something completely unrelated to medicine. I went back to engineering, which is what I did prior to medical school. I guess I went to medical school because I like science, I like helping others, and medicine can be financially rewarding. I liked the first two years of school, but basically hated everyday after that. Everyone told me to stick with it because "it will get better." But every year that went by got worse and I disliked what I did more and more.

I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just telling you my experience. You might really like medicine. Keep in mind that most of the science courses have little to do with actual medicine. Moreover, 1 or 2 or even 5 years isn't really a big deal in the grand scheme. Its much better having a career you enjoy than one you dread.

That's great you had that fallback...It's hard to predict where medicine will be in 5-10+ years. The sky has been falling as far back as I can remember (late 80's). I am pretty happy in my current job but between increasing student debt, shady insurance companies, declining reimbursements coupled with demands for higher volume while delivering "quality" care, more bureaucrats, more corporate take-overs, saturated markets in desirable areas, more demanding patient's (with access to patient portals), threat of lawsuits without tort reform, and finally, threat of single payor/more government involvement, it would be hard not to be somewhat concerned about the future.
 
A kid shouldn't be miserable just because their parents were miserable.

I have a distant uncle. His mother and father adopted him from a relative who was going to abort him. They forced him to go to one of those 5 year mbbs programs abroad out of highschool (17 years old). Hes a momma's boy ill admit, and even today at 39 years old probably cant do his own laundry. But their decision into forcing him to go into medical school so early landed him his Interventional radiology career he has had. I think hes been working as an attending since 28'ish.
All his father talks about is his 500k salary, his new 80 inch flat screen ultra HD tv, or the tesla he just preordered.

My distant uncle says he doesnt want his two daughters to go into a career of medicine.
Its very hard to decide was his father right or wrong. His son may hate the 10 hours he works every day but at the same time he may appreciate the other 14 in his mansion.
 
I am currently a mechanical engineer making 75k. As far as income goes, engineering will give you a stable financial life if you live within your means. I feel medicine puts will put you at both ends of the extreme. I expect to be very financially stressed over the next ten years, BUT after that, I'll have more financial freedom than I would as an engineer. Engineers are also not guaranteed jobs like doctors are. I know many many engineers I graduated with that took 6+ months to find a job and I also know unemployed engineers.

Unless you are in management, engineers are just as replaceable as cashiers. Doctors, not so much right now.

I agree with you. Countless stories about software engineers who lost their jobs and committed suicide. But I feel as a doctor youre going to always have malpractice bull**** cases on a daily basis to worry about.
Ive heard as a rumor almost every resident is named in a malpractice case atleast once, they may not have anything to deal with it (the attending is the one facing the clown fiesta) but the resident still has to deal with it.

Engineering, from my time at a major company, I felt there was a lot of dead weight. A lot of engineers are low ROI and waste their days away in the office.
 
I agree with you. Countless stories about software engineers who lost their jobs and committed suicide. But I feel as a doctor youre going to always have malpractice bull**** cases on a daily basis to worry about.
Ive heard as a rumor almost every resident is named in a malpractice case atleast once, they may not have anything to deal with it (the attending is the one facing the clown fiesta) but the resident still has to deal with it.

Engineering, from my time at a major company, I felt there was a lot of dead weight. A lot of engineers are low ROI and waste their days away in the office.
Agreed. I honestly think it depends more on the individual. I find that glass half empty people are generally unhappy at any job, regardless of line of work.
 
I agree with you. Countless stories about software engineers who lost their jobs and committed suicide. But I feel as a doctor youre going to always have malpractice bull**** cases on a daily basis to worry about.
Ive heard as a rumor almost every resident is named in a malpractice case atleast once, they may not have anything to deal with it (the attending is the one facing the clown fiesta) but the resident still has to deal with it.

Engineering, from my time at a major company, I felt there was a lot of dead weight. A lot of engineers are low ROI and waste their days away in the office.
Physicians have one the highest suicide rates of any career.
 
Threads like this make me depressed. I'm a Reapplicant, so it always hurts to hear people who got accepted say they want to quit. Not saying they didn't derserve the acceptance, it's just difficult to read for me. I know exactly what I'm getting myself in to, and I want it so bad!!!
 
Threads like this make me depressed. I'm a Reapplicant, so it always hurts to hear people who got accepted say they want to quit. Not saying they didn't derserve the acceptance, it's just difficult to read for me. I know exactly what I'm getting myself in to, and I want it so bad!!!

I don't think anyone fully knows what they are getting into until they are actually working in the profession day in/day out. Especially with the constantly changing health care policy outlook.
 
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Physicians have one the highest suicide rates of any career.

Why is that? once your loans are paid off and you work for 5 maybe 10 years, you could easily just tone down your life style and live decently, work a minimum wage job.
 
Why is that? once your loans are paid off and you work for 5 maybe 10 years, you could easily just tone down your life style and live decently, work a minimum wage job.
For many, paying down those loans takes five years if you're going hard on them. Then another five to ten years of going hard to have enough money to be comfortable working something else. Fifteen years is a long time, and suicide is usually a decision that is made with "I can't deal with this right now" in mind. It's a permanent solution to temporary problems, but in medicine, that "temporary" is many years. For most people, a crappy career is just a few weeks or months of applications away from escaping. The human mind just isn't built to think on half decade plus timescales, so they break under the pressure of what feels like forever.
 
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Threads like this make me depressed. I'm a Reapplicant, so it always hurts to hear people who got accepted say they want to quit. Not saying they didn't derserve the acceptance, it's just difficult to read for me. I know exactly what I'm getting myself in to, and I want it so bad!!!

I was wait listed for one cycle before applying DO.
You want to be a doctor really bad not be an MSI-II-III really bad I imagine?
 
I was wait listed for one cycle before applying DO.
You want to be a doctor really bad not be an MSI-II-III really bad I imagine?
Yes a doctor lol. I am very excited to be an MSI/II/III though. I'm ready for a change from my current routine, even if that change is towards more lectures and less sleep.
 
Yes a doctor lol. I am very excited to be an MSI/II/III though. I'm ready for a change from my current routine, even if that change is towards more lectures and less sleep.
Well I hope you get in best of luck!
 
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