<p>Well I'm sure we've all heard of how strenuous medical school can be. I've read countless articles from people who absolute hate what they are doing, but don't want to quit. So is pre-med even a good idea for someone who is not 100%, COMPLETELY sure they want to become a doctor? Not only are your first two years of med school full of studying, but then you have even more standardized tests to study for and then worrying about getting into competitive residency programs. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars you'll rack up in loans. </p>
<p>I've also read that residency programs are terrible. 80 hour work weeks, remedial tasks, and many of the doctors don't even want to teach you anything. Has anyone gone through med school/residency programs, and what are your opinions? Does the path to becoming a doctor really suck all the life out of you?</p>
<p>I haven’t done med school, but from the knowledge I have gained from online forums…</p>
<p>Yes, it does suck the life out of some people. you have to be prepared to work extremely hard. If you’re passionate about medicine, then 12-16 years of school might be for you. If not, don’t push yourself into pre-med. It can be quite rewarding when you are finally out of school and making big $.</p>
<p>It almost seems degrading to be a med student with the way doctors and nurses treat you. The rigor isn’t what scares me the most, it’s the working conditions.</p>
<p>You don’t have to be Pre-med to go to med school. Usually you just have to have certain science courses. So maybe like a major in Chemistry or Biology could be better. That way if you decide med school isn’t in the cards for you you still have a degree to fall back on. And if you don’t like biology and chemistry I would rethink the doctor thing…</p>
<p>I absolutely love biology, and I plan on majoring in it, regardless of pre-med or not. The idea of having a career as a doctor seems appealing, but as I learn the truth of what medical school is like, I don’t know if I want to subjugate myself to something like that.</p>
<p>I totally understand that! I’m not saying this is you but I’ve heard people talk about being doctors yet hated every science class they had ever taken.</p>
<p>Well as to the non academic aspect of med school, all that really means is that people went to the wrong med schools for them or applied for the wrong residencies.
Either way no matter what job you get there will be a totem poll and those at the bottom naturally are treated worse than those further to the top. its simple human, animal nature</p>
<p>I think you should at some point talk to career center. I suggest you think about what appeals to you about going to med school. Do you want to be surgeon or specialist? Then dr. may be best thing if you are passionate enough. Do you want to specialize and just love medicine…maybe you would happy as a nurse or nurse specialist? Do you want personal contact you would find in family practice, maybe look into being physicians assistant…you can do many things dr. can do without so many years. Do you mostly love biology…you might be able to do medical research with phd in biology as oppose to going to med school. At this point you have lots of options, however if you think you want medicine, approach school that way until you rule it out since admission to med school requires certain volunteer/research hours to be competitive and you don’t want to wait until last year to start. You can always drop these if you change your mind or they might help you define what you really want.</p>
<p>I don’t think it has much to do with the “wrong programs or specialties”. Options are limited for med school – most people don’t have a whole lot of choices on where they go to med school. I think it comes down to where they get accepted (for the majority). </p>
<p>And the whole human nature ******** is just a cop-out to treat other people as inferiors. Ideally residency programs would have members learning lots from other doctors and doing things that will benefit them when they become doctors themselves. Instead they’re usually left to the remedial tasks like getting food for patients or handling the retractor while also dealing with rude nurses and attending physicians.</p>
<p>I heard a quote from a Yale trauma surgeon… “You must be willing to do what others won’t, so that you may live like others can’t”</p>
<p>Not sure the point of this thread… sounds like you really don’t want to go into medicine? Why not do something else, there are so many other careers that you can explore… there will be plenty of others willing to do what you find so degrading in order to get to where they need to go.</p>
<p>Or are you hoping that others will be turned off by the profession?</p>