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952995
Why should I (or shouldn’t I) become a doctor?
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deleted980662
frankly, there is discussion throughout the forum regarding the benefits and drawbacks of medicine. if your interest in medicine is serious, you should be motivated to seek out answers to this question on your own.
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965978
It’s not about the pros and cons. It’s about how much you love what you do. I know that I complain a lot. But in all seriousness, I absolutely cannot see myself doing anything besides medicine. I truly and deeply love learning about the human body and having the opportunity to treat ailments and form meaningful relationships with patients through my love of learning.
And because of that, no amount of debt or years of schooling or gap years is going to deter me from this path. I will not be cynical about the difficulties and obstacles. Rather, I will use them as an opportunity to become a better person and a more skilled and compassionate physician.
And because of that, no amount of debt or years of schooling or gap years is going to deter me from this path. I will not be cynical about the difficulties and obstacles. Rather, I will use them as an opportunity to become a better person and a more skilled and compassionate physician.
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907914
Biggest pro is all of the drug reps. Even if you have no intent of following through, if you pretend to like them then they cater lunch for the entire practice.
I say this as I devour a box of Olive Garden breadsticks. These truly are the best of times #blessed
I say this as I devour a box of Olive Garden breadsticks. These truly are the best of times #blessed
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. . . . Or worries about malpractice litigation, or that insurance companies tell me what tests I can order or when my patients must be released from the hospital, or difficult patients, or being forced to input patient notes into an electronic health record that isn't user friendly, or . . . .
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deleted804295
In the past I would say save yourself the trouble but after researching into other fields from a pure job (and not career) perspective, medicine is at the top.
No other fields offer the same guarantee of practice, pay, and security. Virtually every single field that the boomer generation thrived off of 20+ years ago is gone.
The question now becomes whether you're motivated enough to go through the barriers of entry. Nobody here is here to sell you why you should go into medicine. Only you yourself can choose whether you're motivated enough to go through with it.
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RTC19
Pros:
- Do some volunteering in a clinical setting to see if you like taking care of sick people. For people who love this and find it fulfilling, medicine can be so intrapersonally rewarding.
- Health is the great equalizer. All of us will find ourselves in a hospital or at a doctor's office eventually. You get to meet people you wouldn't otherwise interact with outside of work and listen to all sorts of different perspectives/experiences.
Cons:
- You have to have a great work ethic and be okay with studying a huge number of hours (first two years of medical school) and then working a huge number of hours (latter half of medical school and residency/fellowship) prior to being able to pare down to an average to slightly above average number of weekly work hours among all people who work full time.
- With how competitive it is, you may have to move away from your family for medical school or residency. Depending on your significant other's school/work situation and ability to move around or lack thereof, you may end up in a long-distance relationship. Some couples do fine with this and some don't. It depends on the relationship dynamics.
- Student loan debt. You will be able to pay it off just fine - the debt to income ratio is good - but my point stands.
- Depending on where you are in your education, you may already know this, but you have to consistently put the work in to get excellent grades in college and a very good MCAT score. Be aware that you will have to devote a lot of time studying to get a good MCAT score. There are also more outside-of-school de facto requirements (clinical volunteering, non-clinical volunteering, shadowing, etc.) than there are in other fields.
- The charting (putting in orders for medications/tests and documenting every time you see a patient) is a lot, but this is true for every healthcare field. Realistically, over half of a physician's time is spent dealing with the EMR (Electronic medical record) or returning phone calls/pages. "If you didn't chart it, it didn't happen" is a saying we have in healthcare.
- It can be really sad sometimes. People - sometimes even young people - get horribly sick and miserable and die. You may encounter victims of child abuse/neglect on your Pediatrics rotation.
- It can be really frustrating at times because the patient has social issues that are really hurting their medical problems or causing them not to be able to follow through with a treatment plan. You have no way of fixing these things (homelessness, lack of insurance/ability to pay, addiction where a person isn't ready to quit, etc.) and that can feel frustrating for physicians caring for these people.
- Getting test/treatments/medications approved by insurance companies before they will pay for them (prior authorizations) can be a very frustrating experience.
- By nature, healthcare is a field with a lot of government oversight because of needing to accept Medicare and Medicaid as well as just general fraud prevention to protect the public. The quality-control requirements are sometimes a little silly and/or you know don't necessarily jive with what's best for the patient.
- Hospitals are very much corporations out to make money.
- Do some volunteering in a clinical setting to see if you like taking care of sick people. For people who love this and find it fulfilling, medicine can be so intrapersonally rewarding.
- Health is the great equalizer. All of us will find ourselves in a hospital or at a doctor's office eventually. You get to meet people you wouldn't otherwise interact with outside of work and listen to all sorts of different perspectives/experiences.
Cons:
- You have to have a great work ethic and be okay with studying a huge number of hours (first two years of medical school) and then working a huge number of hours (latter half of medical school and residency/fellowship) prior to being able to pare down to an average to slightly above average number of weekly work hours among all people who work full time.
- With how competitive it is, you may have to move away from your family for medical school or residency. Depending on your significant other's school/work situation and ability to move around or lack thereof, you may end up in a long-distance relationship. Some couples do fine with this and some don't. It depends on the relationship dynamics.
- Student loan debt. You will be able to pay it off just fine - the debt to income ratio is good - but my point stands.
- Depending on where you are in your education, you may already know this, but you have to consistently put the work in to get excellent grades in college and a very good MCAT score. Be aware that you will have to devote a lot of time studying to get a good MCAT score. There are also more outside-of-school de facto requirements (clinical volunteering, non-clinical volunteering, shadowing, etc.) than there are in other fields.
- The charting (putting in orders for medications/tests and documenting every time you see a patient) is a lot, but this is true for every healthcare field. Realistically, over half of a physician's time is spent dealing with the EMR (Electronic medical record) or returning phone calls/pages. "If you didn't chart it, it didn't happen" is a saying we have in healthcare.
- It can be really sad sometimes. People - sometimes even young people - get horribly sick and miserable and die. You may encounter victims of child abuse/neglect on your Pediatrics rotation.
- It can be really frustrating at times because the patient has social issues that are really hurting their medical problems or causing them not to be able to follow through with a treatment plan. You have no way of fixing these things (homelessness, lack of insurance/ability to pay, addiction where a person isn't ready to quit, etc.) and that can feel frustrating for physicians caring for these people.
- Getting test/treatments/medications approved by insurance companies before they will pay for them (prior authorizations) can be a very frustrating experience.
- By nature, healthcare is a field with a lot of government oversight because of needing to accept Medicare and Medicaid as well as just general fraud prevention to protect the public. The quality-control requirements are sometimes a little silly and/or you know don't necessarily jive with what's best for the patient.
- Hospitals are very much corporations out to make money.
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965978
How can they tell you what tests to order and how long to keep your patient since they don’t have medical training?
Am I being naive or missing something?
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907914
Even if something is medically necessary or recommended by the physician, most insurance companies have some form of criteria for every situation stating what they will pay for. So, either a Doctor does what is best for the patient and they don’t get paid (or worse, the patient will have to pay) or the doctor does what the insurance company is willing to pay for. How do they determine what they do and don’t pay for? Not a clue.How can they tell you what tests to order and how long to keep your patient since they don’t have medical training?
Am I being naive or missing something?
Here is a great video showing a very sad truth of American Healthcare (tangentially related to the topic at hand):
Reasons like these are why many physicians (especially young ones) are refusing insurance and just doing in house financing type deals, or are doing home visits/flat fees. It is very similar to how veterinarians operate.
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If you cant answer this yourself than you should probably not go into medicine or you need to do more research. And by research I'm not talking about asking an online forum to do the work for you.
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965978
I’ve seen the thumbnail for that video before but can’t bring myself to watch it. I know for a fact it’s pretty much just gonna piss me off about how horrible our health care system is. Especially since the title is annoying me already.
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907914
Basically, the dude calls every hospital in a several hundred mile radius to find which is the cheapest to have a baby at. Most of them hang up, some of them pass him around on hold to different people for several hours before answering with “we can’t tell you/we don’t know until it is all over,” and ONE gave him an answer (after several hours) of a general quote if everything goes right. The video highlights how no one knows or has access to a central charge list. You can find most values for Medicare, but no one pays at Medicare prices. And even then, a hospital will charge more if insurance (even Medicare) doesn’t cover it.
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965978
I’ve watched some other videos by Vox with explain that the reason American healthcare is so horribly expensive in the first place is for this exact reason: absolutely no centralized system.
And this applies to the prescription drug realm as well. The FDA is extremely inefficient with the approval process of prescription drugs which costs Pharma companies billions of dollars and raises drug prices. And the inefficiency doesn’t even improve safety.
D
deleted962973
Pros: Earning a lot of money
Cons: Paying a lot of money
Cons: Paying a lot of money
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Ok Picard
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907914
Become a veterinarian. There are no pros, but you get the double whammy of paying lots of money and earning very little money.
Two negatives make a positive, amiright?
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This video was a waste of time. He called the wrong people because he doesn’t understand the system, and I actually think he did it that way deliberately. When my wife had a couple of minor surgeries, she called the insurance company with the surgery codes from the surgeon, told them where she was going to have the surgery, and she was told what they would pay and what our copay was based on our out of pocket maximum for the year. I believe it was correct to the penny. It also only took 5 min. Hospitals generally don’t know what they are charging, what or how much insurance company x pays for anything, or what your out of pocket costs are. They may have averages, but probably not things specific to your plan. They’ll never know that last part, your out of pocket maximum which is specific to your plan and may be different from mine through the same company.
However your insurance company knows exactly what your benefits are, how much you’ve already paid this year, and exactly what they’ve negotiated for the procedures, an ACL repair, an uncomplicated delivery, etc. They can easily calculate what your out of pocket payment will be. Assuming there are no complications or changes to the plan. (C section, epidural, NICU stay overnight, unexpected change to the procedure, etc.)
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