Advice from an intern to a pre-med

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>Can anyone else believe that it's December and almost Christmas time? I sure can't. This year has flown by, and it's been full of challenges, decisions, and changes. </p>

<p>During this calendar year, I:</p>

<ul>
<li>finished interviewing for residency</li>
<li>made a match list</li>
<li>matched!</li>
<li>graduated medical school</li>
<li>moved to a new city</li>
<li>started residency!</li>
</ul>

<p>In addition, I:
- realized that with my current financial goals, there is no way I can make more than interest only payments on medical school loans totaling well over $100k
- have come to love the new city I now call home
- discovered that yes, I can work on 4 hours of sleep a night
- learned that putting in an 80+ hour work week sucks</p>

<p>Looking back on everything that's happened this year, I think that the most important advice I can give to any pre-medical student is, well, a line out of the first and third Bourne trilogy films: "Look at what they make us give." Don't get me wrong - I love what I do. I love my program and the people I've met. I love the city that I'll be calling home for at least the next five years. My medical school prepared me to be an intern, but I'm not sure I really understood everything I'd sacrifice for what I feel is my calling in life.</p>

<p>As a medical student, I was taking on debt as a close friend of mine started her career in at a NYC hedge fund. I can't tell you how often I envied her salary, her annual bonus, and all her leisure time. The person I'd wanted to marry decided to end our relationship, due in part to the demands medical school placed on my time and attention. I won't lie and say that I don't look back on this without feeling some regret. My grandmother's health deteriorated and my family would call me to ask what I thought of her situation as she lay in the ICU. They expected me to act as a medical consultant on a patient 400 miles away.</p>

<p>Residency is far better than medical school, but if the highs are higher, the lows are lower, too. Moving to a new city was stressful and expensive. I've never been this tired for so long before - in fact, I've nearly gotten into several car accidents because I was drowsy on the drive home from work. The crap from which I was insulated as a medical student now falls right on top of my head as the intern sitting at the bottom of the totem pole. </p>

<p>More than ever, I realize that every day, I am waking up and choosing to go to work. It's absolutely a conscious decision on my part. Some of the bad stuff about internship is just temporary, but some of it's also the nature of the career I chose for myself. Knowing everything that I know now, I'd still make all the decisions that I did. The debt, the failed relationship, the move, the fatigue, and the stress don't outweigh the joy I get from what I do, but despite the experience of my clinical rotations and observing the residents and attendings, I don't think I fully understood what it would all mean to live it on a day-to-day basis. </p>

<p>So, if you're a pre-med, take a close look at the doctors you shadow or volunteer with. Look closely at what they do, but also what they've sacrificed for the privilege of doing what they do. Don't let yourself fall into the trap of thinking that you have to be a doctor because of the prestige or the familial expectations or the glamor. Make it a conscious decision made because of your passion for medicine and patients, because when you're trudging through hour 81 of the week, scratching out the 17th consult of the day, or passing up the chance to hang out with your friends because you're on call, the letters "MD" after your name won't seem worthwhile unless that drive comes from who you are as a person. </p>

<p>I'm truly starting to understand what it is they make me give for the privilege of clinical training. It's a bargain I can live with.</p>

2

<p>Thank you Shades, this is a must read for premeds.</p>

3

<p>Thanks for this post and your helps in the past, shades.</p>

<p>The time passes fast. I still vividly remember when you were trying to decide which medical school to go to, and then to prepare for the STEP-1, and now you have moved to the next chapter of your life. Congrats!</p>

<p>When I first read your post, DS was likely either a freshman or a sophomore. Now he is MS1.</p>

<p>Again, thanks for sharing your experiences.</p>

4

<p>The whole bit about the medical school loan repayments seems a little daunting as a college sophomore. I ended up taking a full-ride to a financial safety school, although I was hoping for a top-25 school coming out of high school. I often heard from friends and family the mantra “there is always graduate/medical school” to help cope with some of the sting of waitlists and rejections. Maybe, I should change it to “there are always residency programs.”</p>

<p>I know loans are essentially ubiquitous among medical students, but do you find the debt to be burdensome as an intern/resident just starting out? I’m sure those graduating medical school do not have to worry too much about repaying loans as opposed to graduating college students because the population of graduating medical students almost all go on to residencies, i.e. stable jobs from which they can repay the loans. The same cannot be said of the population of graduating college seniors.</p>

5

<p>

I believe shades’s medical school loan amount is much lower than the average. If that amount is burdensome, how can most other medical school graduates who have more debt survive?!</p>

6

<p>Not diminishing the efforts, many of othersin different occupations are going thru lots and lots knowing that at the end they may or may not have a job, they may move in back with parents, they may bag groceries instead of working at their “dream” job, they might absolutely hate to live in NYC or similar place, but have no choices because they will live where jobs are, they may lose their jobs close to 10 times or even more (9 times for me). They will have to find another job (if they have personality), taking ANY job (including 50% cut and traveling hour+ one way every day in any weather), learning brand new techonology, business culture, people, customers, industry at every single job, sometime trying very hard to forget what they knew before because it might an obstacle in new position. They might go on frequent business trips, leaving family behind for weeks at a time, which will create frictions or even cause divorce. They might need to work 60+ hours every single week (no days off) without any kind of compensation, since the salary covers only 40 hrs / week…and yes, they will get about about 20% or less of MD’s compensation for all of that.<br>
MD job is vary demanding and stressful, but do not kid yourself that all other occupations a walk in a park. One thing MD has that nobody else does is job security. I have not met unemployed MD yet and I know very many of them. I also know very many engineers, IT professionals, some scientists (working in industry) and there are plenty of them who have been unemployed numerous times, sometime for very long periods and there are spouses who live in different cities, even countries, meeting hopefully on the weekends if distance permits. Many of them also have student loans, but it is very much depends on personal decision making. If one decided to go to UG for free (Merit awards) instead of choosing school with “fancy” name, this might save lots of $$ and parents might even consider paying for Med. School in appreciation for showing maturity in choosing UG.<br>
Not discounting difficulties and obstacles in MD field, please, do not look thru rosy glasses at everything else, it is by far not as rosy as it might seem from outside.</p>

7

<p>mrpenguin,</p>

<p>Good move, as a premed, on your part.</p>

<p>[Generation</a> Jobless: Is an Ivy League Diploma Worth It? - WSJ.com](<a href=“Generation Jobless: Is an Ivy League Diploma Worth It? - WSJ”>Generation Jobless: Is an Ivy League Diploma Worth It? - WSJ)</p>

8

<p>mrpenguin, i took a full ride as well. now, im a senior, and i have no regrets. Will be graduating undergrad debt free. Got into several top 25 schools. just focus on your grades, mcat, ecs, etc and everything will work itself out. </p>

<p>Are the people who don’t have 6 figure debts coming out of med school those with parents that help pay for their schooling? Even with a generous scholarship, I’m looking at debt in the 6 figures, although that’d be less than my state school.</p>

9

<p>

Somebody’s paying. If not the family, then the student themselves, and I have to believe that is very rare. My kid will hit 6 figures and if she stays for year 5 as she plans on doing, she’ll be higher than the national average for debt. And that’s with us helping at a level higher than Fafsa has us.</p>

<p>Edit: Some of that is “lifestyle”. She ain’t exactly “roughing it” but that is a choice we made. Prison life doesn’t suit her that well.</p>

10

<p>As to the even larger issue presented by the OP, I can’t imagine why anybody would do what y’all have chosen to do. It just seems so endless to me. But…at least I know that the kid is chosing it for her own reasons. ;)</p>

11

<p>I told my D. about my 9 jobs, this was my only input in addition to promise to support her no matter what she chooses among the ones with reasonable job prospects (marine Biology did not belong to this category).</p>

12

<p>Very well said.</p>

13

<p>*the debt to be burdensome as an intern/resident</p>

<p>=================
I believe shades’s medical school loan amount is much lower than the average. If that amount is burdensome, how can most other medical school graduates who have more debt survive?! *</p>

<p>Right! It sounds like he has about $100k in loans. Many have more than twice that …or MORE if they also have undergrad debt! </p>

<p>Scary!!!</p>

<p>*mrpenguin, i took a full ride as well. now, im a senior, and i have no regrets. Will be graduating undergrad debt free. *</p>

<p>My pre-med son took an “almost free ride” of free tuition plus 4500 per year, so he’s also debt free. He’s a junior and will be in the next cycle and we’re so glad that he doesn’t have debt.</p>

<p>Now…we’re fingers-crossed that he gets into our best state SOM…cost is very reasonable for instate. :)</p>

14

<p>Excellent post, you really nailed it.</p>

<p>I see my kid already exhausted and mentally worn out from residency interviews and he’s only a little less than half finished with his interviews. Then, the thought that he has five to seven years of residency and another two year fellowship still ahead of him makes me wonder why anyone who isn’t deeply passionate about this chosen path would even consider it.</p>

<p>It’s a very long and very arduous path that even the parents of current MS1s can’t fully understand yet, I know because I didn’t understand until I saw what years two and three brought to the table for him.</p>

<p>Thanks for the retrospective look…good luck to you in all you do.</p>

15

<p>Thanks a bunch for these thoughts. I really appreciate them.</p>

16

<p>eadad,
I know that it is a hard way. But the question Why (besides desire to be an MD) is so simple to me that I never had any doubts. The why is answered in our family many years ago. As I have mentioned - my 9 jobs and many around us who quit way before they reached that number. They simply do not work, they are highly educated professionals.</p>