Is becoming a doctor worth the sacrifice?

It's astonishingly hard, and considering my dad was a doctor, I know that you have to go through 8 years of torture and very little pay(My dad worked 3 days straight once) and then you have to work like 15 days a month 12 hours day(for a lot of pay). Follow your heart man. All I can say

no, my cousin is a doctor and although he has only been doing it for about a year and a half he has no life. This year he was only able to come home on christmas day and stayed less than 24 hours before going back to work.

First year Med school.

I'm hoping it is.

Bio is a lot of memorizing. Med school is better. More problem solving. Discussion. Etc. Take some symptoms figure out what is wrong. A less glorified House. But I guess the school you go to makes a difference.

Don't worry about the time. Your going to spend it doing something, may as well be school.

Ran all through my undergrad. Still running. School now isn't too busy. Clerkship and Residency will be worth but I have friends who have gone through both and still enjoyed it all.

It's up to you. Think where you want to be in ten years. If you want to do you will be fine and will enjoy it. If you are there to fulfill someone else's expectations then you should find something different.

But man I love Med school and don't want to be anywhere else.

Sacrifice?

What are you sacrificing? Running? Going out and getting drunk?

Look, society is filled with perpetual teenagers who don't want to grow up and do real work.

Being a doctor is hard. So is being a lawyer. Or working on Wall St. Or having any job. And that's all predicated on if you want to actually work, and not just play all day.

I'm finishing my residency now. During this past year I've taken 4 1-week vacations, seen a dozen MLB games in person, 1 NFL game, been to the ballet, the opera, and watched a handful of movies. I go to a happy hour once a month, eat a nice restaurant twice a month.

And in between I help people who are sick, save some lives (and can't save others), work with intelligent people and get to use cutting edge technology. I work my ass off, but next year they'll pay me a quarter million dollars to work less than I do now.

Stay away if you want. I want colleagues who want to work hard - not waste their lives.

Yes,It's worth it to me.

I was a chemistry and math major in undergrad at a lower tier small state school. You don't have to be in a "prestigious" school.

But, it takes up a tremendous amount of time. While your undergraduate buddies are working, making money and enjoying their extended adolescence, you will be acquiring debt. The most time consuming part is post graduate training (residency).

I would perhaps have enjoyed either engineering or chemistry. I would have done a graduate degree for those fields also though. Any advanced field requires more than a 40 hour, 9-5 effort.

I wouldn't trade with anyone. I've been a practicing anesthesiologist for 15 yrs. (Shit, that made me feel old)

I run 20-60 miles/wk throughout the year. I did not run in med school/residency. I'm sure plenty of people here did.

Don't you wish you had a crystal ball to see how it would turn out with each decision? Good luck

For me, I couldn't do it. I know this because I'm not passionate about the field, nor do I want to be in a job where I'm at least somewhat responsible for someone's health/well-being - that's too much stress to deal with on a routine basis.

First, I'd ask if you are passionate about being empowered to truly help people. If you are, that's a great first step. Second, are you willing to be in serious financial debt right out of med school? That's another big consideration.

More power to those that choose the profession. I have the utmost respect for them. Good luck.

I think you're somewhat exaggerating my point. Yes, to some degree I would like to continue to go out occasionally and run/do some sort of other exercise 1 hour a day, while getting a reasonable amount of sleep each night (6-8 hrs). Obviously I am willing to make working the major component of my life.

I realize there are no shortcuts, you must work to become successful and competent in ANY profession. Perhaps I should have made myself a bit clearer. From what I have noticed, at least at the undergraduate level, is that pre-meds tend to be pretty competitive and stressed out, more so than other majors. I imagine this trend continues throughout the profession to a certain degree, but of course I am not completely sure since I have not yet done it.

What initially drew me to medicine was its scientific competent, and the whole "detective" style work of getting a problem and fixing it. The money and status are added bonuses, but not really the reason I decided to pursue it. It's just something I think I would be good at, but currently the main things that are turning me off from doing it are:

1) The large amount of memorization I will have to do in medical school (from what I have heard).

2) The long, sometimes unreasonable amount of working hours (especially as a resident). I have heard plenty of stories of 36 hour shifts.

3) Maybe this is just because I go to a top 10 school, but the simple fact that most of the pre-meds I know are pretty crazy and not the type of people I like to associate myself with outside of class (or even in class, for that matter).

I am also definitely interested in helping others and am willing to be in serious financial debt. Money is not that important to me right now.

It may not be that important now, but $150+k is a heck of a hole to be in before you even have a job. Just my two cents.

I'm not trying to dissuade you from medicine at all, however I would suggest you consider biomedical engineering combined with business if you are looking for something medical/sciency that requires lots of problem solving and has the potential to pay well. Some schools offer joint programs between biomed eng. and business.

http://biome.wisc.edu/

If you consider all of that a sacrifice then why bother. I want to go to med school because I look forward to everything you just rattled off. I'm not in med school yet but I assume that once I am I will still have time for a life outside of school but the party aspect of life will be toned down substantially.

[

1) The large amount of memorization I will have to do in medical school (from what I have heard).

2) The long, sometimes unreasonable amount of working hours (especially as a resident). I have heard plenty of stories of 36 hour shifts.

3) Maybe this is just because I go to a top 10 school, but the simple fact that most of the pre-meds I know are pretty crazy and not the type of people I like to associate myself with outside of class (or even in class, for that matter).[/quote]

1) unfortunately, Yes

2) I will be doing a 76 hour shift this weekend, all in-house

3)yes, many (not all) of your colleagues will be compulsive, competitive and socially retarded.

no

it's a shit job with little/no intellectual satisfaction, but the money is not too bad, but not sufficient recompense

no matter how many good investigations/diagnoses/treatments you make, it's not unlikely a 1/2 decent colleage wouda also have made those, & most of your "good" actions are outlined in algorithmic handbooks

& worry is of course any complaint which coud kill your career

it's a perfunctory profession, but not in retrospect wasting all of your 20s to be financially rewarded in later life - workload is still horrendous & the same type from age 30 - 65y

you have to consider :

intellectual satisfaction + possibly low money

v

no intellectual satisfaction + good money + perpetual horrendous workload aet 20 to 65 + 1 step from oblivion from even vexatious complaint

make your choice...

( 25y post-grad )

No, I'm M2 and I already want out. The government is going to crush what little is left of our profession. Obama considers us servants who can be chopped up and shit on for the good of society. It's going to get worse. They will force us to accept Medicare soon.

Please do tell what elite school are you attending.

ventolin^3 wrote:

no

it's a shit job with little/no intellectual satisfaction, but the money is not too bad, but not sufficient recompense

no matter how many good investigations/diagnoses/treatments you make, it's not unlikely a 1/2 decent colleage wouda also have made those, & most of your "good" actions are outlined in algorithmic handbooks

& worry is of course any complaint which coud kill your career

it's a perfunctory profession, but not in retrospect wasting all of your 20s to be financially rewarded in later life - workload is still horrendous & the same type from age 30 - 65y

you have to consider :

intellectual satisfaction + possibly low money

v

no intellectual satisfaction + good money + perpetual horrendous workload aet 20 to 65 + 1 step from oblivion from even vexatious complaint

make your choice...

( 25y post-grad )

Ventolin^3 thanks for bringing up this point... I really am searching for a job with intellectual satisfaction, and like I said money is not the #1 priority. I just want to make enough to live comfortably in a decent area.

Just out of curiosity ventolin^3, are you currently a physician or just giving your opinion from an outsiders point of view?

Over here GP's get £100k for a 40 hr wk

Any tricky cases are referred - not that bad considering they were earning half this 10 years ago

pre-med dude wrote:

I really am searching for a job with intellectual satisfaction, and like I said money is not the #1 priority. I just want to make enough to live comfortably in a decent area.

I'd consider a medical field that doesn't require residency, such as optometry or dentistry. You don't make as much, but you'll be working sooner, the time commitment is less, and the occupation is less stressful. I'm not one myself, but a close friend is a dentist and my bro is an eye doctor. They live pretty chill lives and have plenty of time to do what they love.

mlj wrote:

I'd consider a medical field that doesn't require residency, such as optometry or dentistry. You don't make as much, but you'll be working sooner, the time commitment is less, and the occupation is less stressful. I'm not one myself, but a close friend is a dentist and my bro is an eye doctor. They live pretty chill lives and have plenty of time to do what they love.

In dentistry you can make as much money as a family care physician right out of school. If you choose to specialize and do some cosmetic surgery, or even just orthodontics, you can make as much money as any doctor.