"Medicine isn't worth it anymore" ~M.D.

[lilmissangel]

This ER doc I work with just told me (literally 10 mins ago) that if he could do it all over again he wouldn't.
"Wouldn't become an ER doc?"
"Wouldn't become a doctor"
He said if I asked most docs they would say the same thing.
I asked him what he would become instead and he said he'd just get a regular job. I asked why and he said because theres too much s**t to deal with, like lawsuits and administration etc. (I don't know what etc is).
He asked me if I wanted to have a family and I said yes, and he just shook his head and said his wife is a pediatrician but stays at home watching the kids.
Hmmmmm...Well that was a little depressing.
I just got into Med school and was seriously thinking about emergency medicine. Can you guys enlighten me on what this s**t he's talking about is?
Would you do it all over again?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[iatrosB]

This ER doc I work with just told me (literally 10 mins ago) that if he could do it all over again he wouldn't.
"Wouldn't become an ER doc?"
"Wouldn't become a doctor"
He said if I asked most docs they would say the same thing.
I asked him what he would become instead and he said he'd just get a regular job. I asked why and he said because theres too much s**t to deal with, like lawsuits and administration etc. (I don't know what etc is).
He asked me if I wanted to have a family and I said yes, and he just shook his head and said his wife is a pediatrician but stays at home watching the kids.
Hmmmmm...Well that was a little depressing.
I just got into Med school and was seriously thinking about emergency medicine. Can you guys enlighten me on what this s**t he's talking about is?
Would you do it all over again?

Probably just had a crappy shift, it happens. Bad timing. Usually EM docs aren't the ones saying that crap...that's usually the IM guys (gross generalization).

 

[deleted87716]

Every job has crap to deal with. Medicine is no different. Ask enough people in practically any field if they'd do it over again, and a certain number would say "no." Medicine is no different. I've also found that because most doctors go straight from high school to college to med school to residency to practice, that they have little or no "real world" work experience outside of medicine, and tend to assume that the grass is greener in other fields. In most cases, it isn't. Also consider that some people just aren't cut out for medicine, and probaby did make a mistake going into it. That doesn't have to be you.

 

[EctopicFetus]

I think medicine like any other career has the grass is always greener bs..

Bottom line what you get with medicine..

A great salary
Job Security
Job satisfaction (I think this is true) even telling someone they arent sick makes them happy.. not just getting the diagnosis right... Whats it worth to the patient to say hey it turns out you dont have type a cancer but rather type b cancer.. Either way you'll die in 5 months..

The patient hears "blah blah blah... i have 5 months to live"
Some docs think "well it sux hes gonna die but man I nailed that diagnosis"

Anyways.. follow your heart.. Too many people go into medicine because their parents wanted them to be mds.. and not because they wanted to be mds..

 

[lilmissangel]

Thanks! I really do appreciate it. I just feel that for every neg person I meet a need one or two positive people to re-adjust the balance.

 

[Back34]

The best reason given thus far: short, ugly, balding, bast--ds like myself get the cute chicks!

Me before -->
" after -->

 

[Telemachus]

I think that expectations play a large role in this..... A lot of older physicians got into this game thinking that they were agreeing to play a certain role in a certain system, and now the demands on them have changed, often beyond their control, and so they are unhappy.

I think as long as you know what you are getting into and still want to do it, you will be okay in the short-term. For long-term happiness you probably have to be willing to accept that there will be many changes in the health care industry in your lifetime, and they will affect your income, work hours, family life, litigation record, etc. in ways that you may not be able to predict.

 

[corpsmanUP]

There a whiners in every profession. It all depends on where you hail from and what your story is that got you into medicine. Even on the very worst day in my future, even if I had to be in a field I cared less for (IM), I would still be 90% better off than most anyone I have ever known, even if I only made the most meager physician salary known to man.

When I was 19, I was making roughly 13K a year all the while routinely getting my a$$ shot at and sleeping some 6 hours a night on average. I had to carry a 30 pound weapon, wear a Kevlar helmet that felt like a ten pound hollowed out cannonball, and a vest that weighed at least as much as the helmet. Add the chemical weapons suit on a bad day and life was real rosey.

When I got promoted and started getting a good 7 hours of sleep and making 17K, I thought life was grand. As a PA making 6 figures I routinely heard docs complain that their life stunk, but I know they were doing better than I. And I felt like a king.

Anyone who moans and groans about their life as a physician needs to be forced to take a dangerous, low wage job, and then forced to work a shift as an MA. If only for this reason, medical schools should consider granting extra admission's credit for anyone who has ever held a real crappy job as evidenced by a 1040 and an employers verification. If I am ever on some admission's committee, the crappier the job will be more credit for the applicant!!!

 

[8744]

There a whiners in every profession. It all depends on where you hail from and what your story is that got you into medicine. Even on the very worst day in my future, even if I had to be in a field I cared less for (IM), I would still be 90% better off than most anyone I have ever known, even if I only made the most meager physician salary known to man.

When I was 19, I was making roughly 13K a year all the while routinely getting my a$$ shot at and sleeping some 6 hours a night on average. I had to carry a 30 pound weapon, wear a Kevlar helmet that felt like a ten pound hollowed out cannonball, and a vest that weighed at least as much as the helmet. Add the chemical weapons suit on a bad day and life was real rosey.

When I got promoted and started getting a good 7 hours of sleep and making 17K, I thought life was grand. As a PA making 6 figures I routinely heard docs complain that their life stunk, but I know they were doing better than I. And I felt like a king.

Anyone who moans and groans about their life as a physician needs to be forced to take a dangerous, low wage job, and then forced to work a shift as an MA. If only for this reason, medical schools should consider granting extra admission's credit for anyone who has ever held a real crappy job as evidenced by a 1040 and an employers verification. If I am ever on some admission's committee, the crappier the job will be more credit for the applicant!!!

Two days after arriving at my new unit after having made a lateral move from tanks to the infantry we went to the Mountain Warfare Training Center near Bridgeport, California for the Rock Package. (As opposed to the Arctic Warfare package you get in the winter) As a tanker I had pretty good upper body strength but I'd be lying if I said we humped a lot. So after four years as a tanker and a month of leave I found myself humping up and down mountains (but mostly up) with the typical infantry combat load of about a hundred pounds asking myself if maybe I'd made a mistake switching to the infantry.

Man. That wore me out. But I got through it and nothing I have done since then including boot camp, medical school, or intern year has ever been has hard as that. I am ashamed to say that my first day humping up and down the Sierra Nevadas almost did me in and it was only the fear of looking like a ***** that kept me going....even though I assure you I felt my vagina cramping the whole time.

 

[Febrifuge]

I think that expectations play a large role in this..... A lot of older physicians got into this game thinking that they were agreeing to play a certain role in a certain system, and now the demands on them have changed, often beyond their control, and so they are unhappy.

I think as long as you know what you are getting into and still want to do it, you will be okay in the short-term. For long-term happiness you probably have to be willing to accept that there will be many changes in the health care industry in your lifetime, and they will affect your income, work hours, family life, litigation record, etc. in ways that you may not be able to predict.

I think this post deserves a big "heck YEAH." Know the situation before you're up to your umbilicus in it, and do whatever you do for your own reasons. And to the OP: remember, you don't necessarily need to be an MD or DO in order to practice medicine... so long as you're clear about what PA's do and how they do it, who knows? You might be really happy as one.

(This brought to you by Citizens for Getting Feb Into PA School.)

 

[corpsmanUP]

Two days after arriving at my new unit after having made a lateral move from tanks to the infantry we went to the Mountain Warfare Training Center near Bridgeport, California for the Rock Package. (As opposed to the Arctic Warfare package you get in the winter) As a tanker I had pretty good upper body strength but I'd be lying if I said we humped a lot. So after four years as a tanker and a month of leave I found myself humping up and down mountains (but mostly up) with the typical infantry combat load of about a hundred pounds asking myself if maybe I'd made a mistake switching to the infantry.

Man. That wore me out. But I got through it and nothing I have done since then including boot camp, medical school, or intern year has ever been has hard as that. I am ashamed to say that my first day humping up and down the Sierra Nevadas almost did me in and it was only the fear of looking like a ***** that kept me going....even though I assure you I felt my vagina cramping the whole time.

Jeez, I knew there was a reason the spotted bear was growing on me!

 

[EctopicFetus]

Like a fungus corpsman? Panda is always good for a little straightforward honesty..

 

[Willamette]

Jeez, I knew there was a reason the spotted bear was growing on me!

Yep...

There's nothing like a little reflection about my time in the sandbox to make even the lowliest of scut get done with a bounce in my step...


Willamette

 

[bartleby]

Everybody has a bad day once in a while, so you might find that person giving a different answer if you asked when they were reasoned and well-rested.

Yes, being a physician can be stressful, and Emergency Medicine can be particularly difficult at times. However, there are a lot of benefits which the FP doc who busts his hump to see 30-40 patients a day doesn't get, including limited work hours, no call, and large blocks of time off for travel, hobbies or <gasp> spending with your family.

We all feel that we're worth at least a million dollars a year more than we actually get paid. That's human nature. But considering that I have a job which puts me roughly in the 95th percentile for income in the USA and I work less than 40 hours a week, I feel pretty lucky.

While another poster in this thread rightly points out that the Norman Rockwell ideal of the doctor is all but extinct and that medicine is barely recognizable from what it was even 30 years ago, there is a certain core of goodness which even the greediest beancounter in charge of the stingiest HMO hasn't been able to destroy. You get to be the quintessential good guy. You try to heal the sick and alleviate suffering. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. But you always get to be someone that people look up to... you're one of the GOOD GUYS. There aren't many jobs like that in the world like that, regardless of the salary.

 

[NinerNiner999]

I am ashamed to say that my first day humping up and down the Sierra Nevadas almost did me in ....even though I assure you I felt my vagina cramping the whole time.

 

[lilmissangel]

Everybody has a bad day once in a while, so you might find that person giving a different answer if you asked when they were reasoned and well-rested.

Yes, being a physician can be stressful, and Emergency Medicine can be particularly difficult at times. However, there are a lot of benefits which the FP doc who busts his hump to see 30-40 patients a day doesn't get, including limited work hours, no call, and large blocks of time off for travel, hobbies or <gasp> spending with your family.

We all feel that we're worth at least a million dollars a year more than we actually get paid. That's human nature. But considering that I have a job which puts me roughly in the 95th percentile for income in the USA and I work less than 40 hours a week, I feel pretty lucky.

While another poster in this thread rightly points out that the Norman Rockwell ideal of the doctor is all but extinct and that medicine is barely recognizable from what it was even 30 years ago, there is a certain core of goodness which even the greediest beancounter in charge of the stingiest HMO hasn't been able to destroy. You get to be the quintessential good guy. You try to heal the sick and alleviate suffering. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. But you always get to be someone that people look up to... you're one of the GOOD GUYS. There aren't many jobs like that in the world like that, regardless of the salary.

I take it ur an ER doc...
Thanks. I really do appreciate your post. I really do love Medicine and although I still have a long way to go I did have my heart pretty set on Emergency medicine, not only because Ive enjoyed working in the ER, but also because of the hours (I dont care much about the pay) and the lifestyle. I thought this guy had it good compared to other docs which is why I was so surprised to hear such negativity from an ER doc. I guess some people are just negative. I will ask the other docs I work with and see what they say.

 

[8744]

Jeez, I knew there was a reason the spotted bear was growing on me!

Not to mention Arctic Warfare training. That's another one of those "rotations" that will make your pseudo-uterus cramp. Just getting out of a warm sleeping bag into the mind-numbing polar-style cold was a test of fortitude. And the packs. Holy Christ.

A lot of you are saying, "No big deal, I've been camping in the winter," but you have to uderstand that this is not camping. Not only do you have to live in the cold but you have to conduct training and basically give a **** about other things besides staying warm. Short of combat operations, it's things like this that test your leadership skills because not only do you have suck it up and appear that your are (relatively) impervious to hardship but you have to get your Marines moving too.

 

[corpsmanUP]

Yeh, Bridgeport can be a cold place, but the skiiing makes it all worthwhile...except the skis are from the Nazi era!! I think for me though the worst days were being wet and cold. The Pacific is really freaking cold, even in the summer, and after dark you feel cold enough to consider offing yourself to end the pain. I also remember a stent where we were up for literally our 3rd day without sleep...nothing more than a 10 minute nap between exercises, and there was freezing rain falling in Lejeune. We were dug in in stupid shallow makeshift foxholes and the water started standing about an inch deep. A buddy and I would piss on each others legs to give a couple minutes of warmth, and then it would just make things worse because we were more wet and stunk like piss. But you will do anything when you are cold. I would work for 35K a year as an FP in a federal prison before I did that crap again.

 

[8744]

We were once in the field in Sardinia after a training exercise waiting for transport back to our ship. It had been raining cats and dog the whole time and we were thouroughly soaked, perpetually cold, and generally miserable. My compadre Sergeant C and I found a low bush which had a little hollow under it. We spread a poncho over the top, a poncho on the ground, and by virtue of a couple of pairs of dry socks and our poncho liners spent a rather tolerable night "adminstratively bivouaced" (camping). So there we were, pitch black, rain pouring down, lighting flashing, thunder roaring, all hell breaking loose in a meteorological sense smoking cigars and eating our MREs completely at ease living like kings...Lords of the Earth, you understand...wouldn't trade our situation for any job in the world.

Loving life and living large.

But we're a couple of grimey, tired, Marines who hadn't slept in three days huddled under scraggly bush with a couple of leaky ponchos eating squeeze-cheeze and crackers drinking rot-gut MRE mocha. (Chocolate drink and coffee.)

The point? No point, really. Just that everything is relative.

 

[8744]

Also, that hindsight is 20/20. I remember the good times but on that same training operation, now that I think about it, the sea was so rough that on the way in on our boats (we are a "Raider" Company with twin-engine Boston Whalers as our landing craft) we were beaten up so badly slamming from wave top to wave top that we could hardly walk when we landed. It was like being punched in the gut every few seconds for 20 miles. And then I never got warm or dry the whole time. It wasn't even that cold, only in the mid-fifties but it wears you out after a few days of being wet.

I almost always had dry feet though. I invested some of my beer and hooker money (what non-Marines call pay) in a good pair of water-proof, gore-tex lined, Danner boots. If your feet are warm, that's half the battle.

Interesting story: My CO wanted to ban Danner boots because they were so expensive that he feared only the officers and senior NCOs would be able to afford them and thus remove them from the suffering of their Marines who had to wear the absolutely worthless issue boots. (That was back when Gore-Tex was expensive). I think the Gunny talked to him and pointed out that we were all big boys and most young Marines (of my era) thought nothing about spending a couple hundred bucks on a Filipina bar-girl or a night of drinking and carousing. Most of my platoon eventually bought decent boots.

 

[chrisjohn]

Ah yes, the military. Talk about a love hate relationship. Some of the highlights.

Getting amebic dysentery while in RIP.

Getting dropped off with 20 Pakistani mercenaries in the Kuwaiti “Army” for a 30 day LP/OP.

Complete lack of sleep for days... Then more days, then more days, then more days. Which brings up a funny answer to a question posed by a vascular surgeon during one of my interviews, “What personal weakness WILL make you a S***** doctor?” My response was that I get sort loopy after 72 hours without sleep. He asked me what I did at that point. “Well Sir, my squad leader taught me to put Tabasco sauce in my eyes.”

Yes sometimes it sucked, but really only the pay sucked. The Army gave me a cool job, flew me around the world, taught me a lot of lessons, and not all of them bad. Would I go back? Not unless foreign troops were massing on our borders. Prior service gives perspective. Give me a president who will reinstate the draft! The country doesn’t need it, the kids do.

 

[etsuvj]

Hey

Mr Bartleby...

Thank you very much for the reply..

"you are one of the good guys. There are not many jobs which can say the same thing irrespective of the salary"

Those are words which really makes me happy that i chose medicine for my career.

You know, with all the corporatisation and "business-litigation-antitrust" things, sometimes, i used to feel that medicine is no longer considered a "good profession"..

I hope that most of the general public and humanity feels the way you feel..
Ultimately that is what is the fruit of all our labors and hard work.. Any person doing any job can earn a good salary..

Thanks for the post... i hope more people think like you ..

sincerely
a doctor..

 

[LADoc00]

The best reason given thus far: short, ugly, balding, bast--ds like myself get the cute chicks!

Me before -->
" after -->

I will say that since I got my MD, I have dated the cliche model types. Definitely when I was in H.S. I never imagined that a possibility. I think women MDs are really ones that get the raw deal. No sex appeal there at all with the MD.

 

[Back34]

I will say that since I got my MD, I have dated the cliche model types. Definitely when I was in H.S. I never imagined that a possibility. I think women MDs are really ones that get the raw deal. No sex appeal there at all with the MD.

I hear ya on that one. For the longest time, my love life was disastrous at best, i.e., routinely passed over for the taller, better-looking/dressed of the male persuasion. Thus, I have no reservations whatsoever in dropping the "I'm a doctor (or in my case "almost a doctor") line. Definitely puts a smile on their face, twinkle in their eye.

 

[corpsmanUP]

You guys are freaking sick! First of all, I find the intelligence of a female physician attractive in its own right, completely separate from physical beauty. I don't see female physicians as having any sort of problem finding a man. The only true battle for any physician is time and place. Most physicians don't fit in any longer in the single college crowd and most don't have a lot of time to meet people anyway. That's why so many physicians are married to other physicians. Any woman you are picking up based on your credentials of being a physician could easily turn out to be the gold digger bit*h that takes you for all you are worth about 6 years later. Its probably okay if you are using the title just for "evening company", but I hope you have better ways of recruiting your life partner!!

 

[Back34]

Any woman you are picking up based on your credentials of being a physician could easily turn out to be the gold digger bit*h that takes you for all you are worth about 6 years later. Its probably okay if you are using the title just for "evening company", but I hope you have better ways of recruiting your life partner!!

Brother, if she looked anything like this...:

http://afm.infinit.net/chro/queens/welch043.JPG
http://www.cultsirens.com/welch/welch008.jpg
http://cultsirens.com/welch/welch010.jpg

I just might have to take that chance . I'm too old and ugly to beat around the bush.

 

[EctopicFetus]

2 words...

elle mcpherson..