Med School: What would you do??

Medical school can be as hard or as easy as you want it to be. As it turns out, most schools don't want their students to fail or drop out, as having that fate frequently befall their students makes it more difficult to attract good candidates in their admissions pools. Consequently, you have to REALLY screw around to fail out. The biggest obstacles actually turn out to be the board exams, but even those can be surmounted without too much trouble provided you have a good memory and possess some degree of proficiency at taking multiple choice exams.

Though I did not train for running during school, I most certainly could have. Finding two hours a day for running would not have posed much of a problem, despite the fact that I loaded myself with extracurricular responsibilities (class presidency) and studied more than most of my classmates. You would just need to get creative with your workout scheduling, especially during the clinical years (3rd and 4th).

The biggest problem you might face is that med school is competitive, and as a runner I'm sure you have a significant competitive streak. If you're gunning for the highest grade in the class, you will find yourself less able to run or enjoy other pursuits outside of school; additionally, you'll expose yourself to more of the 'unhealthy burdens' to which other posters have alluded. That being said, I was able to finish #1 in my class at a top five med school without any nervous breakdowns. I also found that my running background actually provided me with a greater understanding of the term HARD WORK. When everybody else was dicking around watching TV or drinking at local bars, I was able to focus on the tasks at hand and learn how to be a better doctor; I owe much of that assiduousness to my experiences as a collegiate runner.

Anyhow, Potential Doc, you'll do fine if you proceed with medicine. Running will help you survive med school more than you can imagine, whether it's because of the skills running has taught you or because of the welcome break running provides in an otherwise monotonous schedule of studying and working in the hospital. Good luck!

Thank you so much to everyone who has helped so far, especially recent MD grad.

I'm actually not too worried about fitting the running part into my lifestyle if I go to med school. While running is (and has been, and will always be) an important part of my life, I certainly don't want to let that limit or interfere with my potential career choice.

My main concerns lie with simply being able to complete the undergrad requirements and get INTO medical school before I'm old and gray, which I have to admit, seems like a really tough thing to do from my position at this point, not having taken the chem/physics stuff, and not having done any type of shadowing, etc.

Any more advice is certainly welcome!!

i have literally just graduated from my surgical residency (the next step for "recent md grad), and feel like i need to throw my 2 cents in here. please, please, please do not be dissuaded by comments made by people like jaguar. if you feel the calling to go into medicine then do it! for that matter, if you feel called to be a garbage man then let nothing stop you! and as for the comment made that all the fratboy assholes are the ones who eventually become the physicians, that is completely false. those guys washout long before med school begins the friendships you make with your classmates (and especially your residency classmates) will be lifelong. despite all the shortcomings involved in medicibne, it is extremely rewarding. there is something for everyone- from psych to surgery. you'll find that becoming a proficient physician requires the same fortitude and dedicationthat you tapped in you pursuit of excellence on the track. already accept that you'll be up to your ass in debt when all is said and done. that's just part of it. and of course, no doubt you'll have your stretches of sleep deprivation. be encouaged, however, that time management is of the utmost of importance during med school- get used to that now. be prepared to really put your nose to the grindstone when need be- but also know that there are some good times in school as well. the comment made about the compulsoive college premed girls cracked me up- yes, they become the girls who give it up in the class- thatb hit the nail right on the head. fortunately, i made time to stay very fit during my last 9 years of training (med school and residency), and regardng full out fitness, am possibly in better shape than i have ever been. you'll find that working out will relieve quite a bit of the stress you'll encounter (along with those miogynistic former premed girls). best of luck. trust what's in your heart. you'll make the right decision.

[quote]vegard the viking wrote:

please, please, please do not be dissuaded by comments made by people like jaguar. [quote]

I don't mean to dissuade or discourage the original poster but simply to point out that he/she should completely check it out before making the decision. If he/she has aspirations of reaching their full potential and competing at a high level in running, he/she may want to hold off on attending medical school to commit the necessary time and energy towards running.

jaguar, sometimes i get the same impression, though i must say that caroline doesn't give that impression (or course she's a special gal though :). as i'm leaning this way myself, i suppose i need to sit down and ask her a few more questions. perhaps you could coerce her to visit this thread for the betterment of all of us?

dude-

jaguar1 wrote:

[quote]vegard the viking wrote:

please, please, please do not be dissuaded by comments made by people like jaguar. [quote]

I don't mean to dissuade or discourage the original poster but simply to point out that he/she should completely check it out before making the decision. If he/she has aspirations of reaching their full potential and competing at a high level in running, he/she may want to hold off on attending medical school to commit the necessary time and energy towards running.

Like I said, I know I'm not anywhere near even close to being able to make a living with my running or anything, and honestly would not mind having to put running on the backburner for a while if that meant achieving my goals with regard to med school.

could a daily short run in the AM and a 2 hour PM workouts fit into the schedule of those in med school/ residency? can top notch training be done if one is only focusing on med school or residency and running?

somerandomdude wrote:

jaguar, sometimes i get the same impression, though i must say that caroline doesn't give that impression (or course she's a special gal though :).

Close, but not quite. Take another guess!

The general advice related to medicine, and medical school, is that you can do two things well -- any two things. If you want to run competitively and ace your med school coursework and rotations, you can very well do that; but you should anticipate that your social life will suffer, etc.

The main obstacle to running in med school and beyond is that your schedule becomes largely uncontrollable after your second year of school. If you're on call every fourth night, obviously you won't be able to run every day, much less get in two-a-day workouts. However, if you're flexible and creative, you can still maintain fitness and perform reasonably well.

Also, medicine can afford you an awesome lifestyle for running once you have concluded your schooling and residency, provided you choose from amongst a select few specialties. For instance, if you were to do dermatology (which is what my girlfriend is doing -- clearly the smart one amongst the two of us), you could work roughly 30 hours a week and make over $300K per year. No call, no weekends. Not too shabby! The residency training isn't very intense either -- probably 40-50 hours per week in the hospital, which is still very conducive to training.

Basically you're looking at missing out on *optimum* training for a period of 5-10 years. If you're not a Ritz or a Webb, though, it's a wise sacrifice to make. And of course, if you prioritize running throughout the process, you can easily maintain solid training all the way through. It just depends on what's important to you.

certainly very sound advice from the above poster. i would throw anaesthesiology into the mix as well when speaking about excellent inmcome with plenty of training time.

"could a daily short run in the AM and a 2 hour PM workouts fit into the schedule of those in med school/ residency? can top notch training be done if one is only focusing on med school or residency and running?"

- definetly possible the first 2 years of med school. feasible during some months of your clinical rotations in your 3rd year- coubnt it out for internal medicine, surgery, and probabl;y OB. 4th year is a cake walk- you can train 3 x a day if you so desire...

recent MD grad...you have made my day! thank you so much for the info. i am considering dermatology seriously now, but i have a question on radiology. if you could provide a few comparison on basically everything you said about dermatology (work, pay, call, weekends, residency hours, training effect). i had narrowed my mind on radiology but dermatology may be the way to go.

i am only a junior in high school but have a 4.0 and 99 percentiles SAT/ACT, nat'l merit, etc. and have what my family calls "scary" dedication and desire so i think i'd be a good fit for the long haul of medicine. i like school, love to run and am in favor of high mileage, and want to live a good life and still continue a high level of training. i definitely can't be a surgeon or anything like that as i'm kinda OCD about some things and that type of stuff is one of those...however, i don't mind doing whatever i must do during the clinicals and rounds, for the prize at the end of the road is worth is. i don't mind sacrificing some social life either to train and work.

if you don't mind my asking, what specialty did you choose?

i have heard negative things about working in anastesia (mainly the threat of being sued and such). would it be a better field than radiology though?

Interesting-I was in the same position about 10 years ago. I was in 3rd year exercise science and realized I wanted to do medicine. At the time I was also doing university track and cross. Similarly, I needed a bunch of pre-requisites for the Canadian med schools (physics, organic chem, and biochem). I had to take physics part-time in the summer before 4th year, which was a drag but in the long-term it was worth doing the extra work. I also hung out in the hospitals a bit-it's important to see if you actually like the environment that you'll be working in. It took me a couple tries to get accepted into med, but I was able to do "fifth year" to do a few more courses, finish up my cross eligibilty and realize that medicine was what I wanted to do. I agree with recent MD grad-the hard part in med school is getting in-at least in Canada med school spots were tightly controlled until a few years ago when a doctor shortage began. Good point to regarding running helping med school-a few of my classmates couldn't believe I would bolt after 8 hours of classes and go for a 10-miler, but it also kept the stress down and helped a lot with time management. Not that I was tops in the class, but I managed to graduate honours and do a family medicine residency. Through med school, despite putting running on the back burner I was still able to keep in reasonable shape (33 min 10K)only a couple minutes off my PB. On the whole, I like what I do now (practice family medicine with sports medicine) and I do OK financially and if I had the choice, would do the exact same thing again.

Good luck.

How did some of you folks ultimately decide to go into medicine (not looking for an epiphany, just the major factors that went into your decision)? Did you ever consider any other paths? Do you think someone who enjoys biology but not the hospital/ER environment should stay away from medicine (or perhaps just find a more appropriate specialty?)?

and any info on radiology in comparison to the aforementioned anastesiology and dermatology.

If your ever going to do it, Now's the time. Go for it ! You wo'nt regret it... You've positioned yourself for a great opportunity that not many have.

If you want to practice medicine, have a life, still be able to run and be a part of one of the fastest growing professions in the country then check out Physician Asst

tsmallz --

I would suggest at your stage of the game that you just focus on medicine as a grand picture, and leave the specialty details as something to be worked out later. Of course there are some folks who 'know' before they start exactly what they want to do, but the majority of them end up changing their minds along the way. I just knew I was going to do orthopaedics, for example, but switched to neurosurgery when I decided that ortho -- for me -- would be about as exciting as putting together a desk several times a day for the rest of my life.

Regarding radiology, though, vegard the viking already summed it up fairly well -- great pay, flexible hours, and as much or as little call as you want. Unfortunately the thing about radiology that's so great -- the ability to do the job from anywhere, at any time, via computer -- is the same thing that makes it risky. Even if humans always continue to read films (and not some computer algorithm) the chance remains that film reading could become commoditized such that it's performed by the lowest qualified bidder anywhere in the world. It's already started to happen to a small extent, as Massachusetts General Hospital (a/w Harvard) several years ago began farming out some of their films to 'subcontractors' in India. Such developments make me fear for the job security of American radiologists in the future. Also, interventional radiology is a field pioneered by the radiologists, but which is being taken over gradually by surgeons. Vascular surgery and neurosurgery have made inroads into the most profitable interventional radiology procedures, and the trend seems likely to continue b/c surgeons will always control the referral base.

Anyhow, these are details you can learn about later. For now, just focus on doing well in college. Go to the best school you can (it matters for med school admissions -- I had a difficult time getting admitted out of a state school despite a 4.0 GPA and a 37 on the MCAT) and do well in classes. However, DO NOT shut yourself in your room and study all the time; the college years are unique, and not to be missed. Enjoy yourself, run hard and run a lot, and don't leave with any regrets.

Oh, and as for the OCD thing and surgery -- I used to be the same way. When I was in high school I used to have nightmares about contracting HIV from a syringe that somebody had poked up through the cushion of a theater seat. The funny thing is, you might just get over it. I've been stuck twice with needles while in school, and I've taken the antiviral prophylaxis as I was supposed to do, and lo and behold I'm fine. The fact is that if you're careful about things, occupational exposures are EXCEEDINGLY unlikely to result in the contraction of any serious illnesses -- especially since the advent and widespread employment of the Hepatitis B vaccine. So don't worry about it! And good luck.

vegard the viking is not a real doctor. maybe a PA or CNA