<p>I'm trying to decide between medicine and research. Please give me some cons.</p>
<p>If you must ask this question then just save yourself the trouble and don't go into research.</p>
<p>Everyone has something they don't like about research. For me it's wading through all of the papers that don't matter and trying to figure out of the work done was done properly in the papers that do matter during a literature review. Also, the low standard of readability that most scientific papers are held to.</p>
<p>Pros for research - work with smart people, intellectual stimulation, free education, great work environment, altruistic feelings, prestige</p>
<p>Cons for research - crappy funding climate (right now), tedious benchwork, validation, failed experiments, repeating failed experiments, long training periods, low salaries (at least at first), geographical limitations, low success rates in becoming independent</p>
<p>Pros for clinical medicine - high salaries, prestige, working directly with ill patients, there are probably others but i can't think of them, stability</p>
<p>Cons for clinical medicine - career limitations (once you have the student loans, you are fairly well locked into patient care, until you have repaid them), high cost of education, obnoxious admissions process, residencies with 75 hour weeks, long training times, being a customer service representative for science (meaning that you are in a service profession), having to buy into practices or be bullied by hmos</p>
<p>Obviously I have done the comparison shopping myself and I think its obvious which side I chose.</p>
<p>The main con I have with research as a grad student is that there's little room for creative freedom. You will be working under someone for many years doing research unless you are fortunate enough to have your own grant funding.</p>
<p>I have to respectfully disagree with your con, creolan. I feel that the purpose of the grad school experience is to first figure out how to do research. Only then can you be truly creative. Further, in time you can be more creative and bring up ideas and try out new things, once you have that solid foundation. I really do not believe that PIs want lab techs as grad students, we are not here to simply do someone's bidding. This has been my experience, anyway.</p>