How did you decide what you wanted to do in life?

Pre-Med & Medical School Careers in Medicine
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Warning: Sorry, this may be a long post. Thank you if you are taking the time to read this.

I love math, programming, and physics (and pretty much all other sciences however I a best at these). Currently, I am majoring in Electrical engineering but am also pursuing pre-med. However, it is beginning to appear as though I have to prioritize one and abandon the other to avoid an overwhelming amount of work that leads to failure (I am .

I just wish I could get some advice and figure out which one I should do. People say study what you find interesting but when I think about the future, I realize I only want a career that serves to help and benefit others. I’ve learned that in engineering, you don’t always get to work on something altruistic; you work for whoever hires you. With medicine, I’m certain I’d get joy out of comforting, aiding, or doing whatever I could for an individual’s life. Don’t get the wrong idea, I am not some selfless guy who dedicates his time at the elderly folks home every week and cares for wounded animals. I just want to learn about the world but also, I want my life to do something beneficial for society; its the only way I see my life having any meaning.

To the engineers, doctors, and anyone else who feels that their life experience may have some insight on this, how did you decide on the career you have/are perusing? What factor am I not considering? What do you do when the career that will make you happy or satisfied is not the same as with what interests you? I truly love all sciences but it is really disappointing to think that I will not get to learn about many of the things that interest me. Whenever I think about only studying engineering, I regret that I didn’t just study physics and that I am not doing something that I know I could use to help someone who is struggling/hurt. When I think about the medical profession, I look at all of the things I will never learn about and how I will be straying away from a field I enjoy/am best at. It feels as if either decision I make, I will end up disappointing and if I could, I’d pursue both for as long as I could but because of AP credit, I am at the stage where I either take 4 labs in one semester (2 EE labs and then orgo along with either genetics or biochemistry) or pick a single major and avoid screwing my GPA.

Thank you for your time, advice, and personal opinions.

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There are many, many ways to benefit others that do include engineering and don’t include being a physician.

For example, my husband was a physicist who spent much of his career studying and developing solid state materials that are what make photovoltaic solar panels work. I’d say his work benefitted humanity, wouldn’t you? But for those PV panels to become reality took decades of work (most of his career, in fact) and for a long time it wasn’t clear if his work was going to continue to be funded or if his work was going to be successful. There were lots of unrelated intermediary projects that he worked on because he had funding for them, or his boss wanted X done instead of Y to make his boss happy. It also wasn’t something he did alone, by himself, in an isolated laboratory. Solar photovoltaics was a massive project with many individuals each contributing a small piece of knowledge to the overall project. My husband experienced small victories along the way–a experiment that worked. A paper that got published. But there was none of the immediate gratification that comes from a patient saying, “Thank you, Doctor.”

Simply put science and engineering benefits people in significantly different ways than does being a physician and the recognitions will be different. Long term vs short term. Global benefit vs individual benefit.

I also think you’re over-romanticizing medicine. Patients, for the most part, are not grateful. In fact, patients don’t listen to their doctors, fail to heed their advice/medical instructions then come back to complain they aren’t getting better. A physician friend of mine once told me he spends 85% of his time treating 15% of his patients because these patients refuse to adhere to treatment plans and continue doing the exact same things over and over (smoking, drinking excessively, taking street drugs, failing to exercise, failing to follow a mandated diet, etc) and over that sent them to him in the first place. D1–who is a medical resident-- has been physically assaulted by patients, has been spit on, screamed at, insulted, has had bogus complaints lodged against her----being a doctor isn’t always a “nice” job and patients aren’t always “nice” people.

Have you spent an extended amount of time talking with and shadowing physicians? It sounds like you haven’t. I suggest that you do so you can see the career isn’t all happy feels like you seem to believe it is. Big chunks of the job are pretty gritty. Doctors deal with patients and their families on what are often the very worst days in their lives.

If you aren’t enjoying engineering and want to study physics–why don’t you switch your majors? Dh started out in chemical engineering in undergrad, but switched to physics at the end of his sophomore year. He loved the field and went on to earn his PhD at top program.

And if, after you’ve done shadowing and clinical volunteering so that you really start to get a feel for what medicine as a career is like, you still want to pursue medicine, you can. D1 was a physics & math double major who went to med school (where she would often lament to her sister who was also a math major that there is no math in med school and she missed it).

And I kind of hate to say this, but life and the exigencies of a career force one to pare down one’s options. My children frequently complained they couldn’t study everything that interested them in college. If they took a chemistry class, there was no room in their schedule for French or anthropology. My husband used to wish he had more time to pursue other areas in physics–like far infra-red astronomy and astrophysics–but those jobs are hard to come by and material science jobs weren’t.

tl;dr–life is choices and each choice you make closes doors to other possibilities. It’s just the way it is.