I was talking with a friend the other day who has been doing the post-bacc thing for a couple of years now to go to medical school. She's now having second thoughts about it, mostly because of the time commitment required.
She wants to get married now, and have a family. I told her that plenty of people do this in med school and residency, and that she shouldn't let it deter her, if she still really wants to be a doctor.
But.
She is concerned that she won't have the life she wants. That 7 years (minimum) of 80 hour weeks is more than she wants to sacrifice. That she wants to have a life outside of medicine. Not in 10 years when she's finally an attending, but now.
And you know? She's right. Medical school and residency are an F-Load of time.
I didn't really know what to tell her besides, "Try not to think about this until you take the MCAT!!!" and, "You really need to discuss this with your significant other," and , "Your concerns are completely legitimate." I do worry that she's just getting cold feet because she's getting scared of the big test and the application process. That she's preparing to give up on med school out of fear of failure.
I also really don't want to push her down a path that she'll end up hating.
You know? Not everybody is like me, and it's perfectly ok not to have a high powered career as a doctor, or to decide that you want to do something else with your life. Better now than $200,000 (or more) in debt when you're halfway done with school or residency.
Sometimes I look at my friends who go to their 9-5 jobs every day and have hobbies and traditional families and I think about what my life would have been like had I chosen that path.
But you know, I really want to be the PI. The boss. Not just the person who carries out the research, but the person who designs it. Who gets the grant. Whose research agenda I'm studying. Not somebody else's idea.
There's nothing wrong with being the 9-5 person, but it just wasn't me. That's why I had to do this.
(Or so I keep telling myself.)
Ha.
18 Pearls of Wisdom:
Amen sista!
I have had lots of people ask me why I went back to study medicine and have tried (unsuccessfully) to explain my reasons on the blog, but it really comes down to what you just said.
I hate carrying out care plans that I don't understand or outright disagree with, I was definitely on the road to becoming a more bitter/jaded ER nurse who had her 'hours to retirement' countdown as her screensaver at work.
I have to remind myself of those things when I see my former co-workers going on ski trips (whimper!), taking pastry classes, having full weekends off, raising families, etc.
It *will* be worth it. Repeat the mantra!
It WILL be worth it! :)
Everything requires some kind of sacrifice, it just depends on what you are willing to sacrifice.
The BEST job out there, is the one that you are passionate about and that can take care of your financial needs with. The rest is just icing on the cake.
I quite enjoy a look into your life, without having to actually live it. :-)
omdg, abb- it will be more than worth it. it will be who you are.
Yup. Ya gotta be you.
Decisions of the head are logical. Decisions of the heart are often not.
But we generally DON'T regret decisions of the heart.
I don't know, I'm kind of in the ideology that if you aren't sure you want to go to med school, you probably shouldn't do it. I think med school is one of those things you ought to be (at least fairly) sure about. I also think if you feel like you're putting off life till the end of training, then you might be making a mistake.
I also find it interesting how people look at the end of training as the light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, it's nice to be done with training and yeah, there are a lot of docs who do manage to find a cushy job right out of training. But there are tons of docs who work harder as an attending (especially at first) then they ever did as a resident.
Fizzy,
Haha. I was wondering when you'd weigh in on this. As I recall, you have been known to attempt to dissuade even those who are totally gung ho to go to med school.
I'm *somewhat* inclined to agree with you.... with the caveat that sometimes one's reaction to a big scary test (MCAT) is to freak out and decide you don't want to do the thing the test leads to after it. Also, I think it's only natural to question where you're going in life, and to have doubts/concerns. Ergo, I have to take this person's doubts with the grain of salt.
I"m with Fizzy. If she's not sure she thinks the time commitment is worth it, it's probably not. However, if it's just a cover up excuse she's saying because she's really just scared of the MCAT, then she should go for it. MCAT and admissions scare everyone.
When I was an intern, I used to try to dissuade absolutely everyone from med school. I was basically the picture of miserable. When I switched the PM&R, I was happier and I could actually conceive how some people might enjoy become doctors. Everyone doesn't want the same things and have the same goals. Then again, if somebody is already anxious about wanting to have kids and get married, it seems like an awfully long path to embark on.
I also think the alleged "light at the end of the tunnel" might be a good MiM topic. Whenever I post about childbearing, everybody talks about getting training out of the way, which is understandable. Yet when I was a resident, the attendings were working harder than I did and had more responsibility. The light at the end of the tunnel is sometimes even harder work. That was a really depressing realization for me. Yet I hate to always sound like a downer.
If having a family is important, why can't she do that now and go to med school later?
If you're not going to med school in your early 20s, I think it's only natural to ask yourself if you can handle the demands that will be placed on you. At my ripe old age (30!), I wonder if it's too late to go to med school (I'm looking at maybe 2-4 years of prep work). If I don't try, I know I'll regret it, but if I'm too busy to find my very own Mr. Right and procreate, or travel (I've never seen Paris) or even take a yoga class, I'll be full of regret as well. The thing is that I'm already working in a health care profession, so making the move into medicine isn't so far-fetched.
Any advice? I'll take any kind.
I did the post-bacc thing, and I did take the MCAT, and I haven't actually checked the score of the MCAT. I ended up getting pregnant about 12 seconds after the MCAT, and I didn't want to deal with the inevitable need to make a decision. It wasn't necessarily that it was too HARD, it was that it was not what I wanted to pursue.
I think it is really really hard to have a reasonable work-life balance with kids in the picture during training. It wasn't in the cards for me to wait until the training was over (I would have been starting having kids at 38, and my internal clock was not happy with that). But that's my personal priority - I really, really wanted a family, and I wanted less to be the head honcho. So maybe I'll go to med school at 38. Maybe I won't (probably not). I'm okay with that. She needs to be okay with that, too, if that's what she wants...although I would say that taking the MCAT is a good idea, just so she has the option if she chooses to pursue med school.
Anon -- I can't imagine ever being too busy to find Mr. Right. Postponing med school to do that seems like a really silly reason to me not to go. I also have time to take a yoga class and to travel to Paris, and did when I was in the med school part as well. A friend completed 2 ironman triathlons while in med school, for goodness sakes! Plenty of residents run marathons!
I already know this comment may be taken lightly by some, because I'm a male (and everyone knows that being a man isn't the same with kids/ families), but I felt that I had to chime in. I've been married and had 2 kids during medical school/ residency. I've had to juggle studying for exams with my wife's work schedule. Now I have to juggle my resident work-load with the need to be home, take care of the kids, take care of the home, and be a good husband. It can be very hard, but it's doable.
People have asked me how much harder it is to have kids in medical school and residency to which I've no answer. I've never known a time without kids during this process - which means that the first 1-2 years of med school/ residency CAN BE DONE with a family. It takes a lot of commitment to everything, knowing what's important and what can take a back seat, and having a spouse/ sig other who's aware of the commitment needed and is on board with it, but it can be done and done well. Two of the top 4 in my med school class had kids and limited time to study.
I had doubts when the MCAT came around as well. Ultimately it has been a good decision because it's what I want to do with my life. Your friend should consider these things and seriously discuss these with her mentor, other physicians, other medical students (like yourself), and her significant other before opting out.
While having kids is not even close to a comparison, you can most definitely still have a life in med school, so long as you are not an uber gunner.
My wife and I have managed to travel all over the globe, see loads of amazing shows, eat out at fantastic restaurants and visit with friends and family, and most importantly maintain our amazing relationship.
Yeah, I'm not at the top of my class, but I still got residency interviews at ALL of my top choices.
You just have to be cognizant of finding that balance in your life, it takes work (and practice.
I think medical training can be summed up in two words: delayed gratification. Med school and residency weren't horrible for me. I climbed and skied a lot, traveled, spent time with my family, but there were lots of things I would have liked to do that I couldn't.
The past week I've been feeling kind of bitter about going away for another 3 months of training. Missing ski season, living away from my husband and my parents... again, I'm putting my life on hold. Beneath that all though I really feel convinced that this is what I need to do. I think you do need that conviction if you're going to commit to 7+ years of med school and residency.
For me, the end of residency really has proved to be the light at the end of the tunnel. Fizzy's right... as an attending, there's more responsibility, more pressure, potentially more stress. I work fewer hours, but the hours that I do work, I do work harder than I did in residency. The key difference is that I have control. I decide how much, when, where to work, what aspects of family medicine I want to practice. If I'm at work, I'm there because I 100% chose to be there.
RAG -- I think that was exactly the point I was trying to make. Of course, nobody takes my opinion on the subject seriously either since I don't have kids, but I'm inclined to agree with you that it's all doable. It seems that "mature" women listen to those who came before them, even if they're being told that they shouldn't shoot for the stars and that they can't "have it all." I don't understand why this is the case, and frankly I think it's bullshit.
I had doubts all the way through the process, but ultimately I've been really glad I went.
Of course, if she really doesn't want to go, fine. But if she's just scared? Well, isn't everyone?
Yep totally true. All the attendings I know work very hard. The thing is, they are usually doing things that they have chosen to do, and I think that makes all the difference.
Training hasn't been so bad for me either so far. It has its ups and downs, and sometimes I think of what I could be doing otherwise. The thing is, I really like doing what I'm doing, and I feel very lucky to be here. There is so much interesting stuff to learn. For me it's been worth it.
Though, ask me again 10 years from now.
I think for some people, attending life IS the light at the end of the tunnel, but there are some people who work very hard as an attending, and while they may like some of the work, a lot of it might be scutwork they hate. There are a few reasons for this: increased need for documentation in medicine, decreasing reimbursement, choosing a high pressure field, being in a small (or malignant) private practice, and having to "settle" career-wise because you're limited geographically. Some people really do get their dream jobs, but I've seen lots of attendings who seem constantly miserable. And somehow I get the feeling that many of the attendings who are miserable were also miserable throughout their entire training.
Post a Comment