Is there an exit option if I choose the Med School Route?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>One of the initial reasons why I havent considered the med school route for many many years was because it seemed like a very long and fixed road. Had I choosen business I would have been able to move around more, jump around fields, get my mba later, etc. OR just get my undergrad degree and work and see if I can eventually become independent or take charge of special opportunities should they arise. </p>

<p>Ive done my research and a lot of thinking. No parental or peer pressure(they could care less). If I'm choosing the med school route it is still feasible for me at this point but Ive got to switch out to a less demanding major (BME). </p>

<p>My question is can somebody detail the typical long road of the med student starting from the undergrad years? Is it as fixed and restricted as I think (once you jump in you need to complete a certain amount of schooling, residency, etc, and it would be unfeasible for one to pursue other things)?</p>

<p>I am not going into medicine for the money. I am doing it because it seems more rewarding in terms of the work that I do as oppose to working at a financial firm or making business deals. The work just seems more relevant and significant to me--more real I guess than all the fancy talk and paperwork of business. I just hope it isn't as much of a trap and dead end commitment than I think. What is with all the talk of slaving away until the 30s and start crawling ones way from debt? Are those who choose the med school route destined to start their life out in their 30's?</p>

<p>All I want and am hoping for is the possibility of being very skilled at a medical profession and be able to devote my energy into that one thing--have something to be proud of, to be able to express my talent and passion into that one thing, and have others be able to see the results and feel the results. At some point I also want to be able to become independent(start a firm,etc) and maybe have some outside project or something I can devote my time to and make money off of something outside from my hospital position. But sometimes I feel choosing to become a premed is more of a lifetime commitment thing that leaves little room and time for other options. I would not regret choosing to work in the medical field for the rest of my life, but I dont want to be restricted and tied down to only one place. Can somebody enlighten me? Just some things I have been thinking about in the back of my head. Have a nice summer everybody :)</p>

<p>edit-dont care about grammar, thats the way I like to talk and write when I want to convey ideas quickly.</p>

<p>Also how can I change my username? I had it for years and I hate it, sounds like a geek</p>

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<p>Being pre-med = no commitment other than commitment to the goal of getting into medical school.</p>

<p>However once you're in medical school, it's a pretty fixed path. Two years of basic science lectures (and you don't get to choose any classes - everyone takes the same class at the same time), one year of standard clinical clerkships and then one year of more freedom in choosing your sub intership rotations. </p>

<p>After that it's three to seven years of residency. Assuming that you are among the fortunate minority to get accepted into medical school immediately after 4 years of undergrad, thus starting at the age of 22, it means that the earliest you'll be done is at the age of 29, or at the latest 33. </p>

<p>Part of the fixed path is the amount of money it costs to go to medical school. I'm at a state school, paying in-state tuition, and it's still costing me roughly $20,000 per year in just tuition. Throw in fees and taking out loans for living expenses ($1500/month is the amount my school gives for living expenses) and it means that I'm taking out between 37k and 43k for each year of school. I'm going to be slightly more than $160k in debt. Pretty much as soon as I got my loan check for first semester of my second year, I pretty much felt that I was so far in debt that I couldn't be anything else other than a doctor. Now I routinely think, "eh, what's another 10k in loans" (I'm planning to go to Austrailia during my fourth year). </p>

<p>And while you are in residency you're only making about 46k a year.</p>

<p>The flexibility of being a doctor is unique. Because of the schooling process and then the way in which residency positions are determined (along with fellowships is you want to be something like a cardiologist) there is a surprising amount of geographic freedom, with at least three set opportunities to move (med school, residency, starting practice). But on the other hand, once your in med school, you're going to be a doctor. And once you've completed a residency program, youre going to be that kind of doctor for the rest of your life - if you finish a surgery residency, you're not just going to stop being a surgeon and begin being a dermatologist (it is possible to go back through the residency program to change fields, but it's rare, and you do have to go through the approved residency programs in order to become board eligible, and thus board certified. It is more common to change while still in residency - think Dr. Carter on ER for example, but it's still not that common)</p>

<p>If you are looking for greater freedom in a medical field, the best bet is actually to become a Physician's Assistant. The schooling is shorter (24-33 months, I believe), there's no mandatory post-graduate training programs, and there is exponentially more freedom to move from one specialty field to another, especially has PA's are becoming more and more common in specialty practices across the board. I have friends who are PA's with general surgeons, anesthesiologists, and ENTs currently. The one who is an ENT was originally just doing general internal medicine before making the switch.</p>

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<p>Ive read some of the older posts through the search function and some of them seem quite pessimistic. You're in debt until your mid thirties and thats the only time when you can actually reap the benefits and see the results of all the hard work(in terms of being actually able to apply your knowledge into your practice and to make money to support yourself). Seems like a lifetime devotion and a lot of sacrificing your own time in order to prepare for a task.</p>

<p>my biggest reasons to enter the medical field are the following . 1 Have something to focus on in my life and be able to devote my interest and talent into that single skill. Kind of like an athlete or craftman who spends a lot of his time devoting it to one very special hobby or interest that eventually turns into a lifelong passion and career. Of course, I would like to be compensated generously for my hard work if I am going to put all my energy into it. </p>

<p>Now I am no Mother Theresa. I care about world hunger but I am not of one those who worries about it so much that I devote my entire life trying to end world poverty. At the same time, helping people with their health problems is a perk to me and additional motivation to do well in my field because it gives it meaning. This was why I chose it over business in the first place. Now I am not so sure because it seems like I have to sacrifice(and more importantly, have everything structurally planned out) for the long road. I do not like that type of trapped mentality and I would much prefer to be in something more flexible perhaps. </p>

<p>I also dont quite like the idea of having only one source of fixed income and working in one fixed location for most of my life. I don't really know.. I kind of like the entrepreneurial ideals of being able to jump around and learn as you go type mentality, and taking charge of opportunties as they come. I am not sure if I can stand the wait of the approx 10 years of schooling and residency it takes to actually start my career. However, I was hesistant about the business world because it seems so foreign and new. Finance is just a lot of numbers and papers and graphs, which I can handle and do well but not sure if I will be happy because it just doesnt seem to hold as much significance. </p>

<p>I guess Im just going to have to think about this for a while. I'll be a Sophmore by the way.</p>

<p>By the way, what exactly do you learn in Business School(getting an MBA)?</p>

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<p>You can look in the business major section or in the Business School section. Or use the search function to find out some of that information. </p>

<p>I also feel that if debt is a very big concern of yours that being a doctor is NOT FOR YOU. If you really want to help people you could always get a business administration degree and get a job in a hospital managing it. That way you could help keep it running, therefore making sure that care is provided to future patients. If you are going to be a doctor you will be in debt, while it may be varying amounts of debt (100-250k) it will still be a lot of money. Eventually you just get BRM's attitude about what is really another 10k in debt, especially when you are already looking at 150k in debt.</p>

<p>If you start med school you will be in debt, therefore you must become a doctor or else you will have a hard time living a good life while still paying off your loans. While I don't know you, you seem like someone that might get into med school then drop out because you feel it is not for you, and pursue other options. Because when you do all-nighter after all-nighter, for something you kinda want to do, you take a look at yourself and wonder "why am I doing this". And if helping people is not one of the top priorities then you can become very depressed. This is a dangerous attitude as your first year in med school can put you in significant debt (43k as in BRM's case and he's going to a STATE school, so its absolutely on the cheaper end), and the longer you take to come to this conclusion the more in debt you will be. Remember there are a lot of careers out there that are just as lucrative or even more so than a doctor, and require less commitment. They might not be as straightforward but they are there.</p>

<p>Being in debt doesn't seem to affect a physicians lifestyle as much as you might think though. And there are ways to get your debt forgiven by the government, by working in certain areas for a certain length of time.</p>

<p>I just graduated high school, and I was in a program for the top students in my county where I spent close to 500 hours with doctors my junior and senior year. In the program everyone had to take local community college courses in anatomy and biology. We also had to take classes in med term, concepts of health care, among other classes and I had to learn how to take vitals. So it was a VERY hands on program for a high school student and thus I learned a lot about the healthcare field. Now I was with every type of doctor imaginable in a hospital and private clinic setting and I learned a lot about their professions and what they went through in becoming doctors. Despite them all living from about upper-middle class to rich to GODDAMN he got money, I only met ONE doctor that had paid of all of his loans. ONE DOCTOR! </p>

<p>There is one doctor that I spent my time with the most during this program. He was a cardiologist. Close to about 100 hours of my 500 hours was spent with him because when I had the chance to go back to him again I chose to. This guy made a lot money (at least to me as I live in a single parent household making 32,000 a year) through his private practice and through the hospital. He was the treasurer of the hospital, and would perform his operations there, and had three different clinics set up in the county. He drove a BMW, his wife drove a Lexus, and he also had a Cadillac Escalade, his kids also had BMW's. He owned condos in Florida, and had lots of land in Montana or somewhere like that, and he would go to Africa to participate in an ESPN hunting thing or something like that, where the buy in was 10k. And he had one of the most magnificent houses I have ever seen in my LIFE. And told me himself that he was a millionaire, and "it was good to be rich", as he had a broke childhood too. Yet, DESPITE all this, he STILL hadn't paid off all of his loans.</p>

<p>I tell you this story because for most doctors I have met their debt didn't seem like that big of a deal. They just came to peace with it as something that they would have to take on, and as part of their job. If you are already worrying about debt as a main problem, I feel you will be very unhappy in your job as a doctor, as a few doctors I met were unhappy with their jobs and their debt was the last thing on their minds.</p>

<p>If you want a more hands on approach to treating patients, rather than working in the administration section of the hospital, I think you should take a look into the PA route as BRM suggested. They have financial stability while also being in significantly less debt than a doctor. There are many other careers in medicine that require less commitment and have more exit opportunities available to them. You should look it up.</p>