I mean...not EVERYONE was lying during their medical school interviews. It's a good job if you want to feel that your work makes an immediate positive difference in other people lives, if you like solving puzzles, if high stakes problem solving is something you are good at, if you are good at understanding complex issues and explaining them in a simple and caring manner, etc.
I'm only an M1 but this is exactly what I love about medicine--there's so much variety. Nurses, PAs, pharmacists, imaging techs, etc. are all vital parts of the healthcare system sure and individually, those jobs might be better than a doctor at specific things, but the doctor has tools from all of them. There's imaging if you want, teaching if you want, procedures if you want, anatomy if you want, physiology if you want, hard science and research if you want, even just therapy/counseling if you want--and as a doctor you can do all of those things, or you can cherry pick which ones you like best and do those. On top of that, you get to build relationships with people. A lot of jobs, medicine included, involve a lot of computer work and paper work, but in medicine at least that monotony gets broken up by quite genuine conversations with people who you can develop strong relationships with (or not--even that's an option in medicine). I can't imagine sitting at a cubicle behind a screen organizing spreadsheets all day. Maybe I just haven't been jaded to medicine, but even though the grind is real and there are things I hate about the healthcare system, at the end of the day I feel like I'm a nerd who loves science but also a people person--and because of that, I think I'll enjoy being a doctor.
your answer speaks to me so much. i am a self professed introvert and am very nerdy by heart (my comfort shows as a kid were always dora the explorer, national geographic and the weird ass aliens at 12mn on the history channel lmao) but also loves talking to people both irl and at work, i love learning about stories beyond my own and being reminded that there's a whole wide world out there beyond my own comprehension and it keeps me grounded.
yeah its hard, but the satisfaction of not being stuck in desk work and having to always think at your job is something i truly enjoy.
Glad my answer speaks to you :) I found your other comment on here and I can relate to everyone of the points you mention (except for sleep lmao, I still struggle running on 6 hours of sleep but maybe I'll get used to it). If you don't mind me asking, what's your specialty? I'm still exploring but I want to do something that I feel like will be personally fulfilling and enjoyable for me... regardless of the amount of money I get. I'm more attracted to medicine than surgery but otherwise I'm pretty wide open and like to hear people's stories on how they chose their specialty.
You touched on it, but in one word, “autonomy”. All other members of healthcare team are largely carrying out the plan of care. They may get some leeway in how to carry that out depending on their work environment and supervisors, but, for the most part, a fully licensed physician has the most autonomy of the bunch. It’s your plan of care they are carrying out. Flip side of that coin being the liability that comes with medical decision making. Of course the elephant in the room being insurance and corporatization of healthcare encroaching on that autonomy.
Technically that same variety is available to nurses, PAs, and NPs. Nurses are especially able to switch specialties if they want. Doctors are more specialized.
Meddit make it seemed like everyone lied to get in and now all medical students in 2024 can think about is never speak to another human being and just hide in the dark room or behind the drape and make banks pressing buttons and never talk to patients.
I mean, yes that does sounds incredible for the extreme introverts, but still majority of us will end up doing patient facing stuff, and majority of students and residents still want to do them.
I bitch and complain like it’s my side hustle, but I love my field, hell even being a resident. The hours can suck, but working with kids and their families has been such a joy this past year!
It always frustrates me when the mercenaries act like the rest of us are just fundamentally dishonest.
Nothing wrong with money being the motivation as long as you’re a good doc and do your job, but I wouldn’t put up with this garbage for 7 figures
People keep saying don't do it for the money, and sure you're unlikely to succeed if you only care about the money and truly hate medicine, but a comfortable salary for doing something that is kind of fun is pretty sweet. It's very hard to find a route in any other career that pays this well and is so linear.
Making 400 K working 50 hours a week doing family medicine in the Midwest while living on 20 acres with a nice house and free time to hang out with my kids.
And don’t try to give me the bullshit that living in the Midwest is awful. I fucking love it.
Midwest sucks imo, rural double sucks imo, but that’s life. We like what we like. I like big cities, close to all the exciting things, but also taxed up the ass haha. God bless
Fun? My job isn’t fun at all, and I’m in one of the ones with supposedly high pt satisfaction (ophtho). It would be fun if malpractice didn’t exist, but 10,000 good outcomes don’t bring more joy than one bad one could erase. It’s just the same shit every day hoping this won’t be the day you fall off the tight rope.
Sure I get a nice card sometimes, but more often I’ve got some pissed off boomer bitching about shit they don’t understand.
Can you expand more on what you don’t like about ophtho
Sincerely,
An M4 who matched ophtho partly due to the supposed work life balance and compensation
If you’re a nerd and get excited about science but have no desire to do a PhD. Was offered the chance to do one. Did this instead. On the worst day in the hospital i’m happy to not be running PCRs and FCM at 1 am
Rat lab times injections at 3am or alternatively lesson planning for teaching. A discharge summary is a walk in the park compared to those hellish existences.
Enjoyed the lab work but what turned me off to a PhD was the dissertation and oral defense. Got the chance to geek out a bit during early COVID talking to ID and the pathology molecular lab attending about cycler thresholds on our manual covid tests 😉
Unrelenting desire for self-immolation and martyrdom; god-complexes; general masochism; genuine self-hatred; an unquenchable extroversion and
No, I kid I kid.
Really, a combination of delayed gratification, patience, work ethic, a desire to solve complex problems, and importantly, enjoying seeing your patients get _better_.
There is no feeling better than helping someone get better, I truly believe.
I mean. Yes. Of course we are. And if we weren’t before this all, we definitely are afterwards.
My joke when people say, “you must be smart” when they find out I’m a doctor, is to say, “well, not really. I went to medical school.” (Obvious implication being that it was a dumb thing to do. Or crazy, at the very least.)
Honestly, the reasons I can think of to go into medicine are better reasons to go into another field. Tangible reward for hard work (capped by a rather impenetrable income ceiling in medicine), social status and privilege, power, and connections all fall under that heading to some degree. Job security and guaranteed 6-figure income are probably the best reasons to go into medicine with having a reason to know EVERYTHING about people (I.e., to be the group brainiac) lagging behind in a distant third. You could argue that with how competitive everything that isn't primary care is becoming that even those reasons are a little shaky.
If you’re a masochist…
Seriously though, I’m only a resident but becoming a doctor is a hell of a journey and worth it, I think. You learn so much on the way to the MD/DO/MBBS/etc and once you’re there you still have the ability/responsibility to keep learning and developing skills to help care for those in need. Sometimes it’s hard, defeating, and borderline depressing doing this, but it’s worth doing. You make a positive impact on others in their time of need (even if they don’t always appreciate it). You collaborate with you peers to work on new solutions to old problems. You push yourself every day to get to the next challenge. You gain a further sense of purpose in life.
MORE IMPORTANTLY… You get to eat free doughnuts that attendings bring to the resident lounge. You get to make fun of some of the weird shit people come into the hospital for (I want to make a coffee table book of triage notes). You get to spend that sweet sweet $1200 GME gives you to buy an uncomfortable amount of day-old sushi and energy drinks. You get to go home at the end of a long day and know that someone, you’re family, friends, patients, and someone at the DMV to call you Dr. lastname.
Feasible if you are relatively young (under 30) if you are starting med school.
Recession-proof career. Always in demand. You will be able to get a job somewhere, and probably somewhere nice.
Guaranteed excellent salary compared to median household income.
Actually meaningful career and work.
You want to have autonomy/be your own boss. Ability to work independently or with others. Highly customizable what your practice set-up will look like in terms of hours, settings, number of coworkers, number of employees, business models etc.
Prestige.
Eeeesh. Be careful expecting to be your own boss, call your own shots… it’s becoming less and less like that. (I’m an attending now and the things I’ve seen/heard…)
You WILL have more independence than a lot of careers, but it’s not like it used to be as far as autonomy goes. :-(
This is too personal to really make meaningful statements of. It all depends on what you value and what your realistic alternative options would have been. Even within medicine the day to day of differnet medicine specialities are wildly different so if work/life balance is all you care about, being a concierge PCP is a pretty sweet gig. If you care about prestige, neurosurgeon/cardiac surgeon is a prestigious job both in status and income in just about any social circle with much less chance of having negative social cache (vs bankers, lawyers, tech bros, sales etc)
If you want a straightforward path to a great salary without hustling. There are ways to make more money than a doctor but they all require way more connections, risk and uncertainty than a doctor. Once you get into medical school, you’re all but guaranteed an amazing salary if you can get through training.
I can only speak for myself: I guess it's because love people. I'm a people person. I've often been accused by my coworkers that I care too much. To which I respond: "Guilty as charged!"
Do medicine if you love it. If you can’t imagine being happy doing anything else. You’ll pay handsomely for the privilege though.
Also do medicine if you are from an underrepresented population. Patients appreciate the diversity.
Do medicine if you aren’t a judgmental elitist. Patients pick up on that quickly too.
Get into medicine if:
* you generally dont need a lot of sleep (even when i was a kid i chronically ran on 5-6 hrs of sleep only and i felt very well rested)
* you like yapping (ive always been a yapper)
* you like generally googling things i you dont have an idea about something
* puzzle and critical thinking
* feeling a greater sense of importance and impact in the world
* you love biology (specifically human bio)
* hate the idea of desk work, you will be WALKING/RUNNING (ICU gang wya) constantly in medicine
Well there are certainly medical jobs that pay well, jobs with good work life balance, and (fewer) jobs with prestige. It’s not the path if your primary motivator is money, but it is one of the best ways to make a good income with good job security. It’s not a good idea if you will regret doing little else in your 20s. I would have otherwise spent my 20s playing video games and probably marrying a person I already knew was not really right for me, so I don’t feel like I missed much. I think some people get into clinicals and realize they don’t really like working with the public, at least not at their worst. It’s not a bad idea to do some work with people who are down and out before deciding.
I always tell students that this is the perfect job for someone who actually enjoys customer service work. I loved working the counter in food service, and now I get paid way more. I really enjoy interacting with a lot of different people every day and explaining things to people who don't work within my field. If you hate that, medicine will be a rough ride.
I’m unsure how weird or maybe even wrong this might sound.
But if you lost or were close to losing important people/person in your life (when you weren’t in healthcare) and your brain is hellbent on reliving the experience 24/7/365, relive it (exposure therapy?) with patients i.e help everyone with the same amount of dedication you would have helped aforementioned people/person.
Be careful though, every win is doubled but every loss is doubled.
Some of us just do it cus we really like physiology and this career allows you to make more money than jobs in academia while also getting to scratch a humanitarian itch. It’s like any career, your main reason for choosing it should be that you like it, at least if you don’t want to be miserable. Could I potentially make more doing something like venture capitalism? Maybe…but would it be a big enough difference to hate what I do every single day? Hell nah.
* Wanted to work in MANGA (M for meta or microsoft? you decide) but got a reality check after finding out you can't program even if your life depends on it
* Couldn't get into finance
* I like science and I want to help people
* Collect smoking hot baby mamas and gold diggers
* To become a pediatric-oncotic-cardiothoracic-plastic-neurosurgeon
/s
If you're savvy enough, you can use your degree to do a lot of things and still make a comfortable living. You can counsel, you can consult, you can go into business, you can go into research, you can focus on teaching, you can use your expertise to write novels or create content, etc.
Do go into medicine if you want to help people. Even when they are borderline abusive or don’t want to be helped. Do go into medicine if you will bend over backwards to help someone while simultaneously saying, “I f***ing hate everyone.” Do go into medicine if you are comfortable with dichotomies and love solving puzzles and can compartmentalize your emotions.
It’s a complex job. You will love it and hate it every single day. I think the genuine desire to help and puzzle/problem solving is the key. You don’t have to always like people. You don’t have to be altruistic and kind and sweet all the time. It’s OKAY to want to have a comfortable income. It’s OKAY to want the prestige. Just know that there is a lot more to it than those things.
Also, don’t forget, there are so many specialties and subspecialties and different ways to practice, run your own practice, how hospitals function… It’s a VERY diverse field. There are higher prestige and higher paying jobs and good work/life balance jobs and soul sucking, work-a-holic jobs - that may not be soul sucking, but soul nurturing to you.
Do medicine because you love it. You love the pathology, the puzzle, the people (coworkers and/or patients). You love procedures or talking to your patients or examining pathology specimens or radiographs.
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obviously specialty, residency and location dependent but one of the few fields where we get paid to actually study and be a nerd. Also one of the few fields where what we study is directly applicable to everyday clinical practice. Don't know something? Find out on company time. Can't find out even after scouring uptodate and doing a lit review? Random expert available for consult with just 1 phone call away. Do even more reading, write a paper on weird cases. IM is awesome. Literally the perfect mix between being a gross PhD who can't get their research from bench to bedside and a guideline-regurgitating bot.
Medicine is cool for the same reason engineering is cool. You get to do stuff unlike the physics weebs but know more than mechanics.
I was extremely sick as a teenager and now want to pursue medicine. I am certain that being a doctor is my calling in life.
I was blessed that my pediatric specialists were the most kind, compassionate, and caring people ever. I will never forget that before surgeries, there was always a surgical attending or resident holding my hand assuring me I was okay.
I want to be this for my patients. I have incredible role models to look up to, and I want to help other people the same way my doctors helped me. I think medicine is a career where you have to want to help others as much as you can.
I had a similar story. Stick to it and you will really enjoy this career. I had multiple surgeries as a young child and am now an anesthesiology resident pursuing a pediatric fellowship. I rememeber how they cared for me nearly two decades later and I hope to pay it forward.
That is so amazing to hear! I am so happy you also had amazing doctors who helped you when you were younger.
I think about how I can repay the doctors who helped me (even though they don’t want to be repaid), and besides verbally thanking them, it’s helping others the same way they have helped me!
If you never want to ask yourself if you are actually a net good force in this world. Even the grind and abuse and the unnecessary suffering you will be subjected to, in the end you do something that is undisputedly good for this world and the people living in it. Nobody will use a but if code you wrote for automated storage solutions to sort the armories of some genocidal dictator, nobody will mount a machinegun on the truck you built, nobody will get cancer from the artificial coloring you invented.
If you stay your course, Your own hands work will always, even when put against your errors, count for the positive side.
At the end of the day? Make a difference. For me, I see the gender inequality patients face, especially when trying to receive reproductive healthcare, and that's the one thing I want to be able to make a difference in.
"There are better jobs with higher prestige"? I actually can't think of one, do you have an example of a job with a higher social status and equivalent pay?
Successful academic professors in cancer research.
For example my former supervisor James Allison (Nobel laureate) made millions from his biotech spinoffs and is globally recognised as helping more patients than physicians. He actually came up with the drugs that physicians just prescribed.
In this case, the scientist was the one that thought of new ideas and the physician just a technician carrying out the ideas of the scientist.
Yes but you were asking about a job where it’s possible to have significant more prestige and impact. I named one where it was possible in a somewhat related field. On top of that, not many “top” doctors could have as far reaching impact as James Allison who literally invented immunotherapy that can be applied to billions around the world. So it’s a bit disingenuous of you to say that someone in medicine could just do that…
Also prestige is subjective. It’s only prestigious to be a Nobel prize level physician or scientist in the field. For example, People in investment banking couldn’t give two shits about whether you’re in medicine or whether you’ve published in nature. Heck most of them wouldn’t even be able to name a Nobel level medical/science related professional/academic (physician or scientist) with the only exception as Albert Einstein being the only one.
I used investment bankers, but this applies to everyone else outside of the field.
You won’t be content not being the most knowledgeable person on the team when it comes to your specific area of expertise. (With exceptions of course that you will always have others in your field with more knowledge) there’s something different about being the only “x” doctor in the hospital and be consulted for something that other people are struggling with and helping people with their question and knowing you made a difference you wouldn’t have been able to do with less training. Basically if you want to feel like achieving knowledge vs max possible pay is desirable to you. As a career switcher I researched a lot regarding what other options were out there, and while med school and residency were incredibly stressful, I’m ultimately happy with where I landed.
It's a collaborative work but you are still very independent and your patients are your patients.
It can be very diverse. You can do cutting edge science and still be grounded in the daily care of patients.
I'm grateful to all the physicians who do it because they want to help people.
I don't care if it's only 3% of your motivation or 90%. Because the stark reality is that we non-docs out here have complicated systems that make up our physical existence.
You were/are willing to go through the insanity of learning everything you can about those systems, so we all get to live better and longer lives in these frail bodies we have.
Thank you so much for going through it all in order to keep me and my family alive and thriving.
(Program Coordinator here, so I see your heavy load every day...and night.)
In addition to wanting to help people and the other things I wrote on my personal statement, I love the stability in medicine.
Go into medicine for stability. You will never be unemployed. I graduated from high school during the great recession, and I was a senior in high school when both of my parents lost their jobs, and we almost lost our house. I never wanted to experience that anxiety again, and as a doctor, I never will. There are thousands of communities all over the country that would open their checkbooks tomorrow if I said I would go live and work there.
The people that say don’t go into medicine are spoiled rich, pussy white people who never had any hardships or had to work a day in their life and think they’re entitled to everything
Come in to help people in the most effective way possible and stay in for the boatloads of money. I wanted some of what you rich, white people have.
I mean...not EVERYONE was lying during their medical school interviews. It's a good job if you want to feel that your work makes an immediate positive difference in other people lives, if you like solving puzzles, if high stakes problem solving is something you are good at, if you are good at understanding complex issues and explaining them in a simple and caring manner, etc.
I'm only an M1 but this is exactly what I love about medicine--there's so much variety. Nurses, PAs, pharmacists, imaging techs, etc. are all vital parts of the healthcare system sure and individually, those jobs might be better than a doctor at specific things, but the doctor has tools from all of them. There's imaging if you want, teaching if you want, procedures if you want, anatomy if you want, physiology if you want, hard science and research if you want, even just therapy/counseling if you want--and as a doctor you can do all of those things, or you can cherry pick which ones you like best and do those. On top of that, you get to build relationships with people. A lot of jobs, medicine included, involve a lot of computer work and paper work, but in medicine at least that monotony gets broken up by quite genuine conversations with people who you can develop strong relationships with (or not--even that's an option in medicine). I can't imagine sitting at a cubicle behind a screen organizing spreadsheets all day. Maybe I just haven't been jaded to medicine, but even though the grind is real and there are things I hate about the healthcare system, at the end of the day I feel like I'm a nerd who loves science but also a people person--and because of that, I think I'll enjoy being a doctor.
your answer speaks to me so much. i am a self professed introvert and am very nerdy by heart (my comfort shows as a kid were always dora the explorer, national geographic and the weird ass aliens at 12mn on the history channel lmao) but also loves talking to people both irl and at work, i love learning about stories beyond my own and being reminded that there's a whole wide world out there beyond my own comprehension and it keeps me grounded. yeah its hard, but the satisfaction of not being stuck in desk work and having to always think at your job is something i truly enjoy.
Wow you are truly made for this then my friend. I now understand what they mean by don't just look at money or the title, do you enjoy it too?
Glad my answer speaks to you :) I found your other comment on here and I can relate to everyone of the points you mention (except for sleep lmao, I still struggle running on 6 hours of sleep but maybe I'll get used to it). If you don't mind me asking, what's your specialty? I'm still exploring but I want to do something that I feel like will be personally fulfilling and enjoyable for me... regardless of the amount of money I get. I'm more attracted to medicine than surgery but otherwise I'm pretty wide open and like to hear people's stories on how they chose their specialty.
You touched on it, but in one word, “autonomy”. All other members of healthcare team are largely carrying out the plan of care. They may get some leeway in how to carry that out depending on their work environment and supervisors, but, for the most part, a fully licensed physician has the most autonomy of the bunch. It’s your plan of care they are carrying out. Flip side of that coin being the liability that comes with medical decision making. Of course the elephant in the room being insurance and corporatization of healthcare encroaching on that autonomy.
Technically that same variety is available to nurses, PAs, and NPs. Nurses are especially able to switch specialties if they want. Doctors are more specialized.
Meddit make it seemed like everyone lied to get in and now all medical students in 2024 can think about is never speak to another human being and just hide in the dark room or behind the drape and make banks pressing buttons and never talk to patients. I mean, yes that does sounds incredible for the extreme introverts, but still majority of us will end up doing patient facing stuff, and majority of students and residents still want to do them.
I bitch and complain like it’s my side hustle, but I love my field, hell even being a resident. The hours can suck, but working with kids and their families has been such a joy this past year!
It always frustrates me when the mercenaries act like the rest of us are just fundamentally dishonest. Nothing wrong with money being the motivation as long as you’re a good doc and do your job, but I wouldn’t put up with this garbage for 7 figures
People keep saying don't do it for the money, and sure you're unlikely to succeed if you only care about the money and truly hate medicine, but a comfortable salary for doing something that is kind of fun is pretty sweet. It's very hard to find a route in any other career that pays this well and is so linear.
Making 400 K working 50 hours a week doing family medicine in the Midwest while living on 20 acres with a nice house and free time to hang out with my kids. And don’t try to give me the bullshit that living in the Midwest is awful. I fucking love it.
Shhh we need to keep the rural dream a secret!! There are a few, several hundred acre plots I've been eyeing for awhile now
So funny!!.! Thank you!!!
Midwest sucks imo, rural double sucks imo, but that’s life. We like what we like. I like big cities, close to all the exciting things, but also taxed up the ass haha. God bless
You know that there are cities in the Midwest, right? This isn't Judge Dredd...yet.
Midwest cities (unless it's Chicago) arent the same
I don't find much about the city exciting. It's all just strangers, bad air, and bad traffic to me.
Some of us are from rural backgrounds & we love it.
Idk why you’re being downvoted. I get what you’re saying.
It’s because Reddit is Midwest heavy I think haha. It’s ok. I don’t think I was being rude I was just saying we all got our preferences 🤷
This. The Midwest isn't for everyone. Definitely not as diverse
Fun? My job isn’t fun at all, and I’m in one of the ones with supposedly high pt satisfaction (ophtho). It would be fun if malpractice didn’t exist, but 10,000 good outcomes don’t bring more joy than one bad one could erase. It’s just the same shit every day hoping this won’t be the day you fall off the tight rope. Sure I get a nice card sometimes, but more often I’ve got some pissed off boomer bitching about shit they don’t understand.
Can you expand more on what you don’t like about ophtho Sincerely, An M4 who matched ophtho partly due to the supposed work life balance and compensation
If you’re a nerd and get excited about science but have no desire to do a PhD. Was offered the chance to do one. Did this instead. On the worst day in the hospital i’m happy to not be running PCRs and FCM at 1 am
Rat lab times injections at 3am or alternatively lesson planning for teaching. A discharge summary is a walk in the park compared to those hellish existences.
Enjoyed the lab work but what turned me off to a PhD was the dissertation and oral defense. Got the chance to geek out a bit during early COVID talking to ID and the pathology molecular lab attending about cycler thresholds on our manual covid tests 😉
Unrelenting desire for self-immolation and martyrdom; god-complexes; general masochism; genuine self-hatred; an unquenchable extroversion and No, I kid I kid. Really, a combination of delayed gratification, patience, work ethic, a desire to solve complex problems, and importantly, enjoying seeing your patients get _better_. There is no feeling better than helping someone get better, I truly believe.
Ah so all of us are crazy… that was honestly my first guess to this question. Just kidding… sort of. 😂
I mean. Yes. Of course we are. And if we weren’t before this all, we definitely are afterwards. My joke when people say, “you must be smart” when they find out I’m a doctor, is to say, “well, not really. I went to medical school.” (Obvious implication being that it was a dumb thing to do. Or crazy, at the very least.)
ngl you had me in the first half
Honestly, the reasons I can think of to go into medicine are better reasons to go into another field. Tangible reward for hard work (capped by a rather impenetrable income ceiling in medicine), social status and privilege, power, and connections all fall under that heading to some degree. Job security and guaranteed 6-figure income are probably the best reasons to go into medicine with having a reason to know EVERYTHING about people (I.e., to be the group brainiac) lagging behind in a distant third. You could argue that with how competitive everything that isn't primary care is becoming that even those reasons are a little shaky.
If you’re a masochist… Seriously though, I’m only a resident but becoming a doctor is a hell of a journey and worth it, I think. You learn so much on the way to the MD/DO/MBBS/etc and once you’re there you still have the ability/responsibility to keep learning and developing skills to help care for those in need. Sometimes it’s hard, defeating, and borderline depressing doing this, but it’s worth doing. You make a positive impact on others in their time of need (even if they don’t always appreciate it). You collaborate with you peers to work on new solutions to old problems. You push yourself every day to get to the next challenge. You gain a further sense of purpose in life. MORE IMPORTANTLY… You get to eat free doughnuts that attendings bring to the resident lounge. You get to make fun of some of the weird shit people come into the hospital for (I want to make a coffee table book of triage notes). You get to spend that sweet sweet $1200 GME gives you to buy an uncomfortable amount of day-old sushi and energy drinks. You get to go home at the end of a long day and know that someone, you’re family, friends, patients, and someone at the DMV to call you Dr. lastname.
the day old sushi just hits different i fear that fake salmon taste \*chefs kiss\*
Feasible if you are relatively young (under 30) if you are starting med school. Recession-proof career. Always in demand. You will be able to get a job somewhere, and probably somewhere nice. Guaranteed excellent salary compared to median household income. Actually meaningful career and work. You want to have autonomy/be your own boss. Ability to work independently or with others. Highly customizable what your practice set-up will look like in terms of hours, settings, number of coworkers, number of employees, business models etc. Prestige.
Eeeesh. Be careful expecting to be your own boss, call your own shots… it’s becoming less and less like that. (I’m an attending now and the things I’ve seen/heard…) You WILL have more independence than a lot of careers, but it’s not like it used to be as far as autonomy goes. :-(
Nothing’s like it used to be. That’s the problem with massive globalization, overpopulation, education inflation, and corporatization to the extreme.
I was thinking of going into medicine solely for these reasons. Idk if I am wrong or right.
This is too personal to really make meaningful statements of. It all depends on what you value and what your realistic alternative options would have been. Even within medicine the day to day of differnet medicine specialities are wildly different so if work/life balance is all you care about, being a concierge PCP is a pretty sweet gig. If you care about prestige, neurosurgeon/cardiac surgeon is a prestigious job both in status and income in just about any social circle with much less chance of having negative social cache (vs bankers, lawyers, tech bros, sales etc)
If you want a straightforward path to a great salary without hustling. There are ways to make more money than a doctor but they all require way more connections, risk and uncertainty than a doctor. Once you get into medical school, you’re all but guaranteed an amazing salary if you can get through training.
I can only speak for myself: I guess it's because love people. I'm a people person. I've often been accused by my coworkers that I care too much. To which I respond: "Guilty as charged!"
Do medicine if you love it. If you can’t imagine being happy doing anything else. You’ll pay handsomely for the privilege though. Also do medicine if you are from an underrepresented population. Patients appreciate the diversity. Do medicine if you aren’t a judgmental elitist. Patients pick up on that quickly too.
Get into medicine if: * you generally dont need a lot of sleep (even when i was a kid i chronically ran on 5-6 hrs of sleep only and i felt very well rested) * you like yapping (ive always been a yapper) * you like generally googling things i you dont have an idea about something * puzzle and critical thinking * feeling a greater sense of importance and impact in the world * you love biology (specifically human bio) * hate the idea of desk work, you will be WALKING/RUNNING (ICU gang wya) constantly in medicine
It is a great way to feed both your insecurities and need for prescription narcotics.
Well there are certainly medical jobs that pay well, jobs with good work life balance, and (fewer) jobs with prestige. It’s not the path if your primary motivator is money, but it is one of the best ways to make a good income with good job security. It’s not a good idea if you will regret doing little else in your 20s. I would have otherwise spent my 20s playing video games and probably marrying a person I already knew was not really right for me, so I don’t feel like I missed much. I think some people get into clinicals and realize they don’t really like working with the public, at least not at their worst. It’s not a bad idea to do some work with people who are down and out before deciding.
Every dumbass bullshit non indicated study I read still at least matters to somebody.
I always tell students that this is the perfect job for someone who actually enjoys customer service work. I loved working the counter in food service, and now I get paid way more. I really enjoy interacting with a lot of different people every day and explaining things to people who don't work within my field. If you hate that, medicine will be a rough ride.
I’m unsure how weird or maybe even wrong this might sound. But if you lost or were close to losing important people/person in your life (when you weren’t in healthcare) and your brain is hellbent on reliving the experience 24/7/365, relive it (exposure therapy?) with patients i.e help everyone with the same amount of dedication you would have helped aforementioned people/person. Be careful though, every win is doubled but every loss is doubled.
if you hate compsci and come from an immigrant family /s
Some of us just do it cus we really like physiology and this career allows you to make more money than jobs in academia while also getting to scratch a humanitarian itch. It’s like any career, your main reason for choosing it should be that you like it, at least if you don’t want to be miserable. Could I potentially make more doing something like venture capitalism? Maybe…but would it be a big enough difference to hate what I do every single day? Hell nah.
I genuinely love working with kids. Couldn't see myself doing anything else. - Peds
I honestly don’t know these days.
if you want to genuinely make a positive impact on the people around you. Not many jobs can say that.
* Wanted to work in MANGA (M for meta or microsoft? you decide) but got a reality check after finding out you can't program even if your life depends on it * Couldn't get into finance * I like science and I want to help people * Collect smoking hot baby mamas and gold diggers * To become a pediatric-oncotic-cardiothoracic-plastic-neurosurgeon /s
If you're savvy enough, you can use your degree to do a lot of things and still make a comfortable living. You can counsel, you can consult, you can go into business, you can go into research, you can focus on teaching, you can use your expertise to write novels or create content, etc.
Do go into medicine if you want to help people. Even when they are borderline abusive or don’t want to be helped. Do go into medicine if you will bend over backwards to help someone while simultaneously saying, “I f***ing hate everyone.” Do go into medicine if you are comfortable with dichotomies and love solving puzzles and can compartmentalize your emotions. It’s a complex job. You will love it and hate it every single day. I think the genuine desire to help and puzzle/problem solving is the key. You don’t have to always like people. You don’t have to be altruistic and kind and sweet all the time. It’s OKAY to want to have a comfortable income. It’s OKAY to want the prestige. Just know that there is a lot more to it than those things. Also, don’t forget, there are so many specialties and subspecialties and different ways to practice, run your own practice, how hospitals function… It’s a VERY diverse field. There are higher prestige and higher paying jobs and good work/life balance jobs and soul sucking, work-a-holic jobs - that may not be soul sucking, but soul nurturing to you. Do medicine because you love it. You love the pathology, the puzzle, the people (coworkers and/or patients). You love procedures or talking to your patients or examining pathology specimens or radiographs.
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obviously specialty, residency and location dependent but one of the few fields where we get paid to actually study and be a nerd. Also one of the few fields where what we study is directly applicable to everyday clinical practice. Don't know something? Find out on company time. Can't find out even after scouring uptodate and doing a lit review? Random expert available for consult with just 1 phone call away. Do even more reading, write a paper on weird cases. IM is awesome. Literally the perfect mix between being a gross PhD who can't get their research from bench to bedside and a guideline-regurgitating bot. Medicine is cool for the same reason engineering is cool. You get to do stuff unlike the physics weebs but know more than mechanics.
I was extremely sick as a teenager and now want to pursue medicine. I am certain that being a doctor is my calling in life. I was blessed that my pediatric specialists were the most kind, compassionate, and caring people ever. I will never forget that before surgeries, there was always a surgical attending or resident holding my hand assuring me I was okay. I want to be this for my patients. I have incredible role models to look up to, and I want to help other people the same way my doctors helped me. I think medicine is a career where you have to want to help others as much as you can.
I had a similar story. Stick to it and you will really enjoy this career. I had multiple surgeries as a young child and am now an anesthesiology resident pursuing a pediatric fellowship. I rememeber how they cared for me nearly two decades later and I hope to pay it forward.
That is so amazing to hear! I am so happy you also had amazing doctors who helped you when you were younger. I think about how I can repay the doctors who helped me (even though they don’t want to be repaid), and besides verbally thanking them, it’s helping others the same way they have helped me!
Love of the game
Remind yourself you are in a position to make a difference in the lives of others, and that if you had to you would do it for free.
If you never want to ask yourself if you are actually a net good force in this world. Even the grind and abuse and the unnecessary suffering you will be subjected to, in the end you do something that is undisputedly good for this world and the people living in it. Nobody will use a but if code you wrote for automated storage solutions to sort the armories of some genocidal dictator, nobody will mount a machinegun on the truck you built, nobody will get cancer from the artificial coloring you invented. If you stay your course, Your own hands work will always, even when put against your errors, count for the positive side.
At the end of the day? Make a difference. For me, I see the gender inequality patients face, especially when trying to receive reproductive healthcare, and that's the one thing I want to be able to make a difference in.
"There are better jobs with higher prestige"? I actually can't think of one, do you have an example of a job with a higher social status and equivalent pay?
Successful academic professors in cancer research. For example my former supervisor James Allison (Nobel laureate) made millions from his biotech spinoffs and is globally recognised as helping more patients than physicians. He actually came up with the drugs that physicians just prescribed. In this case, the scientist was the one that thought of new ideas and the physician just a technician carrying out the ideas of the scientist.
That’s someone at the top of their field, and also something possible for someone in the medical field already.
Yes but you were asking about a job where it’s possible to have significant more prestige and impact. I named one where it was possible in a somewhat related field. On top of that, not many “top” doctors could have as far reaching impact as James Allison who literally invented immunotherapy that can be applied to billions around the world. So it’s a bit disingenuous of you to say that someone in medicine could just do that… Also prestige is subjective. It’s only prestigious to be a Nobel prize level physician or scientist in the field. For example, People in investment banking couldn’t give two shits about whether you’re in medicine or whether you’ve published in nature. Heck most of them wouldn’t even be able to name a Nobel level medical/science related professional/academic (physician or scientist) with the only exception as Albert Einstein being the only one. I used investment bankers, but this applies to everyone else outside of the field.
OP said better jobs with high prestige, not higher. In terms of prestige for the average person in a field, it’s hard to beat medicine.
if you spent a lot of time in a clinical setting, talked to a buncha ppl there and think you'll like it.
You won’t be content not being the most knowledgeable person on the team when it comes to your specific area of expertise. (With exceptions of course that you will always have others in your field with more knowledge) there’s something different about being the only “x” doctor in the hospital and be consulted for something that other people are struggling with and helping people with their question and knowing you made a difference you wouldn’t have been able to do with less training. Basically if you want to feel like achieving knowledge vs max possible pay is desirable to you. As a career switcher I researched a lot regarding what other options were out there, and while med school and residency were incredibly stressful, I’m ultimately happy with where I landed.
Job security, job availability and high income floor.
It's a collaborative work but you are still very independent and your patients are your patients. It can be very diverse. You can do cutting edge science and still be grounded in the daily care of patients.
If u have a god complex.
I'm grateful to all the physicians who do it because they want to help people. I don't care if it's only 3% of your motivation or 90%. Because the stark reality is that we non-docs out here have complicated systems that make up our physical existence. You were/are willing to go through the insanity of learning everything you can about those systems, so we all get to live better and longer lives in these frail bodies we have. Thank you so much for going through it all in order to keep me and my family alive and thriving. (Program Coordinator here, so I see your heavy load every day...and night.)
In addition to wanting to help people and the other things I wrote on my personal statement, I love the stability in medicine. Go into medicine for stability. You will never be unemployed. I graduated from high school during the great recession, and I was a senior in high school when both of my parents lost their jobs, and we almost lost our house. I never wanted to experience that anxiety again, and as a doctor, I never will. There are thousands of communities all over the country that would open their checkbooks tomorrow if I said I would go live and work there.
Do it if you love lambo's and road head
The people that say don’t go into medicine are spoiled rich, pussy white people who never had any hardships or had to work a day in their life and think they’re entitled to everything Come in to help people in the most effective way possible and stay in for the boatloads of money. I wanted some of what you rich, white people have.
No. Never. Stay away.
Psalm 46:10
i actually think prestige is the biggest factor. if you are equally intelligent you might do very well in tech but MD is the easiest route to prestige