<p>so i got into a discussion with my cousin about careers, and i finally asked him the question of what career he thought was harder to achieve: a doctor or engineer? </p>
<p>he told me that to become a doctor was more demanding given the overlong amount of schooling one must take in order to become one. true, one must go through undergrad, med school, and finally residency -- in aggregate requiring immense patience. that is not to mention the relatively slight difficulty in the curricula of a prospective med student. </p>
<p>i, however, thought otherwise. ironically, i don't really know exactly all the steps required to become an engineer (do they need to go to grad school?), and i know that the amount of education time-wise for a student to become an engineer is less than that required for a med student, but consider the esoteric concepts of the required subjects that engineers must be able to understand. they require so much brain power to the point where not just any lay student will be able to understand the material even with a lot of studying.</p>
<p>i know "doctors" have a higher avg salary than do engineers, but that is unsubstantial </p>
<p>for our interests' sake though, let's try and compare the route one must take if he/she wanted to become a chem/ee/mech/aero engineer for a prestigious entity (e.g., nasa) with the route one must take to get into a top-tier med school and later land a true doctor-paying job.</p>
<p>in the end though there is no wrong or right answer given the condition that there are such things as "good" doctors and "bad" doctors just as there are highly paid engineers and poorly paid engineers (that in addition to the different types of engineers). however, enlighten me. let your brains' run wild.</p>
<p>To become an "engineer", all you really need is the 4 years of undergrad. If you're talking about becoming a real engineer (as in being an engineer in the eyes of the law), the license process takes at least 4 years after your bachelor's degree, depending on your work experience and passing req'd exams. I'm not sure about the statistics for licensed engineers, but I remember seeing another thread here with Cali stats. The problem with comparing licensed engineers and licensed doctors is you don't really need to be licensed, depending on what field you work in.</p>
<p>undergrad engineering courses are tougher on average but what makes med school so hard is they cram so much work on you. Medicine is a combination of lots of memorization and stamina. Doctors work long hours as everyone should know. If you pursue a phd in engineering the subject is even more difficult and you're more independent. I believe half the people who enter phd engineering programs, drop out. Plus you have fellow students as support during med school. While pursuing a PHD it can be lonely, frustrating, and lots of pressure will be placed on you.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I believe half the people who enter phd engineering programs, drop out.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, to be fair, half of the student who enter any PhD program will drop out. And often times, you drop out voluntarily. For example, if you get married, and (especially) if you have kids, you may find that you just no longer have the motivation to complete the PhD as you are now more interested in other things.</p>
<p>I have 2 friends in med school now, and 1 says engineering is harder and the other says the med school is harder. It depends on the person. but in general pre-med is really really easy in comparison.</p>
<p>I wouldn't say premed is easier.. Sure, it's much, much easier to just graduate with a 2.0 GPA as a premed compared to an engineer, but that won't get you into medical school. Premeds need to get a 3.5+ GPA in highly competitive classes (premed competition is insane at some schools), get significant volunteering and research experience, and get a good score on the MCATs. Engineers just need to graduate with a 2.5ish+ GPA.</p>
<p>The person who graduates last in his med school class can still hang out his shingle and you as a patient will never know it. There is not a lot of oversight on doctors in private practice. But engineers are ususally an integral part of a team whose job it is to complete a project. If you are a dumb engineer, your peers will know it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I wouldn't say premed is easier.. Sure, it's much, much easier to just graduate with a 2.0 GPA as a premed compared to an engineer, but that won't get you into medical school. Premeds need to get a 3.5+ GPA in highly competitive classes (premed competition is insane at some schools), get significant volunteering and research experience, and get a good score on the MCATs. Engineers just need to graduate with a 2.5ish+ GPA.
[/quote]
For the most recent graduating class at my school, a 3.5 Cumulative GPA for Mechanical Engineering was around the 85th-90th percentile.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The person who graduates last in his med school class can still hang out his shingle and you as a patient will never know it. There is not a lot of oversight on doctors in private practice. But engineers are ususally an integral part of a team whose job it is to complete a project. If you are a dumb engineer, your peers will know it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The thing is that the private practice physician is a dying breed, mostly because of HMO's and rising malpractice rates. Also: [ul]</p>
<p>[li]Most surgeons work in a team on a daily basis, regardless of their mode of practice. </p>[/li]
<p>[*]The stakes are usually much higher and more immediate if you screw up as a doctor. [/ul]</p>
<p>Doctors might kill their patients one at a time, while engineers are capable of killing many people at once. Think of engineering disasters (I think that is even a Discovery Channel show). Buildings and bridges can collapse, trains and planes can crash, nuclear plants can melt down, etc. </p>
<p>Most "private practice" physicians are employed by some managed healthcare system these days, but the nuts and bolts of their practice still resembles the old time physician. The doctor works in his private office along with nurses and secretaries. Even in large group practices, there is no peer review and each doctor tends to work autonomously. </p>
<p>My only point was that with the doctor-patient relationship, the two are not on equal footing. Most patients don't really know if the doctor ordered the proper tests, made the correct diagnosis, or prescribed the state-of-the-art treatment (surgical teams and other teams excepted). But most engineers don't work in private practice and they are on equal footing with their co-workers. Engineers will recognize incompetence among their peers more easily than a patient will recognize it in their personal physician. </p>
<p>Anyway, this is off-topic. I don't know which is easier to do. I guess each has its own special skills and it depends upon the individual.</p>
<p>When a bridge collapses THERE is a hell of an inquiry into the case, whereas a dead patient is buried underground or sent to med schools for research.</p>
<p>AND there are contracts before the surgeon conducts an operation/surgery confirming NO RESPONSIBILITY for the death or permanent injury to the patient.</p>
<p>They can inquire all they want, but a mistake is a mistake. Doctors' mistakes are just usually less media-worthy and are addressed by malpractice lawyers.</p>
When a bridge collapses THERE is a hell of an inquiry into the case, whereas a dead patient is buried underground or sent to med schools for research.</p>
<p>AND there are contracts before the surgeon conducts an operation/surgery confirming NO RESPONSIBILITY for the death or permanent injury to the patient.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>when was the last time we see bridge collapses due to engineering mistakes making news headlines?
probably on history channel or discovery channel. and why is that? most likely because back in older times computer simulation technology wasn't as sophisticated as they are now or didn't exist at all.</p>
<p>i am not saying engineers have zero responsibility for their design and products. but truth be told, engineers nowadays bear much less risk than they did in the past. yet we still hear medical doctors complaining about malpractice insurance rates all the time.</p>
<p>i highly doubt the existence of contracts that waive surgeons from ANY operation responsiblities. yes, most medical operation contracts inform the patients and their families the probability of death due to the inherent nature of the disease and the surgery. patients' age and health condition are also highly influential factors to whether the surgery will fail or not. the contract acknowledges this fact and protects the doctors from being sued over factors s/he has no control of. however, if the surgical failure is directly or even indirectly caused by the doctor's malpractice, there is no way s/he can dodge the liability.</p>
<p>Most engineering don't have to be responsible for the entire project,they only have to do their own parts.
And some doctors even don't have to conduct a operation.</p>
<p>As far as education goes. I think ChemE and EE are far more difficult than Pre-Med. CivE and IndE are far easier. The difference is it 4 years of school to be eligible to be a licensed engineer. It takes 8 years of school to become a doctor, plus additional residency. Sure, engineering courses have plenty of weed-out courses. Nonetheless, some students will ride out the 4 years just to get their hands on an engineering degree. But I cant see someone with a real passion for medicine going through possibly 10 years of work before being a paid Dr.</p>