well, as someone else's said above.
You'll always have bragging rights to saying you got accepted to medical school, and decided not to go.
And that's okay too.
As a couple of commenters have stated.
if you can't let go and decide to attend anyway, there's the chance that you won't hate it.
And there's always the possibility of being a medical scientist instead. Research can still very much be part of medicine.
Have a look at the threads by ex-med students, like this one:
Listen to the naysayers or why I left medical school. The ones who tried medical school, then decided it wasn't for them and were happier returning to whatever career they formerly had, knowing they had tried. If this ends up being you, this too, will be okay. So this could be one worst case scenario. Yes there'd be debts, but probably less if you were to figure it out sooner and drop out.
The other worst case is that you go down the medical path and increasingly feel trapped by it because of the effort, the time and the money that went into getting that far. And you're never sure if you're going to get the 'ah-ha' this is it moment. It's hard to know if it's worth it sometimes. For some, it may not be until they start seeing patients in 3rd or 4th year, or until they get more responsibility as a resident after all 4 years. I think this scenario is the one you fear, and what I worried about feeling too. Feeling trapped by a career you hate. But as I'd said before, I loved the study of medicine (some days less than others, but overall I do/did) at the very core of it. I had many reasons of my own for doing med, but that ultimately was the thing that separated it out from other careers I could have tried (or did try). that's been my 'protective' thing, that keeps me from hating this career.
The reasons you've listed for going into medicine are valid - I think anyway.
But I'd agree that they're not enough to go into medicine for the reason you listed before. 9 years and all the debts.
There probably should be something stronger that pulls you in and keeps you there.
to list some of the risks you'd face in the 9 years (or reasons that could cause you 'hate' a life in medicine) - If you hadn't picked this up while shadowing clinicians:
- Clinical medicine (not lab or research) carries the potential of being very exhausting, not just in the hours, but the time and energy you give away to patients and their families. Not all of them are going to be nice to you either, which throws out the window the 'glam title' of 'dr'. But you have to be professional or 'nice' to them. when you're a student or resident, you're also within a hierarchy. You're a junior member of the team and even the nurses have more seniority than you do. there's the politics to it sometimes, that you might get less of in the lab. (this is an extreme case, but it does occasionally happen -
Why do we tolerate terrible nursing?, just to illustrate some of the work politics in medicine) to quote house of god, “It's an incredible paradox that being a doctor is so degrading and yet is so valued by society”. I still however, get a lot of satisfaction from the connections I make with my patients (even fleetingly) and co-workers (the ones I get along with anyway). the bonds go deeper because of the intensity or nature of things we go through on the job. It's a very intense thing sometimes, you live on the extremes in the hospital - everyone is sick or dying.
- It's also not easy on lifestyle, at least not while you're in school or residency. it's cliche the saying, but it's kinda true to an extent. 'When you're a doctor, your life is not your own anymore. Your patients come first. That's if you go down the clinical path, although there are lifestyle friendlier fields, after training. If I'm away from family, there has to be a good reason why, it has to be worth it. even then, it's hard. But it does make me..value time with family more. it's more precious to me.
- It's also long process becoming a fully qualified doctor, and anything could happen each step of the way. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not balancing on a knife's edge. It was never any guarantee i would pass my all exams in med school or rotations, or even now, it's never any guarantee that I would get through residency. there's a lot of things that go into it. One big mistake one day could change my career or take it away. On the other hand, I like living with that feeling, the very slight danger to it. It's hard to describe. You have to be comfortable with this.
Anyway.
Lab work and research in basic science, society as a whole probably doesn't give it enough credit.
It's much less sexy for a show for starters. but it's also hard, it also requires intelligence, hard work, dedication and commitment. Like medicine you have to love it and be a little crazy. Anecdotally - based on what my PhD pals have said. And they say the same things to the students they mentor, don't do it unless you can't imagine doing anything else. I can't imagine doing what they do, churning out encyclopedia sized theses, having experiments fail, spending months troubleshooting until they get any results or data. Keeping up to date with what other labs are doing and all the latest journals. the hundreds to thousands of them. But they love it. If only to get that moment of getting to the answer they're looking for. They've become these amazing people because of it. For me, I think being a basic science researcher is much harder than being a doctor haha. That's probably partly why i chose the path I did. So if it comes more naturally to you, working in a lab, then I think it's worth celebrating that. Generally if you enjoy something, you become good at it. At least better than the average person who's just there for a paycheque.
I forgot to ask, what have the people in the lab told you? what does your lab supervisor think about your work and future down the research path?
TL;DR - every job/career has it's boring/gruelling sides to it. so you pick the one you can still bear to be around. if only for the simple reason of really, really liking it. that you'd do it for all the cons it has. doing basic research is also highly valuable and arguably, respected. as you've implied, you don't have to be a doctor to feel validated by your career.
