<p>I am going crazy for thinking so much! I am studying master of software engineering(being graduated within 4-5 months) and moved to Estonia one and half year ago for job and studies. I am 24 and have a full time job in a big famous company but I am not happy! I think I cannot use all my potentials in this profession and have a strong feeling for a big change.
(I live in Estonia and for medical school here I just have to take SAT biology exam and learn Estonian to B2 level that I have seriously started with it)
but what really is important for me now is TO KNOW IF MEDICINE IS REALLY MINE!</p>
<p>I would like to go for medicine cause I think:
- I would like to work with real life things
- I can work for long hours
- I like to deal with patients and people who have problems and try to help
- I like to have none routine job(none- office- unpredictable work time totally suites me)
- I am good with studies, and I think I am good for long way cause I am hard working and usually don't expect to have quick outcome.
- I am good in communication with people
- I don't care about money that much, just want to be happy with what I do
- I really want my job to be practical, by practical I mean that, I can somehow see what I am working with (the jobs that people just talk, just work with paper, just with computer, are not mine)
-I want my self to be more useful, dealing with serious things like health</p>
<p>Issues:
- I have started online course for biology and physiology and I think it interests me(it is for now but who knows for later complicated stuff). It is real, analytic and practical.
- I have done lots of research about advantages and disadvantages but still interested while so worried to make a wrong choice(I feel there is no time for wrong choice for me)
- I don't know how would I act in case of lots of pressure for emergency case and people who may die with small mistake of me. I usually tell myself do whatever you can and don't think about the result. but about human beings life, I don't know if it can be that easy.
- Generally I think I am patient but I am not sure if it is enough for working whole day with sick people.</p>
<p>Don’t think about the detail that I provided about the living place, language etc. I just wanna know if my interest is deep and realistic enough to go for medicine!</p>
<p>If your are the least bit narcissistic get out of your pursuit of medicine. You must love what you do and care about the feelings ( overall not just the disease) of your reasonable patients. It’s a very noble and rewarding field . Good luck in all your endeavors!</p>
<p>I think I am not really narcissistic, but I think this is what I should ask form people.
The least that I’m sure about myself is that I do care about people’s feeling and I am a responsible person.
I am not sure how interested really I am in physiology and these stuff cause I have never been into it, I am not sure how will I act in so much pressure when someone is dying in an emergency case, I am not sure if I am patient enough to deal with patients all the time and be nice with them.
Many of these concerns are because I do care about people and their feelings, I don’t want to be just a doctor. I wanna be a good doctor who cares, and if not yes I agree you it’s better not to think about it at all!
Thanks for your hints, just that I don’t know how to make sure at least up to some level for all these concerns. I feel that i want it so much but I think I should consider every aspect of it thoroughly! can you recommend anything?</p>
<p>You might consider talking with a doctor who practices medicine in Estonia and find out how well he/she likes his job. You might even ask if you can shadow (spend a day or longer observing) him/her doing his/her job to see what the job really involves.</p>
<p>Medicine is an exhausting profession that requires dedication to be your best every single day since you will often being seeing and dealing with people at their very worst (sick, worried, in pain and/or dying).</p>
<p>Medicine requires both compassion and dispassion. You have to care about your patients, but be able to separate yourself from your emotions and be objective and detached about a specific patient, about what’s best for them. </p>
<p>One of the most important skills required of doctors is good “people skills”. (Listening to problems, sifting through lots of conflicting information/outright lies that people will tell you, reading body language well, being able to explain things in way your patients will understand, be able to deal with people who just won’t believe you or do what you tell them even if their life depends on following your directions).</p>
<p>Thanks for the helpful comment. That was a good idea, I will try it. About being dedicated to the job and people, listening to them carefully and exactly I think I am that person. Maybe its not a proper case that I can compare but I have been in charity groups for at least two years, dealing with people with many different problems and trying to help them. And always I have been thinking that I wish I could be a doctor, none of the problems is more serious than health!
I should say that I am usually getting so much involved personally with people’s problems that I hope little by little I can manage to teach myself to control it. I have never been so precise in my job cause I have never worked with lives, I have never memorized so many things cause I never needed, I have never been in a place with so many superiors and strict rules but I really hope that if I get in to the medical school I would focus and improve myself in every one of these cases.</p>
<p>Some people say that you should be INTERESTED TO THE JOB ITSELF(PATH IS THE GOAL), interested about anatomy, opening people, physiology(cause very thing goes routine soon and this is what will stay with you always) etc. I don’t know that much yet(although I think interacting with people and trying to help them is much more important to me than opening them and knowing the organs), I am trying to read more and more, although I have been into engineering up to now and I think whatever I read now would be just some introductory texts, so still I can’t say anything. should I worry about it?</p>
<p>one request from all people, please suggest all the activities that you thin it might help to get to know medicine career better and more realistic, up to know I have heard about these two options:</p>
<p>1- shadowing a doctor for one day or more
2-vonlenteery work in a retirement house</p>
<p>Shadowing docs is the best way. I don’t think volunteering in a nursing home tells you much other than whether you’d like geriatrics. The life and death high pressure stuff is only common in certain specialties.</p>
<p>To nouve who says doctors can’t have any narcissism,
My friend who is training to be a clinical psychologist was told that doctors must have some elements of narcissism to pursue a profession where their job is to try and cheat death and alter/control people’s lives. Obviously pathological narcissism would be too much but just an interesting thought. They also said that people who like surgery probably have unconscious desires of violence in order to be drawn to a job where they slice open and play around with the inside of people’s bodies. Surgery is very much a field that people know for a long time whether they want it or not so its pretty interesting to think about.</p>
<p>Thanks, I will try to find some doctors to see what they do. Hopefully somebody will accept me. The idea about people who want to be surgeon was so interesting.</p>
<p>Do you have any idea how can I ask doctors to accept me to shadow them? (Or how can I find them firstly? From university or going randomly to the hospital? I don’t know personally any doctor here)</p>
<p>I can’t say whether you’re really up for a career in medicine or not, but all of the characteristics you mentioned can be fulfilled in other careers. If you like to help people who have problems, there are many other careers. Not only are there other clinical helping professions (nursing - especially nurse practitioner, physicians assistant, allied health professions like occupational or physical therapy, clinical psychology, clinical health psychology, neuropsychology, counseling psychology, school psychology, social work) but there are other professions that require face-to-face counseling with people (career advising, academic advising, teaching, health education and promotion, etc.)</p>
<p>There are many jobs that require long hours, good study skills, and excellent communication (in fact - nearly all jobs require excellent communication skills). I also might add that the practice of medicine is different than most people imagine it. While you will see patients, you will see them for 10-15 minutes at a time. A lot of your other time will be spent managing paperwork or electronic records, and if you have your own practice, managing your staff. One of the things I learned while growing up and out of college and into the “real world” is that most jobs some administrative duties and that there are a lot of different ways to help people out there. But pretty much everything is doing something practical. If you’re doing it and getting paid for it, that means someone needs it, therefore it is practical.</p>
<p>If you don’t know any physicians through your networks (your parents or teachers), then I would cold-email some. Perhaps those who teach at a medical center nearby, since they are already in the teaching profession and have some interest in shepherding the new generation of doctors.</p>