Is anyone on SDN actually happy with their decision to go to medical school?

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SilentSoldier said:
6 weeks into 2nd year and the happiness that I had in 1st year is dwindling away. Maybe because I'd rather be spending time outside during this wonderful summer weather than studying.
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This is exactly why I wish I was freezing cold the entire school year, and exactly why I love winter quarter :D
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Chemdude said:
I started being disappointed with my choice of going to medical school after the first couple months of third year. I loved the preclinical years. All I had to do was study for a week or two every month. I would see the direct [positive] results of my studying. Then I took step 1, and I was so happy. I felt like I knew everything. Then third year started, and I started to feel like ****. I have never felt more crappy than I did during my surgery rotation last December. I felt like I was a nobody. My friends in other fields were respected professionals, and here I was regurgitating random lab values every day at 5 am in the morning while being cut-off and disrespected by grumpy residents. The surgeon who gave me my final grade only worked with me a handful of times during the semester, and he didn't even know my name. There were a few moments where I felt extremely happy, but those moments were few and far between. Otherwise, I was disappointed by the lack of intellectual rigor in clinical medicine. I had no interest in writing BS notes that will never get read, and retracting for 2 hours straight as I watch the 20th hernia repair. I was disappointed with the daily grind of clinical medicine.

I now think that I would have been much happier as a PhD in an academic career path. I sometimes envy my engineer/business friends who have been making good money for the past few years. They have a comfortable life that seems to be much less stressful than that of an MD. It pains me to know that I will not have a comfortable life with a stable income until my late 30s...
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What residency are you applying to?
 
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mimelim said:
Maybe should have shadowed a little more as a pre-med...
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I shadowed a surgeon as a pre med . It looked like the most laid back thing I'd ever seen. Maybe it was because the surgeon is my brother? Idk, but it definitely didn't seem as bad as that other guy posted. However, med students probably get it extra rough in 3rd year
 
wjs010 said:
I shadowed a surgeon as a pre med . It looked like the most laid back thing I'd ever seen. Maybe it was because the surgeon is my brother? Idk, but it definitely didn't seem as bad as that other guy posted. However, med students probably get it extra rough in 3rd year
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My problem wasn't solely with surgery. I also felt the same way on IM. Surgery was just the epitome of what I hated about medicine. Admittedly, we have a very malignant surgery department...
 
My mentor said that the clinical years are exponentially worse than your residency (exact words were, your clinical years are so hard that residency seems like a break) Maybe just push through until you start your internship.
 
General surgery sucks for 95% of your class. It did for me. But I really enjoyed IM and Radiology. Both were fascinating in their own regards. IM covered a lot of different scopes of practice and Radiology felt mostly like a scene from House if the dx wasn't known. Not that it was particularly hard (for the radiologist) but I felt like a detective.

EM was very fast-paced some nights and other nights I was spending a majority of my time memorizing lab values to present the next morning so I wouldn't get chewed out for not knowing the patient's Potassium values when s/he came in with a broken foot. I know it's important pathologically, but it was very demoralizing. Also, I like to follow a patient through with treatment. More times we sent a patient to another wing/department for other physicians to treat. I never really heard from or about that patient after they left 98% of the time.
 
To be fair, most premed shadowing involves following around an academic [insert field here] attending for only a portion of their day. Usually 7am till 3 maybe 5pm. Not only that, the ones that let you shadow them are usually the ones that have extra time on their hands and love to teach/mentor students. You don't get that luxury during med school.

I've yet to see any premed showing up for pre rounds at 5am, retracting/rounding for 6-8 hours, writing progress notes that no one reads, then going to the library to study till 9pm for next week's presentation/shelf exam. Its a whole different ballgame during med school (and residency).

Just my opinion, but I really think rather than having premeds do random shadowing hours we should just make everyone applying work (shadow every second) the schedule of an IM or GS resident for 1 week prior to applying.
 
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Chemdude said:
I started being disappointed with my choice of going to medical school after the first couple months of third year. I loved the preclinical years. All I had to do was study for a week or two every month. I would see the direct [positive] results of my studying. Then I took step 1, and I was so happy. I felt like I knew everything. Then third year started, and I started to feel like ****. I have never felt more crappy than I did during my surgery rotation last December. I felt like I was a nobody. My friends in other fields were respected professionals, and here I was regurgitating random lab values every day at 5 am in the morning while being cut-off and disrespected by grumpy residents. The surgeon who gave me my final grade only worked with me a handful of times during the semester, and he didn't even know my name. There were a few moments where I felt extremely happy, but those moments were few and far between. Otherwise, I was disappointed by the lack of intellectual rigor in clinical medicine. I had no interest in writing BS notes that will never get read, and retracting for 2 hours straight as I watch the 20th hernia repair. I was disappointed with the daily grind of clinical medicine.

I now think that I would have been much happier as a PhD in an academic career path. I sometimes envy my engineer/business friends who have been making good money for the past few years. They have a comfortable life that seems to be much less stressful than that of an MD. It pains me to know that I will not have a comfortable life with a stable income until my late 30s...
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I hope things end up working out for you. It is interesting that our experiences have been exactly opposite. I was pretty miserable during the first two years (especially second year), and I am absolutely loving surgery during third year... even the crazy overnight trauma call shifts.
 
AlphaKeto said:
My mentor said that the clinical years are exponentially worse than your residency (exact words were, your clinical years are so hard that residency seems like a break) Maybe just push through until you start your internship.
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That is horrible advice.
 
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I've blocked out most of medical school. I'm in my 3rd year of psychiatry residency. Being a senior resident is pretty sweet.
 
Yeah,
Third year was 50/50 but that bad 50 stuck with me. I almost forget the good things.
I'll say a lot of it is the lingering malignant attitudes.
 
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VisionaryTics said:
That is horrible advice.
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That's your opinion. People tell me to push through stuff I hate, to do the things I love all the time. Sometimes it's applicable, sometimes it's not. That's why I said "maybe". Only he knows if this is a situation where it's better to cut your losses and eject or to push through. But I do know he says he is in his clinical years, IE: the home stretch. He can still decide to go into research, or a sub-specialty that is more academically challenging. So I feel like, "push through" might be some sound advice in this case.
 
Hell, most M1s and M2s are "pushing through" their preclinical years to get to things that they love doing.
 
AlphaKeto said:
That's your opinion. People tell me to push through stuff I hate, to do the things I love all the time. Sometimes it's applicable, sometimes it's not. That's why I said "maybe". Only he knows if this is a situation where it's better to cut your losses and eject or to push through. But I do know he says he is in his clinical years, IE: the home stretch. He can still decide to go into research, or a sub-specialty that is more academically challenging. So I feel like, "push through" might be some sound advice in this case.
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The horrible advice is how clinical years are so much worse than residency. Even if that were true, it kind of raises an eyebrow on how bad that school is in teaching med students.
Especially when one says it's exponentially worse. It's a facade which could ultimately make you hate residency.
 
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Orientation starts this coming Monday and (the relevant parts of) this thread were partially responsible for bringing me out of a panic attack over starting school and reminding me that this is exciting. Several hours later and I feel great.

Thank you :)
 
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Chemdude said:
I started being disappointed with my choice of going to medical school after the first couple months of third year. I loved the preclinical years. All I had to do was study for a week or two every month. I would see the direct [positive] results of my studying. Then I took step 1, and I was so happy. I felt like I knew everything. Then third year started, and I started to feel like ****. I have never felt more crappy than I did during my surgery rotation last December. I felt like I was a nobody. My friends in other fields were respected professionals, and here I was regurgitating random lab values every day at 5 am in the morning while being cut-off and disrespected by grumpy residents. The surgeon who gave me my final grade only worked with me a handful of times during the semester, and he didn't even know my name. There were a few moments where I felt extremely happy, but those moments were few and far between. Otherwise, I was disappointed by the lack of intellectual rigor in clinical medicine. I had no interest in writing BS notes that will never get read, and retracting for 2 hours straight as I watch the 20th hernia repair. I was disappointed with the daily grind of clinical medicine.

I now think that I would have been much happier as a PhD in an academic career path. I sometimes envy my engineer/business friends who have been making good money for the past few years. They have a comfortable life that seems to be much less stressful than that of an MD. It pains me to know that I will not have a comfortable life with a stable income until my late 30s...
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Medicine is an applied science at the end of the day. If you're into all head-in-the-clouds white tower theoretical nonsense, it's really a bad choice. You would have found the same issues in engineering and business- the engineers I have known ended up designing a single part within an entire engine or similar endeavors, where they're just trying to pick the optimal material and design for a single piece of a massive machine, ultimately making the job dull to no end. Jobs outside of aerospace and mechanical engineering are similar- much of the job is tedious application of advanced science, really boring when you get right down to it. And business, don't even get me started. It's a smart way to make money, but it requires what would best be described as a combination of street smarts, basic accounting, and intuition, none of which really would sate your desire to delve deep into the sciences. Perhaps you should try to find a research path down the line, as clinical medicine will be unlikely to make you happy if you view things like notes as worthless pieces of data and saving lives as a daily grind.
 
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Kaustikos said:
The horrible advice is how clinical years are so much worse than residency. Even if that were true, it kind of raises an eyebrow on how bad that school is in teaching med students.
Especially when one says it's exponentially worse. It's a facade which could ultimately make you hate residency.
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Ah, well. I haven't had the chance to compare, but his rationale was that, unlike residents, med students have no federally-mandated clinical hour limit, and as no student wants to be the first to say "hey, we've been working for 48 hours straight", they tend to get shuffled about with the rotating staff until an astute attending notices them dragging their feet. He said that, combined with actually getting paid for your work and working in/towards a specialty of your interest, makes residency much better than clinical years.
 
AlphaKeto said:
Ah, well. I haven't had the chance to compare, but his rationale was that, unlike residents, med students have no federally-mandated clinical hour limit, and as no student wants to be the first to say "hey, we've been working for 48 hours straight", they tend to get shuffled about with the rotating staff until an astute attending notices them dragging their feet. He said that, combined with actually getting paid for your work and working in/towards a specialty of your interest, makes residency much better than clinical years.
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I don't know what you're talking about. Residency sucks so much worse
 
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O Grady said:
Histo was hands down my least favorite subject in M1. I can't wait for path....

:barf:
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Histology is just interpretative art. The trick is to know what it is that you're supposed to be seeing, and then just pretending that you can interpret the slide.
 
Psai said:
I don't know what you're talking about. Residency sucks so much worse
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I thought you were a 4th year..?

Residency will certainly suck in many ways (terrible hours), but many residents that I've talked to prefer it to third year because they are learning what they want to do for the rest of their career and they find it less stressful on a day to day basis. In that they don't have to walk on eggshells all day like they did as medical students for fear of pissing off the wrong person and tanking their grade and potentially all their future career aspirations. They have already secured a path into the career they want and can now focus on learning their craft, for lack of a better term. I'm sure it will still suck a great deal and have it's terrible moments, but there are advantages to being a resident when compared to being a medical student, and depending on your personality and preferences, it isn't too far fetched to imagine someone preferring the grind of residency to much of medical school.

(And in case you think I was talking to derm residents or something like that, these were residents in a surgical subspecialty who work a ton of hours).
 
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Yes! Absolutely! Without a doubt! Thrilled beyond belief!

Med school IS hard, and it is challenging, and it's also amazing, and fun, and just precisely what I wanted.

Maybe it's just my perspective in life. I suppose that if I had never had other full-time jobs or other demands on my schedule, I might think med school was horrible. But I have, and it's not. :)
 
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Winged Scapula said:
While schools do, I was responding to the comment that work hours are federally mandated, as if it were a law anywhere outside of the state of New York.
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Touche. So, agreed again
 
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Chemdude said:
I started being disappointed with my choice of going to medical school after the first couple months of third year. I loved the preclinical years. All I had to do was study for a week or two every month. I would see the direct [positive] results of my studying. Then I took step 1, and I was so happy. I felt like I knew everything. Then third year started, and I started to feel like ****. I have never felt more crappy than I did during my surgery rotation last December. I felt like I was a nobody. My friends in other fields were respected professionals, and here I was regurgitating random lab values every day at 5 am in the morning while being cut-off and disrespected by grumpy residents. The surgeon who gave me my final grade only worked with me a handful of times during the semester, and he didn't even know my name. There were a few moments where I felt extremely happy, but those moments were few and far between. Otherwise, I was disappointed by the lack of intellectual rigor in clinical medicine. I had no interest in writing BS notes that will never get read, and retracting for 2 hours straight as I watch the 20th hernia repair. I was disappointed with the daily grind of clinical medicine.

I now think that I would have been much happier as a PhD in an academic career path. I sometimes envy my engineer/business friends who have been making good money for the past few years. They have a comfortable life that seems to be much less stressful than that of an MD. It pains me to know that I will not have a comfortable life with a stable income until my late 30s...
Click to expand...
I think you picked a perfect field of Radiology. The male residents of Surgery are some of the worst in their treatment of students, and sadly, they have their old school male surgical attendings who back them up no matter what. Radiology residents tend to be much happier, more normal personality, and will go out of their way to teach you if there isn't a huge rush. Just take it as a hard lesson and rip them on their evals.
mimelim said:
Maybe should have shadowed a little more as a pre-med...
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Yeah, because 50-100 more hours of clinical shadowing would have changed things up entirely for @Chemdude. Great advice. Its not like hospital volunteers are rounding with the team. Any wonder he's heading to Radiology.
 
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AlphaKeto said:
My mentor said that the clinical years are exponentially worse than your residency (exact words were, your clinical years are so hard that residency seems like a break) Maybe just push through until you start your internship.
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You seriously need to get a new mentor.
cs24 said:
Residency will certainly suck in many ways (terrible hours), but many residents that I've talked to prefer it to third year because they are learning what they want to do for the rest of their career and they find it less stressful on a day to day basis. In that they don't have to walk on eggshells all day like they did as medical students for fear of pissing off the wrong person and tanking their grade and potentially all their future career aspirations. They have already secured a path into the career they want and can now focus on learning their craft, for lack of a better term. I'm sure it will still suck a great deal and have it's terrible moments, but there are advantages to being a resident when compared to being a medical student, and depending on your personality and preferences, it isn't too far fetched to imagine someone preferring the grind of residency to much of medical school.
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Agreed. As an intern, I don't have to do any of what you just said, that I would be doing as a third year med student. Don't have to pretend out loud how much I just "love" _________ rotation/specialty.
 
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URHere said:
My opinion of medical school has varied dramatically over the years:

MS1: Bored out of my damned mind. Worked a theater job and spent a lot of time on martial arts.
MS2: Fascinated by the material. Happy to be in medical school.
MS3: VERY rotation dependent. I had one clerkship where I woke up an hour early every day because I was excited to get to the hospital. A couple of months later, I hated every single aspect of my new rotation and felt a sense of both worthlessness and agitation like I have never felt before.

Overall though? Worth it so far.
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On a somewhat related note, I entirely forgot that I replied to this thread last year. Looking back at the time stamp, I was on OB around that time. Everything suddenly makes sense.

As an update, fourth year is magical, sub-Is included.
 
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URHere said:
On a somewhat related note, I entirely forgot that I replied to this thread last year. Looking back at the time stamp, I was on OB around that time. Everything suddenly makes sense.

As an update, fourth year is magical, sub-Is included.
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So pretty much when its almost over and they won't fail you out.
 
charmiedermie said:
So pretty much when its almost over and they won't fail you out.
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Mostly because: (1) you get to pick your rotations, (2) there are no more obnoxious shelf exams, and (3) you've already been through everything once so you are less likely to feel glaringly incompetent. Also, entire months reserved for interviews, vacations, and "research".
 
Started 3rd year about 2 months ago and I am loving it. You actually get to talk to patients instead of your textbook! I am currently in the middle of my general surgery rotation and could actually see myself doing it!

M1 year is cool bc you are still on the "I got into med school" high for a while. That fades towards the end of the first semester.

M2 year was when I started becoming jaded about all the useless, low-yield didactic lectures, PBL's, and group projects. Then you take Step 1 and everything works out fine if you worked hard.

M3 is awesome so far bc of seeing patients and exploring the specialty you may want to do! :)
 
Fourth year medical student here.
Medical school is a lot like any job, there are elements that are great that keep you excited and there are parts that are incredibly challenging. I have found medical school to be an amazing opportunity, however it has come at a cost and a great sacrifice (finincially and time).
I am an older student, so this probably tempers my views. I think what hurts a lot of medical students is their sense of entitlement. Many med students don't appreciate that this education is primarily an apprentice model and it is hard, awkward and time consuming. I have seen a lot of students struggle because they expect the 'education' to be handed to them on a silver platter, not appreciating the fact that it is a slow process that requires patience, the 'long view' and an ability for delayed gratification.
All that said, I have loved medical school because it has afforded me the chance to explore countless topics of interest while untimely furthering my goal of becoming an excellent clinician.
 
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I could blame negativity on SDN but when you get to medical school, it doesn't get any better.

When I have moments outside of the medical school bubble it always hits me hard how amazing this is.

Most people just don't have the self control to not complain.
 
Overall I'm enjoying the journey so far. I've learned to adjust my outlook on life and I'm quite content with my decision. Some days I question my sanity but I was doing that when I was in the workforce so I expect that's part of being an adult. I'll see in a few years (when I actually finish med school) what my mood will be.
 
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mimelim said:
Maybe should have shadowed a little more as a pre-med...
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Really? I don't see how he would have appreciated life as a med student or resident unless he actually shadowed a resident. Generally when one shadows it is with an attending, and often one that is in the private practice and/or clinic setting, which can give quite a skewed perspective. I shadowed and worked in the hospital setting quite a bit prior to med school, and much of the clinical years were a surprise to me, specifically the grading scheme, lack of respect, and how inefficient it is from a learning perspective. I can see how it can be pretty easy to become disillusioned. Though, judging from your posts, it may be that we're not all as industrious as you are (I don't think I could stomach 100 hours a week in the hospital).
 
cs24 said:
I thought you were a 4th year..?

Residency will certainly suck in many ways (terrible hours), but many residents that I've talked to prefer it to third year because they are learning what they want to do for the rest of their career and they find it less stressful on a day to day basis. In that they don't have to walk on eggshells all day like they did as medical students for fear of pissing off the wrong person and tanking their grade and potentially all their future career aspirations. They have already secured a path into the career they want and can now focus on learning their craft, for lack of a better term. I'm sure it will still suck a great deal and have it's terrible moments, but there are advantages to being a resident when compared to being a medical student, and depending on your personality and preferences, it isn't too far fetched to imagine someone preferring the grind of residency to much of medical school.

(And in case you think I was talking to derm residents or something like that, these were residents in a surgical subspecialty who work a ton of hours).
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Throw in having actual responsibility. Your decisions and notes have weight, since they're actually YOUR patients. Nurses won't skip over you when discussing patient matters because you can put in orders. You get paid (!!).
 
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I know I don't have much in site into life further in med school but 1st year isn't too bad. I love the classes except anatomy but that is just because I can't memorize well and don't enjoy horizontal learning.


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As a fourth year who has matched, I am quite happy right now, haha. I am happy to have completed medical school and that I will be going into a specialty I enjoy and that seems to fit me well. However, when I think back to certain parts of med school, I am not sure I could convince myself to do it again. Just glad to be done so that I don't have to!
 
Cinclus said:
As a fourth year who has matched, I am quite happy right now, haha. I am happy to have completed medical school and that I will be going into a specialty I enjoy and that seems to fit me well. However, when I think back to certain parts of med school, I am not sure I could convince myself to do it again. Just glad to be done so that I don't have to!
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I'm a 4th year who matched as well and I'm happy too! :p

There are definitely parts that I didn't enjoy. End of second year I (along with probably 95% of my class) got super burnt out. Surgery rotation. Early mornings in OB. But it wasn't anything I couldn't get through to get to what I wanted to do and I could always find something optimistic about it. Like I knew I didn't want to do surgery, hated standing on my feet all day, but I liked talking to the patients when we were able to do that, and I knew if I tried to participate/be involved somehow the time would go faster. Plus we usually had good residents. I talked to someone I rotated on surgery with and she was surprised I hated it so I guess I'm just an optimistic person lol.

I would probably do it again but I'm still really excited about being a doctor so I feel like it was worth it. Maybe because I have family in medicine, I wasn't really surprised by any part of medical school, like I ended up having pretty accurate expectations for how clinical years would work. I'm sure it would be harder if you don't have a clear picture of this. I am VERY happy to be going into the specialty I want now and being able to just focus on that, as well as get paid haha.
 
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hmockingbird said:
I'm a 4th year who matched as well and I'm happy too! :p

There are definitely parts that I didn't enjoy. End of second year I (along with probably 95% of my class) got super burnt out. Surgery rotation. Early mornings in OB. But it wasn't anything I couldn't get through to get to what I wanted to do and I could always find something optimistic about it. Like I knew I didn't want to do surgery, hated standing on my feet all day, but I liked talking to the patients when we were able to do that, and I knew if I tried to participate/be involved somehow the time would go faster. Plus we usually had good residents. I talked to someone I rotated on surgery with and she was surprised I hated it so I guess I'm just an optimistic person lol.

I would probably do it again but I'm still really excited about being a doctor so I feel like it was worth it. Maybe because I have family in medicine, I wasn't really surprised by any part of medical school, like I ended up having pretty accurate expectations for how clinical years would work. I'm sure it would be harder if you don't have a clear picture of this. I am VERY happy to be going into the specialty I want now and being able to just focus on that, as well as get paid haha.
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What specialty are you going into?


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It's been a little over a year since I quit med school and I still maintain that attending medical school for one semester was one of the worst ideas and experiences of my life. To anyone who followed my posts, I went back to my awful manual labor job that I worked between undergrad and med school -- a job that despite sucking unimaginably hard, is still more tolerable than med school ever was -- and I am currently waiting to start a masters program in accounting this coming Fall semester.

I mean, I regret quitting. I thought (and still do think) that being a doctor would be really cool, and I enjoyed patient contact more than I thought I ever would have. Unfortunately, I don't have the capacity to sit down and study at 100% efficiency for hours a day, 6-7 days a week, for years of my life -- doing so makes me absolutely miserable.
 
I hated most of medical school but really enjoy being a resident. Don't get me wrong, being a resident can be brutal, exhausting, just utterly terrible at times but the cool stuff I get to do makes up for it IMO
 
so much to learn. but its interesting any way. i don't regret this decision to read medicine
 
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