Is it worth going through so much to become a physician?

[Parsis]

The money is OK, but does not reflect the amount of time and energy you have to put into this profesion. But if you enjoy academic challenges, patient interaction & a level of personal growth and development then I think medicine is amazing.

 

No one can decide but you whether or not you should forego other opportunities to pursue medicine. It is a long road with a lot of caffeine & some sleep deprivation. But the good times are there, especially in the first two years, and I feel that I will come out having achieved something that I value highly. Hell I'm going to grow older anyways, why not grow as a person in the process?

 

And irrespective of the field you to which you apply yourself, success demands dedication and hard work, whether in law, construction, or litterature.

 

My two cents... it is worth it.

[mac_attack]

I have socks older than you, kid.

 

eww maybe you should look into getting some new ones man!

[TimmyMax]

Hey,

 

Holy crap! Medicine sucks! I never realized it before reading this thread!

I'm dropping out and getting a job folding jeans at the Gap! But I won't get too good at it because I wouldn't want to be fired for being "too efficient".

Argh, life sucks!

[hp18]

I have decided if I get without too much of special effort, its fine. Its not worth the trouble. I am going to work towards good GPA and try getting good MCAT score.....but I am not going to put my life on fire for getting into med school just because it leads to well paid job (MBAs, lawyers & IT guys make more money than Physicians in family practice with much lesser work hours & lower stress) social status.

[EMD]

Holy crap! Medicine sucks! I never realized it before reading this thread! I'm dropping out and getting a job folding jeans at the Gap!

I'm gonna join ya... but the Gap is too chic for me. I'm gonna work at McDonald's and be party to their mission of destroying the planet.

 

Seriously, don't get taken by the trolls out there. There is plenty of time to get cynical & materialistic in your old age. Also, I think things get much better if you make it in... no more PMS (pre-medical syndrome) and people aren't ueber-stressed about marks.

 

As for tuition... I think it is a serious problem. It isn't that people from less well to do backgrounds cannot do it-- but many get sticker shock, as one of my colleagues discovered (a couple of years ago) by surveying first year biology students at U of T. Far from being theoretical, there has been a significant change in the med student socioeconomic background (see page 11) due to the tuition increase.

[bioboy2007]

I didn't realize that 70% of Canadian households make less than $40000 a year! (saw this in the report on page 11)

[peachy]

Far from being theoretical, there has been a significant change in the med student socioeconomic background (see page 11) due to the tuition increase.

We know that in recent years med students are on average from increasingly wealthier families, and that this trend has occurred at the same time as tuition increases. However, I do not buy that this is so obviously because of the tuition increases themselves. Correlation is not causation, and I find it easier to believe that the demographic changes have been prompted by the increased financial burden of applying rather than registering.

 

Preparing to apply and then applying to medical school is a very expensive process. MCAT courses cost money. Retaking the MCAT multiple times to get a good score costs money. Time to volunteer rather than work costs money. The application itself is not cheap. I know many premeds who dropped a course the day before the drop deadline because they weren't going to get an A -- people who are less well off may not be able to afford to drop courses if they aren't going to get a full refund.

 

Which is not to say that you can't apply to medical school for relatively less money, but I can easily picture someone seeing all these rich kids spending thousands of dollars on their way to medical school and not imagining that they can compete with the same resources. Once someone is accepted to medical school, on the other hand, there are ample financial resources available: there are big lines of credit, there's OSAP or equivalent, there are lots of bursaries and scholarships, etc.

 

That is, if med students are becoming richer, then the poorer premeds are either not applying, not being accepted, or not registering. It's possible that this is because they are looking up the tuitions for medical school and saying "Oh, I could never do that". But I find it easier to believe that this is because (a) they are scared off from applying by the percieved financial burden of preparing themselves to be a successful applicant, and ( because they have been disadvantaged in the application process through lower grades, fewer extracurriculars, etc, because of their financial situation. As medical school admissions become increasingly competitive in Canada (and the number of spots don't keep up with increases in population or in applicants) I would expect these factors to play a larger and larger role, as becoming an excellent applicant costs more and more money.

 

Is there something I'm missing entirely to establish causation here? Do people have personal experiences with friends who are less wealthy who decided not to apply to medical school because of the tuition?

[EMD]

I didn't realize that 70% of Canadian households make less than $40000 a year! (saw this in the report on page 11)

The data is a bit old. I suspect the stats (for family income) are from the 1996 census... or may even be from the 1991 census--if the '96 numbers weren't available yet; the study is from 1999. Here are numbers from the 2001 census.

[EMD]

We know that in recent years med students are on average from increasingly wealthier families, and that this trend has occurred at the same time as tuition increases. However, I do not buy that this is so obviously because of the tuition increases themselves. Correlation is not causation, and I find it easier to believe that the demographic changes have been prompted by the increased financial burden of applying rather than registering...

 

Is there something I'm missing entirely to establish causation here? Do people have personal experiences with friends who are less wealthy who decided not to apply to medical school because of the tuition?

It is no doubt that other factors are at play--aside from tuition. People with lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds are less likely to go to university in the first place and this has been so historically (i.e. prior to tuition increases).

Any case, I think you should carefully read the CFMS submission. The bit about med school tuition is just one point in a much larger complex argument. Lower SES group participation rates in post-secondary education have declined with increasing tuition. Beyond that... you can ask the tuition task force coordinator in my class. His DOCH (Determinants of Community Health-- a course med students take at U of T) project was surveying BIO150Y students (the people one should ask... not your friends or yourself-- that are in med school). He found a strong correlation between SES and 'money being an issue'. Any case, I don't think many people volunteer the fact that money is an issue in causal conversation... there is a sort of embarassment attached to that--so the fact that you know no one probably has little bearing on the issue.

[peachy]

Any case, I don't think many people volunteer the fact that money is an issue in causal conversation... there is a sort of embarassment attached to that--so the fact that you know no one probably has little bearing on the issue.

I agree, I didn't mean to take a straw poll or make a point based on anecdotal evidence, I was just interested if anybody had personal stories that might provide some insight into better understanding this.

[Smurfette]

I think peachy's points are good ones. I have a couple to add.

 

(1) The ability to volunteer (over working) is something that is much easier for someone who is wealthy. It's too bad that med schools don't place a bigger emphasis on work experience - which I think is just as, if not more, valuable since there's often more responsibility involved. But it's not just time working instead of volunteering - it's also the money involved in doing sports, travelling, participating in student government. It's not cheap to become a great pianist (piano lessons anyone?), to help orphans in the third world, or to backpack in Europe.

 

(2) Many students don't make it on their first time applying to med. For students from a wealthy backgrounds, they could spend the year volunteering, travel, and pad their resume. For those from less wealthy backgrounds, they've got to either start working or think up a back-up plan. That is, the rich kids have a better second (or third or...) chance.

 

(3) The prospect of failing is better for rich kids. This might mean that the less well-off students never even bother trying. This is kind of a tag onto #2. Let's face it - many fail to get into med school. The odds just aren't very good. If you're wealthy, who cares? If you don't get in, then you can spend another few years trying to get in and worse comes to worse, you spend another 5 years doing your PhD if you're interested in research as a second choice or 4 years for an commerce degree and become and accountant, or whatever. Mommy and daddy will pay for tuition and living expenses for the next ten years without a problem. If you're a poor kid, you've got to think about repaying your student loans. You can't really afford the risk of not making med school. Therefore, you might decide - hey why not go for that auto mechanics program that I'm sure I'll have a job in two years or that education program where I'm more or less guaranteed to have a job afterwards. Maybe I'd like medicine better, but I wouldn't mind fixing cars or being a teacher.

 

Unfortunately, nothing's "fair" in this world.