Hello I am just 18 years old and going to a Liberal art college and is taking Public Health degree course thing. I would love to take a direction to Medical School and become a doctor.
My question is though is medical school worth all of the crap people say there is? is there any hope that I can make enough money to live in America? much is appreciated!
If your focus as a high school senior is on “all the crap” and you main concern is “make enough money”, you’ve pretty much answered your own question. You’d be well advised to stay far, far away from the whole premed process.
Are you a US citizen?
Yeah I’m a U.S citizen, actually a Native American.
Yeah I’m a U.S citizen, actually a Native American.
Why should I stay away from pre Ned again?
Medicine is as much as calling as the ministry or a religious vocation. If you can see yourself being happy in any other career–do that other career.
Pre-med requires jumping thru a very large number of hoops with no guarantee of success. If you hate that kind of “crap”, being a pre-med will make you miserable.
Medicine requires a decade or more of intense study, taking on a great deal of debt and working within a very hierarchical structure for the rest of your career. If any of that makes your teeth itch–medicine is not the right career for you.
The ROI for physicians is diminishing. Yes, most physicians earn >$150K/year, but they also have an average of $185+K in loans from med school they need to pay off (not including interest which accrues at an annual rate of ~6% from the day you set foot into med school and any undergrad loans).
Additionally for that $150+K/year, you will be working an average of 60-80 hours/week. You will be on call or working in the clinic or hospital on nights, weekends and holidays.
I feel like it’s a calling. I really do. I’m sorry I didn’t mean premed was crap. It’s just I read from articles ppl kill themselves because of premed and from ppl saying that quit have all said it was miserable.
I don’t mind studying as long as I’m sure I know what I need to know.
It’s not worth it. Many of the physicians I know have either retired early or want to do anything else.
Pre-med is a terrible, terrible grind, and I’m with WOW-you really really have to want to be a physician before starting the whole process.
That said, I couldn’t disagree with JOD more; frankly I think he’s completely wrong. I’ve got two siblings(physicians for 40+ and 35+ years respectively), a spouse(30 years and counting) and a kid in medical school. The physicians have seen it all and still love it, and are glad that they did the grind and with all the hassles-insurance/malpractice/you fill in the blank-are still practicing and have no plans to retire because they still want to practice medicine. For my child-well, premed was a roller coaster, the application process was daunting, and medical school is also a ton of work-but work my kid likes doing.
I know many, many physicians-they all like to complain(all adults do) about work, but they as a group enjoy what they do more than any other group I know.
So if you feel that being a physician is the right fit for you, it’s all worth it. But if you are worried about the “crap” and about making enough money, it’s not for you. Become an entrepreneur, go into tech or IB-there are many fields with a much much higher return on investment. But for someone interested in what it means to be a physician-it’s well worth all the hassles.
Pre med is miserable. Not only do you need to a dedicated enough student to end up in the top X% of the class that gets As and have strong standardized test-taking skills, you need to develop a portfolio of other activities that demonstrate your fitness to be physician. (Research, community service, clinical volunteering, physician shadowing, leadership roles……)
Oh and you need excellent oral & written communication skills, and excellent “people” skills too.
It’s a lot, and it takes a great deal of time, effort and dedication to achieve. Whether this is too much “crap” for you, only you can decide.
BTW, the “crap” doesn’t stop after pre med either. There’s a lot of “crap” expected from med students, particularly during clinical training when you’re at the top of everyone’s “let’s dump on….” list. Ditto that for internship and residency. Even attending physicians are expected to do a buttload of “crap” (administrative work, insurance paperwork and the like).
You’ll never know everything you need to know. Physicians study their entire careers. (Mandatory continuing education to maintain your medical license and board certifications. Majors exams to requalify in your specialty every few years. The testing never stops.) The more you learn, the more you realize that you know so little.
Pre-med might be one of the best times of your life. Don’t squander it by being one-dimensional.
@jalfred My evaluation was based on the premise that the OP seemed very uncommitted to medicine despite the statements to the contrary. If they don’t like the “crap”, it won’t go well for them.
I’ve watched the finest physicians retire or go into something else. Senior physicians in the area are now 50 years old. Even recently, that age used to be 63 or greater. It’s a fact.
Recent physician surveys showed 68% of physicians felt “somewhat negative” or “very negative” towards the current state of the medical profession.
77% felt pessimistic about the future of the medical profession.
As for the measures you said I was “wrong” about, more than 80% of the physician respondents rated the morale of the physicians they knew as “somewhat negative” or “very negative”.
58% said they would NOT recommend Medicine as a career to either their children or others.
Can you please cite “surveys” that you refer to above. Thanks.
The exact numbers cited are from a 2012 survey by The Physicians Foundation, but nearly every article and study shows similar dissatisfaction and decline. It has been going this direction for some time now.
I’ve watched the finest physicians retire or go into something else. Senior physicians in the area are now 50 years old. Even recently, that age used to be 63 or greater. It’s a fact.
No, that’s not a fact; that’s an anecdote which is essentially meaningless.
And everybody hates their jobs, at least according to “published reports” and surveys:
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-people-hate-their-jobs-2013-4
More specifically:
Teachers: http://indianapublicmedia.org/stateimpact/2013/02/21/why-so-many-teachers-still-hate-their-jobs-now/
Lawyers: http://www.businessinsider.com/steven-harper-on-unhappy-lawyers-2013-4
Social workers: a whole website on “fried” social workers
http://www.friedsocialworker.com/
In general
http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/03/27/why-do-so-many-people-hate-their-jobs/
Basically, you can find any survey that says any group of employees hate their jobs. I would suggest that planning your career pursuant to surveys is a very bad idea.
So I’ll stick with my advice; if you really want to be a physician, and are really willing to do the whole grind, it’s worth it, which is in full disagreement with your advice in post #6.
This is a valid question with obviously lots of room for debate on this and part of it depends on what you define as crap and what crappy things you enjoy/are willing to put up with for the role they play in something you enjoy (e.g. a non medicine/work example, I commission a fantasy football league with my fraternity brothers from college (about half of the league is actually in medicine). I have to put up with a lot of crap to make it run: set up the league, email everyone, set up polls for voting on new rules, remind everyone to vote, remind everyone to send me their schedule so I can schedule the draft - sort through 14 people’s schedules to find the best time to draft, etc). I actually kind of like doing that crap because I like having the league with my friends and my friends are thankfully appreciative of the effort it all takes to put it together. That makes all the crap worth it. I won’t even play fantasy football, let alone deal with all the crap of being commissioner, for a public league.
This on the other hand is a ludicrous question when talking about physician compensation.
Also, obviously the people who quit are going to tell you it’s miserable. No one quits a job they love.
If you have so much concerns about medicine, you should not be pre-med or even apply to a medical school.
Medical schools are for those dedicated and have strong interests. A physician is not for fainted hart.
Quote #6 isn’t even mine.
JOD: your posts 8 and 11.
“. It’s just I read from articles ppl kill themselves because of premed and from ppl saying that quit have all said it was miserable.”
-pre-med is not such a big grind as people are saying. Most pre-meds are involved in everything imaginable and un-imaginable, much more than the general student body at colleges. many pre-meds have un-related minor(s) in Music, Art, languages, some even graduate with several unrelated majors. Pre-meds work, intern in Med. Research, volunteer, shadow physicians, and involve in normal college activities like Greek and various events at college, they go abroad. They overall keep themselves more busy than others because of the nature of these students. They have to maintain very high GPA, study for MCAT, go to Med. School interviews. However, all along the degree of being busy has no comparison to Med. School. So, I say, pre-med is just fine. Frankly, I believe that there are other majors that are busier with academics, like Art and engineering, architecture, probably some others.
When you get to Med. School, then you really will know what busy is. But then, comes residency and you would wish that you had as much free time as you had in Med. School.
Pre-med is OK, it develops great time management skills that are absolute “must” at Med. School and beyond.