Quote: (03-10-2013 09:04 PM)Jazzman92 Wrote:
Quote: (03-10-2013 11:31 AM)sheesh Wrote:
Medical school is worth it if you are interested in medicine.
If you want to become an MD for the status, money and women...no. I just know too many MDs in my circle and family who have neither of the aforementioned.
Im deffinitely passionate about medicine. I love studying about human physiology and just science in general. Right now I'm taking a few evolutionary bio and biochem courses and I find them fascinating. I also have always enjoyed/done well in math. I feel as though my options are open Im just leaning towards medicine because I can have a pretty good lifestyle doing something that genuinely intrigues me.
Medicine is all very nice when it's locked up in a textbook, but it feels different when you are covered in blood and shit and you have to delay going home after 32 hours of no sleep because your patient has just complicated.
Also, how comfortable are you in taking split second decisions that will determine whether someone will live and die? And how comfortable will you be knowing that every now and then you made the
wrong decision, and that you messed someone up good? (and don't be so foolish as to believe you will not ever make such a mistake - you will be a doctor not a machine, and even machines sometimes mess up) And how comfortable will you be, in today's economic climate, at being sued by chancers who are trying to suck you dry of your money when you did everything by the book? (a number of cases brought against doctors are cases where the doctor did nothing wrong, but people sue anyway in the hopes of some $$$) And how comfortable will you be later on in your career when you realise that what those ivory tower profs in med school didn't tell you is that half the shit you learn in medical school is wrong anyway? (luckily, due to the information overload of medical school, you forget a lot anyway, so the damage that medical school does to your medical skillz is self-limiting. But the guys who do really well in medical school often turn out to be awful doctors, because they actually believe half the nonsense they were taught). How comfortable will you be when you are about to go on vacation but a patient calls you with an emergency and you have to go to hospital on your vacation day because legally and ethically you are bound to not 'abandon' your patient? How comfortable are you with the fact that medicine will metastasize to every aspect of your life and very much become your lifestyle even when you're not in the office?
Being a doctor is not about the knowledge in the textbook, it's about being brave enough to get experience and skillz and learn the craft of medicine, to master it as an
art. It's scientifically informed, yes, but it remains an art/craft. There will never be an end to learning and finetuning of your skillz, it is a lifetime's endeavour of achieving expertise, and at its height it is an aesthetic experience, and at its lows it just too awful too describe.
I think the best book to read before going into medical school is MASH (
http://www.amazon.com/Mash-Novel-About-T...0688149553) It perfectly depicts the tension between medicine as a craft and medicine as it is taught, and how much of medicine is about ignoring the ivory tower bullshit you are taught in school.
But yeah, it's not worth it. Don't go to medical school. It's a meat grinder with costs that far outweigh any rewards. At the very least, have someone else pay for your studies and don't go into debt for a lifestyle that is ultimately very punishing.
And don't talk about being 'passionate' for medicine until you're covered in shit and blood and have been on your feet for 32 hours straight and have been so busy that you forgot to eat and you almost die on the way home because you fell asleep behind the wheel.