I am a high school senior looking to go into pre-med in college, but I read this article last night. It is a very strongly opinionated piece and it’s made me second guess my aspirations even though I’ve always thought I wanted to go into medicine.
I would be interested in hearing other people’s opinions of this article. It’s a good read.
The author makes an excellent point that the only reason to pursue medicine is if you really do want to practice medicine.
It is important, however, for you to remember that it is a long way from being a rising HS senior who thinks that medicine could be a good career, to actually making it all the way through college as a pre-med and earning admission to med school. You have time to think this through.
Also look into physician assistant. Two year programs after BA and so much less debt and can do lots that doctors do. I’ve been to several - orthopedic and dermatology. Even have young relative who is one. Did a fellowship in emergency med which did not like but is now in cardiac events group and goes in operating room. Even assists in harvesting veins for bypass. More options for practicing med than just MD
another article along the same lines at http://jakeseliger.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-nurse-or-physicians-assistant-instead-of-a-doctor-the-underrated-perils-of-medical-school/
That may be what you’ve told yourself, but its not really true. As in based on anything real. Medicine is a respected area, so are doctors and the others that take part in it. But have you had any extensive first-hand exposure thru a job or volunteering? If you’re like just about every kid that posts here saying “I want to go to med school!!” the answer is no. This “desire” is an invention based not on facts but on fantasy. Before you laugh at those people in the Middle Ages you read about in history that used to earnestly debate how many angels would fit on the head of the pin (boring times, I guess, back then) ask yourself how different it is to plan the way you’ll spend a good part of your waking life without taking a few hours to talk to those actually doing the job or take part in it yourself to see if its really all you think it is.
Now maybe you go and do this volunteer work (and exposure to the medical field is an unofficial requirement; you will be denied admission to med school w/o it) and find you love it! Just like the articles say, you can’t imagine doing anything else. Voila! But maybe you don’t and you avoid a huge mistake.
Which closes the circle. Asking here isn’t going to get you much farther than you were before. Go and spend the summer volunteering at a local hospital or care facility. You’ll get to see, for yourself, what medicine is like.
@mikemac I actually have been volunteering at an orthopedic clinic for more than a year and I do like it, but that’s much different than actually going through all the years of medical school and fellowships and what not. I appreciate your response, you do have a point.
Do you know how many students enter the biochemistry major at my school as premeds (in order to get an “edge” over the biology majors)? About 50 per year. By the end of the second year (after organic chemistry, physics, genetics, etc.) 12 were left in the science field at all. It happens every year. Medical school is expensive and hard and a lot of stress. Most people want to be doctors because it sounds like a good default. Would you want to be a doctor if it wasn’t prestigious or well-paid? It’s not just the job either. The training isn’t, “Okay, here’s how we cure people.” It’s immunology, biochemistry, microbiology, anatomy, physiology, and on and on and on.
There is a gaping canyon of difference between being in HS and being an intern and thinking you want to go into medicine and actually doing it. Interning somewhere isn’t the same as getting to deal with the stress of patients. I work in a large children’s hospital research facility this summer, and I can tell you that even going to get a coffee in the hospital part is stressful. So many sick kids and so few cures. So I’m glad they keep the researchers separate. Some people can handle it, but others 100% can’t. I would recommend focusing on learning in college rather than the end goal. Don’t think, “Oh, I’m premed.” Think, “I’m a ____ major because I love learning about it.” Maybe do summer internships that are outside of what you have already done and what you think you want. Then ask yourself after 3-4 semesters of college how you want to proceed. Many colleges have most of the premed built into the science degrees such as microbiology, genetics, biology, and biochemistry so you won’t have to worry. Then make your decision based on experience and know that it’s okay to change your mind or have a less than solid plan.
The article is slightly exaggerating and alarming, but the point is still there. Medical school is hard and demanding and it is very difficult to reach the end of the goal. Medicine is a prestigious field but all that glitters isn’t gold. Rather, it’s gilded. (If you don’t know what I mean, Google + Mark Twain are your friends) It will take 8+ years from this exact point to get to the end, and even then, you’re not at the end.
Don’t go into any field (but especially medicine) just because it sounds good, seems prestigious, or impresses neighbors at barbecues. Do it because you have a passion or a love for it. Do it because you imagine yourself helping people and contributing to society. Do it because you want to affect the future and become an important person in your community.
Maybe you don’t have that passion yet. Or those desires or imaginations. That can take time and you can encounter them through volunteering, shadowing, taking classes etc. What is important is that you have the motivation to deal with the sleepless nights and endless studying to achieve your goals and graduate. If you have that dedication to not give up, you don’t have to worry.
The only opinion that should have the power to sway your mind and make you second-guess your choices is your OWN. Every experience is different.
@biochemgirl67 @TheDidactic Thanks for the wise words
don’t worry it always comes together in a way you never thought it would. You’ll do things you thought that were out of the question for you and you’ll like things you never even knew existed. I’m sitting at my job this summer (waiting for my cells to get done) and looking out at the Harvard Medical School/Longwood Medical Area. There’s scads of doctors and medical students and residents, but there’s also so many graduate students, faculty members, lab technicians, nurses, and administrators. A career in medicine isn’t limited to medical school.
Also, feel free to PM me and ask about science/biomedical research/what it’s like here at a prestigious medical school and university. Sometimes it can help to get a bigger picture. 
I think “doctor” is one of those quintessential dream jobs that many children, especially immigrant children with pressure from their parents, idolize when growing up. It’s just one of those jobs that comes to mind easily when someone thinks about helping people, being well-paid, or being respected. I don’t think it dawns on most people how incredibly difficult attaining a medical degree is from an academic standpoint, how stressful and time-consuming it is, the notion of taking 8+ years to get a degree, and the HUGE cost of medical school. My uncle is a doctor and he was over 300K in debt after med school. He may make 250K a year, but that debt will take a long, long time to pay off. It impacted his ability to get a mortgage and may impact how much he can put towards his children’s education eventually. Doctors sacrifice a lot just to get where they are.
The first two points are only true if you let them be so, some of the other points are specifically tied to taking insurance which provides less control over your billing/scheduling.
But yeah, this is definitely true:
It is rewarding to follow your own dreams and STOP reading all kind of negative opinions. Nobody can tell you if YOU personally could or could not pursue this long and torturous track, got to test these waters YOURSELF!
On the other way, there are ways of making it “loan free”, to lift off at least a financial burden on you and/or family. You can research these options if you want, but I heard that about 25% of medical school graduates finish Med. School 'debt free" and this number includes my own D. and few of her friends that pursued different options on achieving this goal.
Anyway, dreaming is good, but also staying open and flexible is absolute must. Dreaming is like this shining start that somehow will guide you even you are not that much aware of it. After D. has graduated from the Med. School few weeks ago, she just realized, that BTW, she attended the Med School of her dreams way back in HS, and matched to the specialty of her dreams way back in HS (she considered other Med. Schools and other specialties on the way). Somehow her dreams were her “guiding hand”.
Do not let anybody scare you, but be ready to work hard from day 1. That is ALL that is needed, hard work and determination to reach YOUR personal goal! Well, a bit of luck is a tiny factor! Best of luck to you!
@MiamiDAP what do you mean by she attended the med school of her dreams in HS? Are you from the U.S.? And wow I had to idea it was possible to graduate debt free!!
Btw I was following this thread bc I have the same questions as OP
“what do you mean by she attended the med school of her dreams in HS”
-Well, she wanted to attend a certain Med. School when she was in HS and she ended up attending it, although she considered others. That is all I meant, nothing more.
…yes, I have several examples of Med. School graduates who graduated debt free - they choose different options of how to accomplish that! As I said (may not be correct, though!), I heard that about 25% graduate from med. school debt free, it is not a low number.
In 2012 it was ~15% who graduated medical school with $0 in educational debt (college + med school). (https://www.aamc.org/download/328322/data/statedebtreport.pdf). That number makes no distinction between “people who can afford to pay the full cost of education,” and “people who received grants to help pay the full cost of education.”
The one place where we get an idea of how that 15% is composed is on page 8 of the report. For people whose parents earn <$100k/year (50% of medical students), the % with debt number is over 90% compared to only 80% of the people with parents are earning more than $100k. Additionally, the percentage of people who get money from family to pay for education in the <$100k group is always under 10% while nearly 25% of the >$100K group is getting familial support.
This means, roughly speaking, that of the 15% of students who have no debt, 2/3 (or 10% of the total) are from the >100k group and 1/3 (5% total) are from the <100k group. Odds are the entire 5% from <100k is graduating debt free because of merit aid/grants and/or choosing cheaper schools at the pre-med and med level. The 10% from the >100k group is going to be harder to determine the split of “simply able to afford everything” vs. “got grant money and/or chose cheaper schools.”
@MiamiDAP would you mind sharing what decisions you and your D made to graduate debt free? Like the choice of undergrad studies and loans and such?
virsha24,
Our option was straight forward. D. choose to attend the UG that offered her a full tuition Merit award. In appreciation of such a wise decision, we paid for her Med. School. We are not high earners, we are nor rich, we simply withdrew from our retirement funds, we made a choice that many would not make.
D’s 2 friends choose a different route for being a loan free. They are attending free Medical School. D. applied there also. She was put on hold, but then withdrew. She decided that this school program does not match her needs.
Another option that is taking by few other friends is to attend at Med. School where your parents work. Several kids at D’s private HS had physician parent(s), many of them were actually working at our local Med. School. These kids also attended local college on full tuition Merit awards.
There are 3 options that I know, somebody else may know others. Personally, I do not consider the free Med. Schools to be free. The one that I know is 5 years vs. normal 4 years. Staying in school for additional year results in NOT making a physician salary for one year, which may be around $200k. As one who took econ101 in business school, I recognize that $200k is a huge opportunity cost. But some people do not take this opportunity cost into account.
The article is just about as accurate as can be. Thirty years ago, physicians were proud to have their kids follow in their footsteps. That’s no longer the case.
I’m saddened by the students who think calling themselves a “pre-med” makes them someone and amused by the ones wanting to dual major in Medicine and Business.
Well, many physicians around us are still very proud to send their kids to Med. Schools. We know a lot of them because in D’s expensive private HS, many parents were in fact physicians and another big group consisted of lawyers. While the second group is aware that the job prospects are not so bright for the future lawyers, job security for the MD’s is way way beyond the average population. Frankly, while we mortal CS, engineers and such are always talking about the job and discussing how we feel if it is there for us in a near future, I never heard such conversations or mentioning of unemployment among physicians. As far as I know from the residency matching process, while there are very selective specialties with rather high % of un-matched, vast majority still match and if they do not, there are plentiful ways of finding what to do for the next year or two (in terms of jobs) and re-apply later or stick to your new track (usually Medical Research). Every single graduate in D’s Medical School class of 2015 will be working next year and earning a decent income (although resident’s income is nothing to brag about, you can still live on). This includes few graduates who did not match.
This is besides the point that these people are in love with their profession. They have the hardest time seeing themselves doing something else.