<p>LOL, I don’t even have the stomach for this thread!</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the great ideas, and thanks to the doctors and nurses for what you do!</p>
<p>My kid’s human anatomy lab came at the summer after her third year of undergrad, when she officially became a grad student (5 year program). </p>
<p>She also serves as a paid practice student for the local medical school (gets paid pretty well for having a dozen or so pelvic exams in one day; paid less for other exams). </p>
<p>She fainted during her assigned day with a plastic surgeon and got an ambulance ride to the local ER out of that. Later she wrote a letter to the very upset patient in whose exam room she’d fainted - it wasn’t from the recent double mastectomy incisions, but because of my kid’s chronic tachycardia issues, and she wanted to make sure the patient wasn’t traumatized by her fainting!</p>
<p>Important thread but I agree with CRD, I can barely read about it. Thanks goodness everyone isn’t like me.</p>
<p>I own a business that deals with hospitals. I won’t even do the hospital side of the business anymore, I only handle the office aspect.</p>
<p>What got me when calling on the er’s… the mom crying in the room on the phone to her husband because they had no insurance, the baby was sick and she was as scared about the bill as she was about her child being hurt.</p>
<p>The drug addicted couple bringing in their blue baby, and too strung out to get that the baby was dead.</p>
<p>The woman who couldn’t make it inside the hospital and delivered on the sidewalk.</p>
<p>The scary hospital where they’d line up dead body’s on gurneys down the hallways. </p>
<p>If you know you can’t deal with stuff, you pretty much know it. If you can make it through biology, dissecting animals and other peoples injuries don’t freak you out, you can probably make it through. I’m way too emotional to deal with human suffering.</p>
<p>However I have two sil’s who are md’s. They have always been way more clinical and less emotional about things than me. Not that they are without emotion, but just less rattled by things. You’ve got to be the type who is calm in a crisis as well.</p>
<p>I’d guess if she was really interested in medicine, she’d know and wouldn’t have to second guess herself.</p>
<p>Heck, I’ve been an MD for 25 years and I can barely read this thread :D</p>
<p>I don’t do gross, and I am in clinical medicine dealing with patients everyday. If you don’t like gross, you find a place where there are things you do like.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t worry about it. The bigger question is life-work balance, family planning, burnout, boredom (yup), kids with affluenza, avoiding big cars and big houses that come with a big debt, etc etc etc.</p>
<p>My D is a college freshman. She has had her share of her own medical issues and is under the care of a pediatric pulmonolgist (lung doctor). He allowed her to shadow him when he took his turn in the NICU on a Saturday last April, when she was a 17 yo high school senior. She is getting ready to shadow him again for a week over her winter break.</p>
<p>It is possible for a high school or college student to shadow a doctor wherever he/she wants to allow it.</p>
<p>Shadow docs in different fields. H (geriatrician) teaches med students–the biggest surprise and disappointment most students express is how much time is spent on electronic medical records. #1 skill H uses? Keyboarding. (BTW, H was an undergrad history major. He also worked as a personal attendant to a paralyzed student, as a standardized patient/actor for a med school, and in a lab where he had to kill bunnies. H nearly passed out in his med school surgery rotations–wearing a mask makes him claustrophobic. Hates ER, codes–loves the detective work of IM diagnosis. His “gift” is working with the dying/families in crisis.)</p>
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<p>You don’t have to be a doctor. My husband played in a rock band when he was going through college. One of his colorful stories is about the night a drunk guy came up to the bandstand to request a song, and puked all over my husband and his guitar.</p>
<p>Lol</p>
<p>True, med students get some clinical experience in the first year, but the real immersion is usually later, after basic sciences. I went to med school 24 years ago, and we saw lots of patients in the first year, but the true meaty stuff still came later. And I think today’s students miss out by not doing the procedures (the IVs, blood draws, etc). That’s where you learn a lot about medicine and about your own competencies and preferences (procedure-heavy or not, old patients or young, etc etc). </p>
<p>There are so many different careers within medicine that I think anyone can find their own path.</p>
<p>“H (geriatrician) teaches med students–the biggest surprise and disappointment most students express is how much time is spent on electronic medical records. #1 skill H uses? Keyboarding”</p>
<p>H is keyboarding in his emr as I share this post…hah hah…it’s almost 10 PM.</p>
<p>We just got some info in the mail about our local Boy Scout Explorers programs. They include a ‘medical careers explorer’ program (for boys AND girls in high school) hosted by our local med school and taught by the students. It meets once a month and it’s only TWENTY DOLLARS A YEAR. (I’m assuming it’s subsidized somehow . . )
This seems like a great way to begin to find out if medicine (and hospitals!) are for you.
I’d call the local scout council – both boys and girls – and see what else is offered in your area.</p>
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<p>In my experience, the worst things rarely have to do with gross stuff like blood and body fluids. The human element can be brutal. Sometimes it can even really get to those of us who deal with it every day. My worst day in ICU was when a young woman’s family decided to take her off of life support. She had a daughter the exact same age as mine. The family said goodbyes, and the plan was to turn off everything after they left. As they turned to leave, the child grabbed onto the bed rails and wouldn’t let go for anything, in spite of family pleas. She was screaming “Mommy wake up! Please wake up! Please!” Over and over again.</p>
<p>All of the nurses in the nurses station were crying. I really had to work hard to not just completely lose it. Medical staff in ICU’s can usually distance themselves, but we are human and sometimes you just can’t disconnect emotionally. I know the same is true for MD’s. I found a young doctor crying in a stairwell once. He had just lost a patient in the cath lab and he was about to go and notify the family.</p>
<p>Normally I’m good, but I knew from the beginning of my nursing career that I could just not do kids. I can’t even look when my kids get a shot.</p>
<p>It’s interesting how we learn to compartmentalize our feelings.</p>
<p>What ihs76 says is true. Perhaps more important than having the “stomach” for medicine is having the temperment for medicine. Does she want a family one day? Is she willing to put off having children until after residency or does she think she could manage having children during residency? Is she willing to select or change specialties to achieve a good work/life balance? Is she prepared for possible changes in medicine, including the possibility of decreasing salaries which may make it difficult to pay back loans? Have her check out mommd dot com to see some of the issues that female doctors, residents and medical students struggle with.</p>
<p>CRD - am I correct that you guys live in Cambridge? Does your D go to CRLS?</p>
<p>There have been a number of programs at MGH, BI/B&W, Tufts Medical Center, etc. over the years for young people in the summer. Some are well organized formal research programs; others are more of the ‘shadow’ type variety.</p>
<p>Your daughter should contact a few volunteer centers (they would be the folks who would know where to direct her) at the easiest to get to hospital or medical center and inquire. Mount Auburn/CHA is also a possibility, but I am not familiar with any of their programs.</p>
<p>My younger s thought he wanted to go into medicine. He took all the prereqs and was a chemistry major. His school has an undergraduate anatomy class and lab with cadavers and the traditional lab tests where you have a brief period of time to go around from cadaver to cadaver and identify flagged parts (if I have that correct). He didn’t mind the squeamishness/gross stuff (body parts do tend to become like glorified plumbing when you acclimate to it) but he decided he wanted to go into the working world before making a big commitment to more school. So he changed his major from Chemistry to Chemical engineering and will graduate this spring (and has a job). I think maybe the big study books for the MCAT were a turn off too, given all the other work he has to do. Not sure-- just a guess…</p>
<p>Wife of a 25 year Paramedic here. </p>
<p>Missouri has a program called AHEC. I don’t know if other states have it. It is specifically for kids interested in medicine. They have progrmas and meetings with surgeons, pediatricians, nursing, etc. They also offer hands on summer jobs and opportunities for volunteer work at hospitals.</p>
<p>Through their program, if you agree to work in a rural area for 5 years, (depends on which program you do) then your student loans are forgiven.</p>
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<p>Exactly right! Another nurse here chiming in. I have worked ICU, ER, OR, home care, and now case management. I have had my hands into peoples abdomens up to my elbows doing wound care, and packed facial abscesses from cancer that tracked into the brain. I have seen some of the “grossest” stuff out there because of the teaching hospitals I have worked in. </p>
<p>But I still dry heave when someone is throwing up. And sputum gives me the shudders. </p>
<p>I have found that smells are the worst thing to get used to. And you do not actually ever get used to them, rather you learn how to deal with them. You start to realize that some things are just gross, but necessary. And some things are just amazing and miraculous, and gross at the same time. </p>
<p>It is important to be able to compartmentalize as another said. It is not always possible, but it is a necessary survival skill when managing tough cases. </p>
<p>I too could not deal with kids. Not because of the kids, but because of the parents. I would never work with new mothers on purpose! And I think my sons pediatrician deserves sainthood. I choose her and have stayed with her as a pediatrician not only because she is a good pediatrician, but she is good at managing ME, a neurotic mom that is a nurse. Huge skill for a pediatrician to have.</p>
<p>I love our pediatrician, too. He was fairly young when my first child was born, 19 1/2 years ago. I’ve had kids in the hospital more than once. I was surprised to see the doctor coming by the room early in the morning, then again in the evening. That’s when I realized how hard pediatricians work!</p>
<p>All the worst stuff that pediatricians have to deal with (and you’re both right about some of those things-- tragedy, parents-- both the wonderful/neurotic/wonderful neurotic, the bad, the neglectful, etc etc) is also the best stuff when things go right or you see a family make a change when you’ve known them a long time. So rewarding!</p>
<p>Medicine is so complex, there are so many different specialties and aspects within each. btw- once you are competent so much can be so routine it becomes boring without the uniqueness of every patient’s personality or disorder.</p>
<p>One concern is that a bad shadowing experience could ruin the person’s perspective. I do not think seeing cadavers in a funeral home is useful time spent. Anatomy lab is only a small fraction of the medical student’s experience and preserved bodies so different than living ones. I also don’t think the 17 year old’s reaction to medical “yucky” things (also in the eye of the beholder- eg no way would I want to be a gastroenterologist, but can handle all other “gross” stuff) is the same as it will be several years later. </p>
<p>It would be a good idea to shadow different specialists to see what a typical week’s work is like. Primary care is different than surgery, pediatrics than adult medicine, hospital than outpatient care. People pursuing becoming a physician certainly have to pay a lot in dues before enjoying the income and status of the practicing doctor. Those who want to be rich can find much easier ways to do so. One huge question for many premeds in college is if the required years of giving up all of one’s life to medicine is worth it. For me it was worth it. Many other fields that fascinate or interest others just don’t grab me- such as the business world.</p>