First off congrats and secondly damn it sounds like you stayed busy but im really glad to hear you were still able to have some fun and enjoy life. Hopefully ill find the same rhythm in med school/residency/life!!! Income aside being able to enjoy life outside of work/school is definitely something I want to be able to do as I get older so id probably do the same as you with a comfy job.
Depends on what they say, my favorite one is:
Just to derail things a bit, what led you to decide on psych? I am very interested in psych but I am afraid it would get super-frustrating to feel like many people cannot be healed/cured/have dramatic improvement. But maybe that is a mistaken impression on my part?
Actually, I'm very glad that I did NOT spend my 20s in medical school and residency. Don't wish your life away, my friend. I remember thinking how far away 40 seemed when I was 20. Now that I'm 40 and in practice, I can only wonder at how fast a human lifetime goes by. Don't be one of those guys or gals who is so busy trying to get somewhere fast that you forget to live your life. Stop and smell the roses a bit. Take a whole year off even and go travel or work or whatever other non-medical related dream you want to do. It gets harder to do things like that just for fun as you get further along in life and have more responsibilities.
That is wonderful to hear. Thank you for the info!
That's the majority of most of the patients you'll see in any non-surgical/interventional field. Aside from the rare healthy person that gets a freak illness, most of your patients are circling the drain already, and all you can do is slow them down a bit. Psychiatry is actually one of the few fields where proper intervention can substantially not only lengthen someone's life, but improve the quality of it.
That's what research is for. And fortunately for you, my friend, you are living in what many consider to be the golden age for neuroscience research.
You could easily shave a few more years off. You could finish undergrad in 2 years (albeit - you won't have much of a life).
It used to. I initially wanted to start med school and was hoping to be done with med school by the time I was 24. But I was rejected my first round - lol. I was a bit disappointed but now it doesn't really bother me. I spent 4 years between undergrad and starting med school doing a few things I thought I would have to give up - but in the end I'm glad I had some time to experience them.
Ah, this is better discussed in the allopathic forums. And I agree with what you're saying. . . QUALITY basic mental health care access should be the first priority, and there's enough work to do for multiple lifetimes.
It's a bit disrespectful, yeah. I mean it's that whole "I subconsciously think you're not qualified to be my doctor" thing. I can understand why it would upset you.
Everytime this type of conversation pops up, I scroll down to find Goro, knowing this line will feature somewhere in the conversation. 🙂
Am I the other guy lol
"There's nothign waiting at the end of it." Except cold, hard cash. Hopefully.
I found the non-financial aspects to be nice myself. Can't put a price on being a young troublemaker with no responsibility.
It's hard to find balance in an 80 hour a week surgical residency. Basically, you hasn't to choose- do I focus on developing myself as a person or developing my career? It is very, very hard to do both, particularly if you are interested in high hour, competitive residencies.
I'm just saying, for those that have the option, it is often worth slowing down. Not always.
You also went to dental school though- it's a shorter course of training and honestly I think it's worth doing straight through since you still have a good chunk of your twenties left and a good income to boot. Do that with residency and you're usually not done until 30, even later if you do fellowships. I certainly wouldn't have liked to miss out on all the fun I had to be in residency instead for those years, ugh.
my point was that the 20s are the most valuable and formative years of a person's life, and, as a dentist, you got a few years of them even going straight through. I would have gone the same route for that reason. Medicine though, even with the very shortest route possible barring BS-MD programs is going to land you at 29, but the vast majority of US students end up in residencies and fellowships that would push them into their early-to-mid 30s. So I say take a year or three of those 20s to enjoy (if you can) for those going the medical route, because a year of your 20s with minimal responsibilities is something you can never get back.
I was never arguing. I don't get why you view every exchange we have as an argument. Even when I agree with you you think I'm arguing with you half the time lol.
I'm just sharing my opinions- I don't believe them to be right or wrong, just opinions. You think things must be right or wrong, because you're a very black and white sort of person, so you make the assumption that my expressing something means I believe it to be a universal truth or something, which is far from the case.
And I think that is ultimately what this whole thread is about- the clash between practicality and sentimentality as it relates to people's opinions about finishing school as quickly as possible versus taking their time. I'm a sentimental person myself, so I'm all about experience trumping outcome.
