Should I go to medical school? Got in but having second thoughts

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So I got into medical school but I'm having second thoughts. I got a job in consulting at a top consulting firm before I found out I got in to med school. I'll be making about $70,000 starting. The money is good but I'm not worried about that.

I know I want to pursue medicine, but I'd be OK with going into business. My main dilemma is seeing the statistics of doctors who wouldn't pursue medicine again, aren't happy, and overworked.

Could any MSs talk about the workload in medical school and if there any non-traditional could you talk about the differences between working and going to school?

Thanks!

 

[Psai]

Many people have second thoughts. You can't really explain it until you've done it but it's like being in finals week except every day. Also your post belongs in preallo

 

[studentdoct69]

I'm in a similar boat. How did you get a consulting job? Do you have a business degree?

Monetarily it probably doesn't make much sense, unless you go into some surgery or high paying specialty. And, on top of that, they say anything above $75,000 a year your happiness doesn't improve that much.

 

[doc05]

So I got into medical school but I'm having second thoughts. I got a job in consulting at a top consulting firm before I found out I got in to med school. I'll be making about $70,000 starting. The money is good but I'm not worried about that.

I know I want to pursue medicine, but I'd be OK with going into business. My main dilemma is seeing the statistics of doctors who wouldn't pursue medicine again, aren't happy, and overworked.

Could any MSs talk about the workload in medical school and if there any non-traditional could you talk about the differences between working and going to school?

Thanks!

If you'd be ok with doing anything else, do that instead.

 

[tellmemore2020]

I have come to realize that being a doctor -- the opportunity to work in that role (in and out of office), the best training the field can offer, the status it confers -- is more important to me than my day-to-day happiness. It's like a life project that gives me purpose, and I have come to view it as "essential" in feeling fulfilled. My happiness is more than the things I like to do in my free time. You decide for yourself what your career means to you, and the type of career you want, if any.

 

[ConfusedChemist]

I have come to realize that being a doctor -- the opportunity to work in that role (in and out of office), the best training the field can offer, the status it confers -- is more important to me than my day-to-day happiness. It's like a life project that gives me purpose, and I have come to view it as "essential" in feeling fulfilled. My happiness is more than the things I like to do in my free time. You decide for yourself what your career means to you, and the type of career you want, if any.

This is kind of concerning....
does it really not bother you aren't happy day to day at work?

 

[Vaseline]

i've been grappling over that question since i was admitted in october. i was hot and cold on medicine for a few months. but medicine is such a unique profession: you cut people open, deliver babies, diagnose and devise tx, tell people they are going to live, tell people they are going to die. find me another field with work as emotionally and intellectually stimulating. i'm not sure you can.

i think the surveys of physician satisfaction, or lack thereof, are overstated. i'd bet job dissatisfaction is equally or more pervasive in other fields, it just isn't given the attention that doc dissatisfaction has been given. my brother is an accountant; he hates his job. my dad and mom have been in sales for 30+ years, and they are very pleased i will not be entering their field.

medicine offers an almost unparalleled degree of job security and opportunity to earn a comfortable living. and it is a very respected profession.

i cannot comment on the med school workload, or the non-trad experience, but i went from applying for jobs thinking i was leaving med before i gave it a chance to now being very comfortable with my decision to attend med school this summer.

 

[Doudline]

I have come to realize that being a doctor -- the opportunity to work in that role (in and out of office), the best training the field can offer, the status it confers -- is more important to me than my day-to-day happiness. It's like a life project that gives me purpose, and I have come to view it as "essential" in feeling fulfilled. My happiness is more than the things I like to do in my free time. You decide for yourself what your career means to you, and the type of career you want, if any.

Burnout incoming in...

...3
...2
...1

 

[DrBodacious]

One of the good things about the medical fields is the constant challenge they give you. If you are suited to the challenges, it is really rewarding .

And the challenges involve helping people. So, it is fairly easy to remain motivated. Conversely, some people are going to feel worthless for shuffling money around without actually helping people in other business fields.

Mind you, I am in a specialty I love (ENT) and I am not sure I would have been happy with primary care. Call it a "calling." so entering medical school is a somewhat risky proposition.

Then there is the whole thing about missing out on personal life in your 20s, which you have to be OK with.

 

[mw18]

.

 

[thepoopologist]

So I got into medical school but I'm having second thoughts. I got a job in consulting at a top consulting firm before I found out I got in to med school. I'll be making about $70,000 starting. The money is good but I'm not worried about that.

I know I want to pursue medicine, but I'd be OK with going into business. My main dilemma is seeing the statistics of doctors who wouldn't pursue medicine again, aren't happy, and overworked.

Could any MSs talk about the workload in medical school and if there any non-traditional could you talk about the differences between working and going to school?

Thanks!

Honestly I found medical school brutal and going into my 3rd year of residency am only starting to feel comfortable with everything. During medical school I constantly asked myself "why the f did I do this?" Now that I've shed the excess information and am working more on the nuances of my trade, I'm enjoying things a lot more. Some days I even think that this may have been a good choice, especially when I see patients improve due to the decisions I made. This feeling is only starting to emerge after 6 years of working against the tide and watching several former colleagues fall by the wayside. My n=1. You may find medical school terrific and hit the ground running when you start residency.

 

[Promethean]

Every now and then, usually when I witness gross mismanagement of a patient that I am powerless to address, I get angry and demoralized and I think... you know, it is never too late to go into banking. I could set down the burdens that I've taken on and go find lighter ones. There is still a lot of stress in other industries, I get that. But actual lives are not on the line in nearly the same way.

The moment passes and I realize that I would never be happy or fulfilled doing anything else. The frustrations are only there because it does matter so much to me. I spent my entire life trying to where I am right now, and looking back, I'd do it all again, just sooner and with more intense focus.

You gotta figure out what you really want, but I have a couple of thoughts for you:

If you allow others to set the terms of your practice for you, I think that contributes to a feeling that it would be better to be doing something else. A lot of docs are working in assembly line medicine, as employees of corporations that value revenue generation over the health of the patients and the physicians who care for them. I think it isn't medicine they regret, but rather the circumstances that they have accepted. There are alternative practice models and service opportunities, some of which can even offer better compensation than working for hire, but you have to be willing to adapt and take risks in order to access them. I think that doctors who retain their power over their own practice are not the ones talking about having regrets.

This isn't your last chance to change your mind. If you got one gig as a consultant, you likely will be able to do that again. With at least year or two of medical school behind you, you might even be able to command a higher figure than 70k... maybe not specialist attending physician money, but 6 figures is attainable, and would let you settle up a year or two of loans.

 

[operaman]

I'm a non-trad and going back for medicine was definitely a calling for me too. I absolutely loved med school and probably drank way more of the kool-aid than I should have, but had a great time nonetheless. It's a LOT easier than working, that's for sure - but you'd also be making $120,000 less per year while doing it.

You might want to talk with your school and see if they would let you defer admission for a year or two. I can honestly say that real world experience is invaluable in medical school, both in your mindset and in how you interact with patients.

 

[repititionition]

i think the surveys of physician satisfaction, or lack thereof, are overstated.

You're wrong.

You might want to talk with your school and see if they would let you defer admission for a year or two.

Do this.

 

[studentdoct69]

Can you please explain this to me? I see people saying this, but I'm just not sure it makes sense. I'm not being snarky, I promise. I actually want to know why people say it. (BTW, I am not going into medicine for the money, whatsoever. Money means very little to me. I've had very little for a long time and residency salary, even after loan repayment, will be much more than I've ever made in a year (save for a year in Iraq). )

For example: If OP is making $70,000 at a consulting job now. We'll say that over the next 25 years, he or she does well and ends up averaging $100,000 a year. For a total of $2, 500, 000. If OP went to med school and accumulated and paid $500,000 in loans over 25 years, while making an average of $50,000 a year for say 6 years in residency/fellowship, and then took a job that averaged $200,000 for the remaining fifteen years, which never goes up and is a modest estimate to begin with that equals $3, 300, 000 in earnings minus $500,000 in loans. So, $2,800,000 which is $300,000 more. Which may seem low, but then will be making twice as much as a physician for the rest of their working life. This is also using a lot of debt, a low residency pay average (not overly consequential), and a modest attending average, particularly for a six year fellowship/residency. I do, understand, that hourly the difference in pay will be much larger. Assuming it doesn't take some 80 hour weeks to average that $100k. But it's not like a consultant can decide to work twice as hard and get paid twice the money either.

There may be factors that I'm overlooking here, and if they're more than minutia, please point them out to me. It just seems so en vogue to say that medicine is a bad investment. There's this idea that if you can go through the med school admissions process then you could run a hedge fund at 22 and make $10 million a year. I just think that there is a tipping point of salary where that happens, not even considering all of the benefits that are outside of money (fulfillment, sense of purpose, patient connection, etc). I do agree, though, that for OP, I would be more than happy with the $70k salary. I don't want really want to do anything except medicine, but I completely understand looking into burnout. Also, there are likely people holding no acceptances who are absolutely set on fire about the prospect of being a doctor that are waitlisted at the school you're holding an acceptance, too. No judgment from me to OP, I just think that medicine provides its practitioners the opportunity to be rewarded financially for the finances lost, with some exceptions. Perhaps not the opportunity cost, if it's not your passion, though.

Yeah. Medical school is BIG on delayed gratification lol. *25 years* down the road.....

And it means that if you are already making $75,000 a year, then monetarily medical school wouldn't be the best idea (disragarding the high-paying specialities). You have things like compound interest, opportunity cost of attending etc.

The thing with medical students is the profession attracts students who are risk averse. Or they tend to take very straight, stable paths that give the student a great shot at a stable, great career if they put in the work. They are the opposite of entrepreneurs lol. They don't like risk. There's nothing wrong with that, but you have to realize that just b/c one path isn't as well defined as medical school does not mean you can't make a successful, stable and gratifying career out of it just like a doctor's.

The opportunity cost is not having the disposable income through some prime years of your life (20s and 30s) and not being careless and free to use it (always worrying about the next test). I guess you can just use loans tho for the financial side of that lol.

Look, every medical student makes these sacrifices (I am too....ha). If I was in OP's shoes I probably would try consulting for at least 2 years.

Oh, also, with the way medicine is going right now (government intervention, etc) the profession will get diluted (all medical student should be watching what happens with Obamacare and the supreme court). Doctors are being exploited, and it's easy to do b/c they generally don't have a very good feel for real world economics or finance (especially trad. med. students LOL). You can take a look at the "mid-level encroachment" forums for the dilution of the profession too.

 

[repititionition]

From a prior post, since this come up often:

First, compensation. You're smoking crack. The IB ramp is WAY (that should be in about 20 point font) faster than in consulting. If you can hack a decade in IB at a name firm you are making $500K-2+ million/year, depending on which side of the house you sit on and how interested you were in staying in NYC vs living in another market.

Most consultants at top firms a decade in are not doing better than $300K/yr. Some make a large multiple of that, sure, but I am talking meat of the curve for both careers.

What I want to convey, though, is that I have lived in both worlds, and for par candidates (raw academic horsepower and people skills) getting in to a top 20 medical school is way easier than getting a solid analyst (IB) or consultant position making >$85K straight out of school. (All bets are off and the above experience does not hold true if you come out of HYP undergrad. It's probably easier to land an analyst job than a top med school seat in that case simply because network effects are stronger in business than in medical admissions.) The work is way more interesting in consulting, however, and I pity investment bankers irrespective of their pay.

Source: me, who has been there and done that (admitted to top-tier med school / former consultant)

ETA: these are all rational results (competitiveness) if you just do some lifetime earnings potential/hour worked * lifestyle (or general "interesting" quotient) calculations for each field, allowing for risk in each variable.

Here's a whole bunch of nonsense to rationalize all that...

Medicine: [(medium lifetime earnings {largely due to huge opportunity cost}*lifetime employment guarantee)/(medium to high hours worked)]/(reasonable lifestyle and inherently interesting work) = medium competitiveness

Consulting: [(medium lifetime earnings)*(risky employment {many "fail out" of best consulting firms and end up in industry with menial jobs for middling pay})]/(medium hours worked*interesting work) = higher competitiveness

Investment banking: [(exceptional lifetime earnings)*(risky employment {most can hack it, majority of attrition due to structural unemployment viz. economic crashes and/or self selection)]/(insane workload*dull work) = highest competitiveness 2/2 highest numerator by a wide margin

 

[waitlist22]

OP- you have to know your own personality and skill sets to make this decision. I personally would be bored out of my mind working an 8-5 job in some accounting or consulting job where I don't feel my work makes any appreciable impact on the people and world around me. I like to work hard and be busy and feel accomplished and medicine is a great field for that. But if you think you would be happy making a decent amount of money with time outside of work then take the consulting job. Medicine certainly has a pull that reels you in and if you are feeling that pull to medicine (and not because of the salary it offers) then try it out. You also need to evaluate how smart you really are. Did undergrad come easy or were you studying all day every day? If you struggled in undergrad or had to work harder than everyone else for your grades medical school will be tough. If you had a pretty easy go in undergrad then medical school honestly is not bad at all. I really enjoyed medical school for the most part. Sure, some days are beyond miserable and you question it but if you have a good attitude about it and let things roll off your back you will be fine and enjoy yourself.

As far as physicians surveyed saying they wouldn't do medicine again, a lot of that IMHO is the whole, "the grass is always greener" phenomenon. I just graduated so maybe my tune will change once residency starts and I become an attending but most of the physicians I have worked with are very fulfilled with their work. Sure, some physicians are probably miserable and don't like their job but that would likely be equally true had they gone into something else. You don't see a mass exodus of physicians leaving the profession for something else with better hours and less (but still adequate) pay. The profession certainly isn't the idealistic, everything is rosy image that you have coming into medical school but it is some of that and you can still find some of that if you look for it and if you enjoy what you are doing. It comes from expectations not always being reality and for some people that leads to dissatisfaction and indicating they wouldn't enter medicine again.

Ultimately I can't imagine having done anything other than medicine. Sure I could have been successful in some other field and been satisfied but I wouldn't have been happy. You have to decide if you are ok settling for a consulting job vs. going for what you really want and making it work, having a positive outlook and making a difference for people in the world.

 

[premedk]

I have a buddy who works as a consultant for a large corporation. I started med school that same year he started his job. He works his butt off, but his company definitely takes care of him. He makes around $60-70 now, plus company car, phone, paid vacation, etc. He will very likely make it up to middle management in a decade, making $250+++. That's about when I'll be starting my career making about the same salary...maybe slightly more. The difference is working like a dog for 4+3+3 years of med school+residency+fellowship(optional), 10 years of lost income and compound interest, add in $250,000 debt+interest and you have yourself a very poor financial decision. I just finished my 3rd year...I like what I do now, but loved my job (political PR) in college, and wish I would have tried it out for a couple of years b/f starting med school. My advice, try the job, to see if you like it...because med school isn't going anywhere.

 

[tellmemore2020]

This is kind of concerning....
does it really not bother you aren't happy day to day at work?

I am not a doctor yet and I absolutely expect to enjoy my work when I am. At the moment, I am looking at specialties that do allow for sanity outside of work and are interesting to me. What I meant was more of a bigger picture -- I don't expect to have a perfect everyday life, but few people do, anyway. I do come in with an expectation of my work being fulfilling to me throughout my life, but I am working hard to find what I enjoy in this field.

 

[kratos99]

Mwoods,

You have to look at more than just straight up salary. First off, if you spend much less than you make, you can be very wealthy at the end. For example, I'm 7 years post residency, and as a primary care doc, I don't make as much as my colleagues, but I saved, saved and saved. I own high quality dividend paying stocks that spit out 40k a year in dividends only that increase by 4-10% annually compounded. When this gets compounded again when you reinvest it. you end up making a lot more by the time you're in you're 50s WITHOUT HAVING TO WORK AT ALL. And dividends get taxed at a lower rate than working income. Delayed gratification is key.

I figure by the time I retire at 60, I will have an income of over 500-1million a year in dividends alone, possibly more. Key is to start early. The process is not linear. Compounding can be explosive, and is a reason in our capitalistic society the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I don't like it but it is what it is, so use it to your advantage.

 

[Holmwood]

If you want to get the consulting job later on in life, you probably could.

Once you give up med school, who knows when that opportunity will hit again. You're going to have to restudy and retake the mcat, you have go through that whole admissions process again, and you might even have to do more volunteer/clinical work just to keep your application recent.

Are there better opportunities for physicians who have experience in consulting? You tell me.

 

[mw18]

Mwoods,

You have to look at more than just straight up salary. First off, if you spend much less than you make, you can be very wealthy at the end. For example, I'm 7 years post residency, and as a primary care doc, I don't make as much as my colleagues, but I saved, saved and saved. I own high quality dividend paying stocks that spit out 40k a year in dividends only that increase by 4-10% annually compounded. When this gets compounded again when you reinvest it. you end up making a lot more by the time you're in you're 50s WITHOUT HAVING TO WORK AT ALL. And dividends get taxed at a lower rate than working income. Delayed gratification is key.

I figure by the time I retire at 60, I will have an income of over 500-1million a year in dividends alone, possibly more. Key is to start early. The process is not linear. Compounding can be explosive, and is a reason in our capitalistic society the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I don't like it but it is what it is, so use it to your advantage.

I don't feel like we were saying opposite things. I'm saying that medicine is a good investment. I used just salary (and fairly deflated ones on the medicine side of things and inflated on the "consultant" side of things) to make the point. If you are saying that investing as a consultant would work out to make more money than medicine, then perhaps. I really just don't know.

 

[ConfusedChemist]

I am not a doctor yet and I absolutely expect to enjoy my work when I am. At the moment, I am looking at specialties that do allow for sanity outside of work and are interesting to me. What I meant was more of a bigger picture -- I don't expect to have a perfect everyday life, but few people do, anyway. I do come in with an expectation of my work being fulfilling to me throughout my life, but I am working hard to find what I enjoy in this field.

ahh haha that makes much more sense. I agree a lot with you actually. Work is work, medicine is not some dreamland job where bad days don't exist. When I first read your post it sounded like you never liked it but would rather the 'status' even if it meant you hated the day-to-day 😛

 

[repititionition]

Just another interesting data point: http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/34/6/929.abstract?=right

 

[Hyde]

Just another interesting data point: http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/34/6/929.abstract?=right

Less pay AND fewer doctors needed because of encroachment? "but it will also require using fewer or less skilled employees to produce a given service."

This stinks.

 

[ImportedKamariya]

Can you please explain this to me? I see people saying this, but I'm just not sure it makes sense. I'm not being snarky, I promise. I actually want to know why people say it. (BTW, I am not going into medicine for the money, whatsoever. Money means very little to me. I've had very little for a long time and residency salary, even after loan repayment, will be much more than I've ever made in a year (save for a year in Iraq). )

For example: If OP is making $70,000 at a consulting job now. We'll say that over the next 25 years, he or she does well and ends up averaging $100,000 a year. For a total of $2, 500, 000. If OP went to med school and accumulated and paid $500,000 in loans over 25 years, while making an average of $50,000 a year for say 6 years in residency/fellowship, and then took a job that averaged $200,000 for the remaining fifteen years, which never goes up and is a modest estimate to begin with that equals $3, 300, 000 in earnings minus $500,000 in loans. So, $2,800,000 which is $300,000 more. Which may seem low, but then will be making twice as much as a physician for the rest of their working life. This is also using a lot of debt, a low residency pay average (not overly consequential), and a modest attending average, particularly for a six year fellowship/residency. I do, understand, that hourly the difference in pay will be much larger. Assuming it doesn't take some 80 hour weeks to average that $100k. But it's not like a consultant can decide to work twice as hard and get paid twice the money either.

There may be factors that I'm overlooking here, and if they're more than minutia, please point them out to me. It just seems so en vogue to say that medicine is a bad investment. There's this idea that if you can go through the med school admissions process then you could run a hedge fund at 22 and make $10 million a year. I just think that there is a tipping point of salary where that happens, not even considering all of the benefits that are outside of money (fulfillment, sense of purpose, patient connection, etc). I do agree, though, that for OP, I would be more than happy with the $70k salary. I don't want really want to do anything except medicine, but I completely understand looking into burnout. Also, there are likely people holding no acceptances who are absolutely set on fire about the prospect of being a doctor that are waitlisted at the school you're holding an acceptance, too. No judgment from me to OP, I just think that medicine provides its practitioners the opportunity to be rewarded financially for the finances lost, with some exceptions. Perhaps not the opportunity cost, if it's not your passion, though.

money? one word. lmao. well one abbreviation. you NEVER go into medicine for the money. it's done because it is a life mission or a passion. the money is just a great benefit. the topic creator guy should do business if he wants good money and more money down the road. if he only loves practicing medicine, then don't even have second thoughts. there's nothing to think about. he knows who he is.

 

[RedPhys]

it's like being in finals week except every day.