I'm always hearing about how horrible medical school is, or how horrible being a resident/doctor is. If it is so torturous why do people still choose to go down that path and complain constantly and try to discourage others from pursuing jobs in medicine? Is it really that bad? Do you honestly have no free time? Are all doctors in massive amounts of debt and therefore unable to enjoy their pay? I still wanna be a doctor either way because I personally think I can handle it and debt won't be a problem because I have money put away, but I was just curious.
Why do people choose to be doctors if it is so horrible??
- Thread starter Miilaxox
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you have 200,000$ saved up?
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I'm a (soon to be) Pre-Med so take my advice with a grain of salt but from my shadowing and my experience, medicine to a degree does have a huge impact in your life. It DOES become practically your life, as you will devote more hours to your work than your personal life. People become physicians because they want to help people and they think the field is interesting.
My close friend is a medical student and although the material is interesting, he says he hates it because he spends 70-80 hours a week studying material and being in school. Another one of the people I shadowed is an internist and although he works from 7-5, he says he has a lot of paperwork and business things to take care of that he usually gets home around 7, which is probably the average of of the physicians I shadowed. Many get home at 8 on average and an orthopedic surgeon I shadowed is on call every other week
Even the dentist I shadowed is a pretty new dentist in the area and he is about 27. He works 6 days a week from 8-6 and uses sunday as an administrative day to catch up on his business.
Healthcare isn't as it once was and I say that 95% of people pursue Medicine because they enjoy it and they enjoy helping people. To be accepted into medical school is pretty difficult so it takes an individual of immense charisma and fortitude to even get accepted, and if one can get accepted into medical school, they sure as heck are the type of people that don't mind putting in 60+ hours a week on something that they enjoy.
Yes it is torturous, as my neighbor is an Anesthesiology resident and he works 80+ hours a week with 3 children... It's tough but if you want to do it there is only one way. It does get easier but it will never be easy like a 9-5 job where your stress isn't through the roof because you are dealing with life and death with many of your decisions. It is probably immensely stressful to keep on top of your knowledge, keep up to date, do your job to the best of your ability as well as raise children while your wife is pretty fed up with your abnormal schedule.
I would know, I am the child of a surgeon who has been divorced a long time ago. 70+ hour weeks don't bode well for a lot of families.
Hope this helps.
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I suggest you talk to more people or perhaps listen more carefully to the positive, not just the negative voices.. Go to your local children's hospital and speak to some academic pediatricians and see what they tell you. There are plenty there and elsewhere in medicine who love what they do and encourage others into medicine. I'm one of them.
Best of wishes on your journey into medicine.
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You have $200,000 + compound interest in your piggy bank? Want to share?
Look, becoming and being a doctor is certainly difficult. It involves several years of education and a salary which isn't as high as the numbers suggest. But in the end, as with any job, you need to ask yourself if you would still do it if it paid less. In order to become a doctor you will need to complete a minimum of 12 years of postsecondary (after high school) education. On top of that you will need to take several standardized tests. After that you won't be making as much as you would think. Even though you see these "high" doctor's salaries, there are other things you need to factor in. Firstly, malpractice. Many doctors pay $100,000 or even more in malpractice insurance. Secondly, doctors are generally in very high tax brackets so they have to pay like $50,000 in taxes. That being said, it is still a good career financially (but later in life once all the compounded debt is paid off).
Ask yourself this: I all jobs paid the same amount of money, would I still choose medicine?
After shadowing many people from various careers I realized that I would choose medicine above all.
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I doubt a lot of doctors would choose to become a doctor if they got paid 90K lol...
If all the careers in the world paid the same, I would be a school psychologist (not joking)
It's called a trust fund...
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I have a trust fund too. #teamtrustfund
I'm not using it to pay any schooling, however. I'm investing it.
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haha. must be nice to be rich.... definitely do medicine in this case! you'll be able to pick whatever specialty you want without having to worry about debt.
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This is so true. The ideas listed above are all serious issues. They are things that need to be considered before entering the medical field. I had felt really passionate about becoming a physician for a long time. Then I got really nervous before I shadowed the first time wondering if I'd really end up actually liking it. When I got there, it felt right. I've shadowed some of the time at a smaller hospital and the doctors are wonderful and very open. They work 8am-8pm shifts, and then just work fewer days. Some say that these issues are overbearing. However, the ones that are really dedicated say it's worth every second, penny, and ounce of effort. So I guess it's up to your own opinion. Do some shadowing. Talk to a variety of physicians. Your determination to reach your goals will play the biggest role in if you believe it's worth it or not.
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Do whatever you want. Everybody got different reason to become a doctor. Some money, others because they like to help people.., others because they cannot see themselves doing anything else. As long as you provide top quality care to patients, is all good.
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Yeah, you work 70+ hours a week as a resident and sometimes even as a doctor. That sounds a lot compared to many 40 hr/wk jobs, but I really don't think it's unique in the professional world. Entry-level jobs for lawyers are often just as horrible. 90+ hour weeks are not uncommon in the investment banking world (although investment bankers' earning potential is way higher than that of doctors). Compare those jobs for a second though. As a lawyer, you spend long hours at a desk poring over reams of documents. As an investment banker, you spend long hours watching little numbers run on a screen and making risk assessments. As a doctor, you come in, talk to patients in the office, help them with their problems, scrub in for surgeries (if that's what you do), round on any inpatients you're following, then sit down to do your dictations (the boring part), then go home, taking call from home every few days. There's human interaction and variety to your day. Your life can be even more varied/exciting if you're practicing in an academic setting, where you get to teach residents, do research, and attend conferences. Yeah, the hours are long, but it seems to me like they're some of the nicest long hours you spend in the professional world. I realize that I haven't started med school yet and I may be feeling different three years from now in the middle of my gen surgery clerkship, but the impressions I've gotten from shadowing/talking to real doctors (esp those at academic hospitals) have made medicine seem great, at least judging from the work itself. I realize the debt question is a different issue.
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Couldnt agree more with this...I bounced around with many different interests in undergrad (research, public health, paramedic, optometry) before finding that medicine fit exactly what I wanted. As a med student, I feel the process of getting in was much more tiring than med school itself. Sure med school is hard, but everyday I get to learn something new and interesting that I will be able to actually use to help people for decades to come. I'll get to make the world a little better by working in an area that I am passionate about and is ever-changing, necessitating lifelong learning.
Just make sure that, if/when you consider going to medical school, you apply to be a physician and not because "you want to get into medical school" - those types with a checklist approach to life instead of a passion for medicine don't typically last long.
Finally, surround yourself with attendings like oldbear who will help you cultivate your interests and help you determine if medicine is right for you and vice-versa. Best of luck
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I heard somewhere that ~45% of doctors want to get out of medicine within the next 5 years, which will only exacerbate the already growing shortage of physicians. Also 9/10 won't recommend the profession to others.
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Dictations? I haven't done a dictation in many years. Electronic medical record and all that. Writing notes on critically ill patients is actually not particularly boring. You copy the boring parts from previous notes or they auto-fill-in and then you type out the key information about what is going on and what you plan. That's not boring, it's essential and takes thought.
Home call? In my business most call is in-house.
Office? I don't have one. I never see clinic patients.
There are many types of doctors, what you've described is just one.
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I think the OP is thinking of a stereotypical ER doc or trauma surgeon, with lots of shift work and high stress situations.
Check the forum, there's ALOT of different types of doctors. Some only work a few days a week in a low stress environment, and some work every day in high stress. What you decide to pursue is entirely up to you, so it'd be wrong to say all doctors are stressed out and hate their jobs.
Check the forum, there's ALOT of different types of doctors. Some only work a few days a week in a low stress environment, and some work every day in high stress. What you decide to pursue is entirely up to you, so it'd be wrong to say all doctors are stressed out and hate their jobs.
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da8s0859q
OP, for context, I receive my MD in just a few days, so this is all my lowly two cents as a just-graduating med student.
Because of a few things. Medical students -- and by extension, doctors -- really like to complain. There is a lot to complain about, too. But the more displeased people are, the louder they are.
It being "that bad" will depend on the person to whom you're talking, both in terms of personality and specialty (which go hand in hand more often than some would like to admit). The dermatologists, part-time family docs and pediatricians, and even the EM docs will be far more likely to say "eh, it sucked going through, but it's not bad in the end." The surgeons and obstetricians will tend to be much more critical in the big picture.
Paying off student loans or other debt accrued as a result of med school and residency sucks, but it's totally doable. Median debt for new MDs is about $170k as of the last release from the AAMC here in the US. A lot of money, but doable.
You being in Canada also changes things a bit, as from what I understand, your future practice environment if you become a doctor is not quite the same as what it is in the United States.
This. Something I need to do more often myself.
I'm biased on this, as I matched into and am moving to an emergency medicine residency next month. I would submit that while EM is shift work and does have high-stress situations -- more or less depending on locale -- it is not what most people picture in their heads nor is it what you see on television.
Because of a few things. Medical students -- and by extension, doctors -- really like to complain. There is a lot to complain about, too. But the more displeased people are, the louder they are.
It being "that bad" will depend on the person to whom you're talking, both in terms of personality and specialty (which go hand in hand more often than some would like to admit). The dermatologists, part-time family docs and pediatricians, and even the EM docs will be far more likely to say "eh, it sucked going through, but it's not bad in the end." The surgeons and obstetricians will tend to be much more critical in the big picture.
Paying off student loans or other debt accrued as a result of med school and residency sucks, but it's totally doable. Median debt for new MDs is about $170k as of the last release from the AAMC here in the US. A lot of money, but doable.
You being in Canada also changes things a bit, as from what I understand, your future practice environment if you become a doctor is not quite the same as what it is in the United States.
This. Something I need to do more often myself.
I'm biased on this, as I matched into and am moving to an emergency medicine residency next month. I would submit that while EM is shift work and does have high-stress situations -- more or less depending on locale -- it is not what most people picture in their heads nor is it what you see on television.
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I would do it for $90,000 if I didn't have to pay malpractice and there was no medical school debt.
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What is it in real life? I've seen these documentaries in NY Med and Boston Med and Hopkins med and the ER seems pretty intense from what I saw... No they aren't going to show that kid who came in because he has a runny nose, but how many high pressure situations are there in EM?
Btw, just stealing the thread to ask you another question...
What is the best way to do Pediatric EM? I heard that although doing a pediatrics residency and then doing an EM residency is longer, if you decide shift work isn't cutting it when one is older, you can switch to peds and get a more dependable workload and schedule.
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The answer to that is going to depend on the training of the person you ask
As another medical student graduating this month I will chime in as well. There are days that really really suck in medicine/medschool. And you can't always come home and unload on your family and friends or it will drag them down too. Plus some of the things that really suck about medicine are hard to explain to someone who isn't going through them as well. So people come here to vent when they have bad days and are questioning their path. When you have awesome days it is fun to share with family and friends and you do things like go out and celebrate rather than come post on SDN. So there is a lot of bias in what you read here.
As an MD/PhD I have viable career options ranging from 100% clinical to 100% research with no clinic time and no debt. I think I have had one or two doctors during all 8 years of school recommend me away from clinical practice or their specialty. Most of the doctors I have worked with do their best to sell their specialty to the students they work with. Again, there is some bias in this sampling as the doctors that volunteer to mentor students 1st and 2nd year and serve as specialty mentors for residency applications all volunteer for these positions because they like what they do and want to help students. At the same time, I have worked with a lot of physicians on rotations that just work in academic medicine and didn't specifically volunteer to work with students and the vast majority of them are happy with their careers.
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da8s0859q
About pedi EM, beyond what you said, I'm not sure I can speak too intelligently about it because it's not something I ever had interest in researching.
As far as what it's like, it really depends on where you are. EDs can see 30,000 patients a year, or 130,000 patients a year. You can work in little suburban EDs or big departments in the middle of a multi-million person city. The experience will vary accordingly as far as the sheer number of penetrating and/or blunt trauma patients come in, as well as in the number of seriously ill patients who come through the doors just as a matter of statistics. On top of that is the fact that part of emergency medicine is being able to juggle multiple patients.
My medical school's home institution is part of a major medical establishment, and its ED can get seriously busy, but in a way different from what it would have been like in New York, Dallas, or Boston.
I think most of us going into EM, and certainly the residents and attendings who know more than I do, would agree that it's not quite the adrenaline junkie job that a lot of people think it is.
Hope that helps.
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Those shows are like Cops, it takes probably 6mo to get enough decent footage for a 30minute show.
Ended up not doing EM, but spent my first 3.5 yrs convinced I was so I spent a TON of time with the EM folks. The opinion here is if you KNOW you want to focus on peds-em, doing primary peds residency then peds-em fellowship is the way to go.
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They condense a week(s) of action into an episode. From what I've seen it is mostly minor complaints or people looking for narcotics.
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da8s0859q
Lot of that, yeah.
But you do have people who could benefit from some kind of treatment, people who will end up getting admitted, people who get shipped off to the ICU, etc.
And for me, the big thing: the people who go into EM tend to be pretty laid-back, life-outside-medicine types. There is such a thing as specialty fit.
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Thanks for the responses, everyone
I hear the MD/Ph.D is becoming pretty useless and a lot of people who went through the program are really starting to regret it based on a thread I read in the MD/Ph.D section.
I hear the MD/Ph.D is becoming pretty useless and a lot of people who went through the program are really starting to regret it based on a thread I read in the MD/Ph.D section.
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Any pathway to become a doctor is very vigorous but if its something you want and truly like doing/making a difference then that's all that matters. I wouldn't call it horrible but its surely a challenging task on the way up and in holding that position.
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whats a wife? or a hobby?
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Thanks for the responses, everyone
I hear the MD/Ph.D is becoming pretty useless and a lot of people who went through the program are really starting to regret it based on a thread I read in the MD/Ph.D section.
I think he feels more prepared to do more focused research than he would if he didn't have the PhD. Also he got a full ride with the combined program and didn't mind the extra work.
lolwut?
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I think you're just talking to the wrong people.
My friends and I complain and whine about medical school, but at the end of the day, we usually end our conversations with, "But I wouldn't want to do anything else."
It's a demanding job, even as a medical student, and it only gets more difficult the further along in training that you go, but that's part of the reward. As everything starts to fit together, you get a feeling of excitement in knowing that you're helping another human in their most vulnerable time.
My friends and I complain and whine about medical school, but at the end of the day, we usually end our conversations with, "But I wouldn't want to do anything else."
It's a demanding job, even as a medical student, and it only gets more difficult the further along in training that you go, but that's part of the reward. As everything starts to fit together, you get a feeling of excitement in knowing that you're helping another human in their most vulnerable time.
I'll echo what a lot of my colleagues and OBP said.
I finished med school a couple of weeks ago, so I have a little bit better perspective on this than I did a few years ago. I think part of the problem with listening to the general consensus about medicine is that as a HS student, you're most likely shadowing really established, old-school docs, often people you know through the community/ your parents. I think the old timers are definitely more disappointed than the young people, because medicine changed so much during their practice. I have a family friend who literally saw his salary more than halve in the past 20 years, paperwork more than double, etc. Medicine as he had to practice right before he retired was a far cry from what he had expected, what had been promised to him, and what he experienced early on. So he was the first to tell me not to do it. But I think that's a pretty special circumstance, and I'd ask the younger folks, who probably had a better idea of what they were getting themselves into. Right now I have a fairly good idea of what my job prospects should be like, what my salary will likely be around, etc. If that were to drastically change soon, I'd be pretty pissed too.
Another issue, as someone pointed out, is that medical students (and by extension medical people in general) tend to be pretty complain-y. I think it's a result of constantly being in a bubble and having little contact with the outside working world on a regular basis, but we seem to believe that we're more put upon than anyone else. And in some ways, this is a particularly tough road. You'll study a lot, get yelled at and undermined and underestimated on a pretty regular basis and still have to come out stronger and better every day. Med school really is just the beginning, and just when you think you deserve good compensation and a little bit of a break, in comes residency to smack you across the face and make you feel dumber than ever. On a per-hour basis, we get paid around/less than minimum wage, which considering our years of education is pretty ridiculous. But it's enough to live on every month, and work hour restrictions have definitely helped ensure that we at least get one day off per week. Honestly, it could be worse. The problem is that because we're all in a bubble, we often don't realize how much worse it could be- or that our former college classmates aren't on a constant vacation either. Medicine isn't the only career that requires a lot of effort. The stakes are higher, but we're not heroes. We don't stay up for 4 days in a row, we're not expected to operate on dying people on our first day, we have some backup.
The debt: there's a lot of it. If you're smart, it won't be some crushing number like 350k, but when you're in your 20s any number above 200 bucks can seem like insane amounts. Loan money is monopoly money until you realize just how much you have to pay back, and that's a bad day. What makes me live with it is the fact that 1) I've never heard of a board-certified doctor that can't pay his/her loans back, and 2) there are government systems, like income-based repayment and the public service loan forgiveness program (at least right now) that help with this whole mess. Some jobs even offer debt repayment as a benefit. The situation isn't as dire as it may seem.
Ultimately, it's about the attitude. What i found fascinating in med school is actually the fact that the vast majority of people i talked to were really happy. Even the pissy, complainy, difficult surgeons- most of them couldn't imagine themselves doing anything else. My biggest piece of advice is this- don't let other people make you feel like you're supposed to see things a certain way when you don't. If you're happy, and you're not stressed, and things are going pretty well- feel that way. I think there's this mob mentality in med school where everyone pretends they feel the same way about stuff because it's the easier thing to do. But what that does is that it creates this false sense to the outside world that "all med students"/"all doctors" are a certain way, and that just isn't true. Not all med students are miserable all the time, and it's ok if you're not. On the flipside, if everyone looks like they totally have it together and they're just coasting through school, it's ok to be the one person who feels like he/she is drowning- chances are at least some of those apparently happy people are lying. At base, medicine is a job, it won't be terrible every day and it won't be perfect every day, you just have to figure out whether it's the one thing you can imagine yourself doing. If it is, then you can make it work for yourself (not all specialties are created equal!).
I finished med school a couple of weeks ago, so I have a little bit better perspective on this than I did a few years ago. I think part of the problem with listening to the general consensus about medicine is that as a HS student, you're most likely shadowing really established, old-school docs, often people you know through the community/ your parents. I think the old timers are definitely more disappointed than the young people, because medicine changed so much during their practice. I have a family friend who literally saw his salary more than halve in the past 20 years, paperwork more than double, etc. Medicine as he had to practice right before he retired was a far cry from what he had expected, what had been promised to him, and what he experienced early on. So he was the first to tell me not to do it. But I think that's a pretty special circumstance, and I'd ask the younger folks, who probably had a better idea of what they were getting themselves into. Right now I have a fairly good idea of what my job prospects should be like, what my salary will likely be around, etc. If that were to drastically change soon, I'd be pretty pissed too.
Another issue, as someone pointed out, is that medical students (and by extension medical people in general) tend to be pretty complain-y. I think it's a result of constantly being in a bubble and having little contact with the outside working world on a regular basis, but we seem to believe that we're more put upon than anyone else. And in some ways, this is a particularly tough road. You'll study a lot, get yelled at and undermined and underestimated on a pretty regular basis and still have to come out stronger and better every day. Med school really is just the beginning, and just when you think you deserve good compensation and a little bit of a break, in comes residency to smack you across the face and make you feel dumber than ever. On a per-hour basis, we get paid around/less than minimum wage, which considering our years of education is pretty ridiculous. But it's enough to live on every month, and work hour restrictions have definitely helped ensure that we at least get one day off per week. Honestly, it could be worse. The problem is that because we're all in a bubble, we often don't realize how much worse it could be- or that our former college classmates aren't on a constant vacation either. Medicine isn't the only career that requires a lot of effort. The stakes are higher, but we're not heroes. We don't stay up for 4 days in a row, we're not expected to operate on dying people on our first day, we have some backup.
The debt: there's a lot of it. If you're smart, it won't be some crushing number like 350k, but when you're in your 20s any number above 200 bucks can seem like insane amounts. Loan money is monopoly money until you realize just how much you have to pay back, and that's a bad day. What makes me live with it is the fact that 1) I've never heard of a board-certified doctor that can't pay his/her loans back, and 2) there are government systems, like income-based repayment and the public service loan forgiveness program (at least right now) that help with this whole mess. Some jobs even offer debt repayment as a benefit. The situation isn't as dire as it may seem.
Ultimately, it's about the attitude. What i found fascinating in med school is actually the fact that the vast majority of people i talked to were really happy. Even the pissy, complainy, difficult surgeons- most of them couldn't imagine themselves doing anything else. My biggest piece of advice is this- don't let other people make you feel like you're supposed to see things a certain way when you don't. If you're happy, and you're not stressed, and things are going pretty well- feel that way. I think there's this mob mentality in med school where everyone pretends they feel the same way about stuff because it's the easier thing to do. But what that does is that it creates this false sense to the outside world that "all med students"/"all doctors" are a certain way, and that just isn't true. Not all med students are miserable all the time, and it's ok if you're not. On the flipside, if everyone looks like they totally have it together and they're just coasting through school, it's ok to be the one person who feels like he/she is drowning- chances are at least some of those apparently happy people are lying. At base, medicine is a job, it won't be terrible every day and it won't be perfect every day, you just have to figure out whether it's the one thing you can imagine yourself doing. If it is, then you can make it work for yourself (not all specialties are created equal!).
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You have very little experience to be making such a presumptuous comment. Just wait, if you get into medical school and when you start doing rotations..14hr shifts at night time with a test the next day and you are stressed the **** out.
Its really easy for you Pre-Meds to be talking like you were made for healing..but there is not a single doctor that I have met that I know..truthfully is doing this career just out of being a good person. FULL OF S***.
Sorry, but I love helping people too..but just wait until you actually experience the lifestyle, the know it all patients, the stress, the horrible hours starting off and the constant sickness. Then come back here and tell everybody how this lifestyle was made for you.
I don't disagree with you, but I think to some extent it's a good thing to maintain the naivete as long as possible. I doubt I would have gone through with medicine had the salary been <100k because the investment- of time, money, energy, my 20s and my personal/social life- was enormous. But choosing a career, at least this one, can't purely be a rational decision I don't think. The numbers just don't add up. There's no amount of money that makes up for the fact that you spend your 20s in a library and in a hospital feeling like a *****. No amount of money that makes up for the fact that you pay handsomely for all that. It's easy for high schoolers to see themselves saving lives and being thanked by weeping families for their heroism because that's what's on tv. There's glamour and a certain romance to the idea of being worked to the limits of sanity and giving your life over to the job in lieu of a normal, balanced life with a spouse and kids and 8 hours of sleep a night. You don't realize until you're in the middle of it just how much you've sacrificed and how utterly un-glamorous it is.
On the other hand, I think you have to maintain that feeling of "this is the coolest thing ever" or you go nuts. You have to get a thrill at the idea of being called "doctor" for the first time, of walking around with the long white coat looking like you know what you're talking about, of having people stop what they're doing and saying "listen to the doctor" when you talk. If you lose that entirely, and if medicine truly just becomes a job, you realize that the numbers really don't add up, and the returns just don't come close to matching your investment, and that's a really tough realization. That's what ultimately makes you into the bitter attending that tells pre-meds to avoid medicine like the plague. Medicine may be 80-90% drudgery/ work/ whatever but I think you can't lose that 10% of "wow, I'm really doing this" or "wow I actually helped these people". That 10% is magic, it's what makes it feel like a "calling" or a personal crusade more than a career. I'm really a pragmatist at heart, if anything I tend toward the overly pessimistic, and I suspect residency is going to make me hate my life just like med school did. But even with all that, there are occasional moments of "wow, this is really freakin cool" that help me get through the day. I don't think it's fair to totally shut that down in pre-meds, they need it.
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I am an advocator for "shoot for the stars" but on the other hand..the amount of experience and lack of knowledge of what its really like on here..is tremendous.
People not only picking their medical schools out but they are picking their residencies, their specialties and now apparently know what its like to be a doctor
. Not that I truly care..but when you talk like you're on top of cloud 9 and somebody who has been through the dirt is listening to you..its hard not to pipe in. 
I always tell people to take it one step at a time, you can have big dreams and create a path that you think you would like to take. But in reality, you probably know jack **** about that path when it comes to lifestyle, stress, hours and probably even less about med school and what it takes to make it into that super competitive residency.
You want to spend 260k on all your education and dedicate your entire 20's for this profession, good on you. You want to kiss *** and volunteer at places you don't really care about so your resume looks good and you want to study for the MCAT like a dog, thats great. You want to make it into Medical school and then consume your entire life into studying and then a year later get entirely consumed by clinicals and rotations. Then work your ass off to pass your exams and get out of MS only to then hopefully get into the residency you want and kill yourself again with rotations and ridiculous hours. Then maybe get hired at a hospital after everything only to be looked down upon by patients who could be your dad or mom and then battle with their googled anatomy knowledge, deal with the stress of screwing up, seeing some crazy things (the first burn victim you will see ..will stay with you for a long time), work like a dog in a beehive where everybody is stressing out to only go home to relax but then be called in again to do it all over again.
You want kids, a family? Good luck, especially if you want to be a surgeon. Your next door neighbour, the lawyer who makes just as much as you with less hours..might be giving your wife some extra attention when you're gone.
That being said, its a lifestyle..same deal with nurses. If your heart isn't into it..well you probably won't make it or last long. Let time be the decider
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I don't want to become a doctor to help people. Honestly newbie, if I wanted to help people I would become a janitor.
I have spent several days shadowing (including on call nights to 6 AM). I'm also an EMR. I'm not trying to be a good person, I love my experiences as an EMR, and I love what doctors do. Being a doctor pays well and medical science is a fascinating topic. This isn't some "higher calling" for me, it's just a job that I wouldn't mind doing 80 hours per week. I love spending time with patients, learning about the science, and solving the problems which disease through at me and my coworkers.
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I don't want to become a doctor to help people. Honestly newbie, if I wanted to help people I would become a janitor.
I have spent several days shadowing (including on call nights past 6 AM). I'm also an EMR. I'm not trying to be a good person, I love my experiences as an EMR, and I love what doctors do. Being a doctor pays well and medical science is a fascinating topic. This isn't some "higher calling" for me, it's just a job that I wouldn't mind doing 80 hours per week. I love spending time with patients, learning about the science, and solving the problems which disease through at me and my coworkers.
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No one does a "career" just out of being a good person. Not even clergy meet that bar of motivation so there is no need to imply that this is a failing of any doctor. However, if what you more meaningfully are trying to say is that you've never met a physician whose primary passion for doing the job of a physician is a deep and strong interest in providing care to sick people, then, you too need to spend more time understanding folks and talking to them. Start in the global health department or try pediatric infectious disease specialists. A career encompasses many motivations, for more doctors than some might think, providing compassionate and skillful care to help people is one of the key ones.
Sick all the time? I admit that during a pediatric rotation a case or two of kiddy crud is common. Since my residency was completed, I've not had that happen though. Most URIs you'll get come from your own children, even in pediatrics.
Again, no "career" is perfect and it is not a human failing or motivational "fail" to choose careers based on more than "helping people". However, I believe that being a physician is more than just a "job" and after 30+ years of being one, continue to love the job and am grateful to those along the way who encouraged me. And yes, I continue to do 30 hour continuous NICU shifts.
Paying it forward, ya' know...
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people that are responding on here sound a little stressed out.
i will say that the first two years of medical school suck, especially for myself as i had no science background really. the learning curve was tremendous. i worked myself to the point of being sick by the time step 1 was over. im sure experiences will vary...
but 3rd and 4th year are awesome! the people who tell you otherwise are doing it wrong. i know this because i wasted the majority of my 3rd year being stressed out unnecessarily.
as it turns out the bar is set pretty low for medical students. on rotations all you have to really do is show up every day and learn. you're not going to make a mistake and kill anyone, you don't have any insurance to worry about, and someone's got your back...all you have to do is show up and learn. once you realize that it's very liberating.
as far as studying goes. i had an amazing surgeon tell me to study one hour a day, five days a week (on rotations, first and second year you study all the time). i figured if he made it as far as he did studying that much, so can i. and its worked out so far.
so any extra stress these 3rd and 4th years are putting on themselves is their own fault. frankly if i was to guess, its probably force of habit from the first two years. you're used to being stressed out all the time, so you convince yourself to be stressed even if there's no reason to be...
i will say that the first two years of medical school suck, especially for myself as i had no science background really. the learning curve was tremendous. i worked myself to the point of being sick by the time step 1 was over. im sure experiences will vary...
but 3rd and 4th year are awesome! the people who tell you otherwise are doing it wrong. i know this because i wasted the majority of my 3rd year being stressed out unnecessarily.
as it turns out the bar is set pretty low for medical students. on rotations all you have to really do is show up every day and learn. you're not going to make a mistake and kill anyone, you don't have any insurance to worry about, and someone's got your back...all you have to do is show up and learn. once you realize that it's very liberating.
as far as studying goes. i had an amazing surgeon tell me to study one hour a day, five days a week (on rotations, first and second year you study all the time). i figured if he made it as far as he did studying that much, so can i. and its worked out so far.
so any extra stress these 3rd and 4th years are putting on themselves is their own fault. frankly if i was to guess, its probably force of habit from the first two years. you're used to being stressed out all the time, so you convince yourself to be stressed even if there's no reason to be...
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Hey, I really love this post!
I think having had a parent who always worked, at least a few significant others who did not care about you as much as you cared about them, and a realization that it's okay to break the cycle of stress and emptiness really pushes you to consider lifestyle.
It should depend on how much you care about your other outside passions other than your career.
For example, my parent only likes seeing her bank account balance rise, watching tasteless TV shows, eating the free junk food at her workplace, and having health insurance, so her career fulfilled her desires perfectly.
By the way nysegop, I thought calling someone "newbie" was pretty unnecessary.
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I don't want to become a doctor to help people. Honestly newbie, if I wanted to help people I would become a janitor.
I have spent several days shadowing (including on call nights past 6 AM). I'm also an EMR. I'm not trying to be a good person, I love my experiences as an EMR, and I love what doctors do. Being a doctor pays well and medical science is a fascinating topic. This isn't some "higher calling" for me, it's just a job that I wouldn't mind doing 80 hours per week. I love spending time with patients, learning about the science, and solving the problems which disease through at me and my coworkers.
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This is just my two cents.
I think people who want to become doctors have diverse reasons. Some just want it, they love the challenge, the rush. Some are attracted to the paycheck, some enjoy the authority, some want to become doctors for the cliche reason: wanting to help people, wanting to put others' lives in their hands. Me and medicine are in a rocky relationship, some days I don't think medicine is right for me and back out giving someone else a chance. Becoming a doctor needs mental and physical participation. Right now I'm lacking both. I'm trying to gain awareness into the medical field and make sure if medicine is something I really want to do. It's dangerous get ahead of yourself, and start assuming that medicine is your true calling, having doubts is completely normal. If one decides not to become a doctor, that's completely fine, not everyone can become doctors. From a pre-vettie side of things, becoming a veterinarian is long and hard and takes a lot from a person. Veterinarians are often looked down by many and it sucks. Veterinarians are the coolest people I've ever met, they really enjoy what they do and everyday is a blessing to them. Personally I think that the road becoming doctors is the horrible part, going to medical/veterinary school is what scares people the most. Also, I don't really like this question, "why do people chooses to be doctors if it is so horrible?" Ask anyone that are not doctors and ask them the same question. Why do people choose to become teachers if it is so horrible? Why do people choose become lawyers if it is so horrible? Why do people choose become mothers if it so horrible? Why do people choose to be nurses if it is so horrible? Not everyone can become teachers, lawyers, nurses etc. I know some user said to listen to the positive things, which is absolutely right. I strongly believe careers are a calling, do something that'll make you excited, then it won't be as horrible. If you're complaining about how horrible something is, then what's the point?
I think people who want to become doctors have diverse reasons. Some just want it, they love the challenge, the rush. Some are attracted to the paycheck, some enjoy the authority, some want to become doctors for the cliche reason: wanting to help people, wanting to put others' lives in their hands. Me and medicine are in a rocky relationship, some days I don't think medicine is right for me and back out giving someone else a chance. Becoming a doctor needs mental and physical participation. Right now I'm lacking both. I'm trying to gain awareness into the medical field and make sure if medicine is something I really want to do. It's dangerous get ahead of yourself, and start assuming that medicine is your true calling, having doubts is completely normal. If one decides not to become a doctor, that's completely fine, not everyone can become doctors. From a pre-vettie side of things, becoming a veterinarian is long and hard and takes a lot from a person. Veterinarians are often looked down by many and it sucks. Veterinarians are the coolest people I've ever met, they really enjoy what they do and everyday is a blessing to them. Personally I think that the road becoming doctors is the horrible part, going to medical/veterinary school is what scares people the most. Also, I don't really like this question, "why do people chooses to be doctors if it is so horrible?" Ask anyone that are not doctors and ask them the same question. Why do people choose to become teachers if it is so horrible? Why do people choose become lawyers if it is so horrible? Why do people choose become mothers if it so horrible? Why do people choose to be nurses if it is so horrible? Not everyone can become teachers, lawyers, nurses etc. I know some user said to listen to the positive things, which is absolutely right. I strongly believe careers are a calling, do something that'll make you excited, then it won't be as horrible. If you're complaining about how horrible something is, then what's the point?
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No one does a "career" just out of being a good person. Not even clergy meet that bar of motivation so there is no need to imply that this is a failing of any doctor. However, if what you more meaningfully are trying to say is that you've never met a physician whose primary passion for doing the job of a physician is a deep and strong interest in providing care to sick people, then, you too need to spend more time understanding folks and talking to them. Start in the global health department or try pediatric infectious disease specialists. A career encompasses many motivations, for more doctors than some might think, providing compassionate and skillful care to help people is one of the key ones.
Sick all the time? I admit that during a pediatric rotation a case or two of kiddy crud is common. Since my residency was completed, I've not had that happen though. Most URIs you'll get come from your own children, even in pediatrics.
Again, no "career" is perfect and it is not a human failing or motivational "fail" to choose careers based on more than "helping people". However, I believe that being a physician is more than just a "job" and after 30+ years of being one, continue to love the job and am grateful to those along the way who encouraged me. And yes, I continue to do 30 hour continuous NICU shifts.
Paying it forward, ya' know...
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I'm sure you meant to type something else. But I just wanted to say that I have now spent the last half hour thinking about having a person at the center of an EMR with their brain plugged in matrix style but aware of what they were doing. I think that could seriously improve any EMR! Like intelligent alerts, rather than flagging vanc every single time it is adjusted, if the patient has been on it for days with ID approval and you are just changing the dose you wouldn't get a new flag. Or intelligent critical alert flags. Or smarter searches when you are trying to find an order.
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EMR = Emergency Medical Responder
I'm talking about the job (well...volunteer position).
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It's about the Benjamins.
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Obviously it's not horrible in everyone's eyes.
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It's all based on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, you either want to do it and motivate your self, or you let money or prestige motivate you. I will say that even some of the most respected docs did not bust their @$$ to go to med school just so that they could help people. A lot of the motivation comes from money and high status. Then again there might be some people who say 80 hour work weeks and 260k debt is worth it because they like to "help" people. I honestly think people use "helping others" to cover up their other extrinsic motivations. Why wouldn't they when med school look for people like that?
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