thehumanmacbook Posted September 26, 2011 Report Share Posted September 26, 2011 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/abinazir/2005/05/23/why-you-should-not-go-to-medical-school-a-gleefully-biased-rant/ Interesting little tidbit that a friend sent me. *macbook does not support these views in any way, shape, or form* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pingu Posted September 26, 2011 Report Share Posted September 26, 2011 I think a good disclaimer would be that the author's commentary is based on the American medical system. I don't think things are that bleak in Canada from what I've seen...but I'm still a medical student so I could be wrong. For pre-meds interested in the topic, I would suggest Incidental Finding's series: http://ifinding.blogspot.com/2007/08/dont-become-doctor.html I think his posts are a bit more insightful and less trite. The author above seems to be channeling a bit too much of House of God, which was an exaggeration even back when it was first written. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thehockeykid Posted September 26, 2011 Report Share Posted September 26, 2011 well that was a downer. "waste the best years of your life" "no social life" "no signifiant other" who made this, was it some premed gunners who dont want people to apply to medical school? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renin Posted September 26, 2011 Report Share Posted September 26, 2011 well that was a downer. "waste the best years of your life" "no social life" "no signifiant other" who made this, was it some premed gunners who dont want people to apply to medical school? HAHA; sounds like me on a depressed day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xkittens Posted September 26, 2011 Report Share Posted September 26, 2011 well that was a downer. "waste the best years of your life" "no social life" "no signifiant other" who made this, was it some premed gunners who dont want people to apply to medical school? He finished his IM residency, he quit after he finished it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ophtho_gunner Posted September 26, 2011 Report Share Posted September 26, 2011 I disagree with many of his reasons. You loose "friends" in other careers as well. Investment bankers are as busy at work, maybe not at nights or weekends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mm88 Posted September 26, 2011 Report Share Posted September 26, 2011 Oh dear....this is not the kind of thing someone wants to read AFTER they've put in their resignation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cerena Posted September 26, 2011 Report Share Posted September 26, 2011 Oh dear....this is not the kind of thing someone wants to read AFTER they've put in their resignation. I wouldn't take anything the author says to heart. Just one guy's (heavily biased) opinion, ma dear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubcMDhopeful Posted September 26, 2011 Report Share Posted September 26, 2011 Lol just looked at the picture of this guy and his sideburns just discredit this whole article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garret9 Posted September 26, 2011 Report Share Posted September 26, 2011 Lol just looked at the picture of this guy and his sideburns just discredit this whole article. Ahhh facial hair... The new validity marker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larva Posted September 26, 2011 Report Share Posted September 26, 2011 I enjoyed reading this blog, and wish someone had written something similar that could have prevented me from going into my current field!! Just to give some perspective on the guy who wrote this, he is now a hypnotherapist, and the author of a book called "The Tao of Dating: The Smart Women's Guide to being Absolutely Irresistable". I'd take what he has to say with a grain of salt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ameltingbanana Posted September 26, 2011 Report Share Posted September 26, 2011 Yeah, a lot of those points seem overly anecdotal. I mean, I'm sure being a doctor and working your rear off 24/7 in residencies/clerkship/med school itself can't be GREAT for a relationship, but on the flipside I know people whose relationships have stayed solid and even flourished during meds (my cousin's one of them). And as for losing friends, also seems anecdotal, but I can see this one holding some weight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goleafsgochris Posted September 27, 2011 Report Share Posted September 27, 2011 I found med school (atleast the first half) much easier and less time consuming than undergrad. I did my undergrad at U of T in the sciences, so I guess take that with a grain of salt. Clerkship is more intense, but again it really depends on the rotation. Out of 50 weeks of mandatory rotations, I would say 15 or so I did nothing but work, another 12-15 were pretty heavy, and the remainder was like having any job, maybe plus some hours for study. Residency is even easier, since (alteast at first), you dont REALLY have to study outside of work This guy is a whiner lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apache Posted September 27, 2011 Report Share Posted September 27, 2011 http://www.medschoolhell.com/ and http://www.thelastpsychiatrist.com for a couple more cynical views on medicine... the first link is extensive and all about why medicine sucks... the second is a guy who blogs about all sorts of stuff but discusses the pro's and cons of medicine occasionally Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ploughboy Posted September 27, 2011 Report Share Posted September 27, 2011 Residency is even easier... Sorry? Don't think I heard you correctly... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drkwhy Posted September 28, 2011 Report Share Posted September 28, 2011 Ahhh facial hair... The new validity marker LOL, clearly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jochi1543 Posted September 28, 2011 Report Share Posted September 28, 2011 I'll take some time to comment on some points that I don't necessarily agree with. 1) You will lose all the friends you had before medicine. Docs and med students don’t make it to their college reunions because who can take a whole weekend off? Unthinkable. I am in a somewhat particular situation due to moving to another city to go to med school, but I've moved many times before and I have to say that you'll lose some friends any time you move somewhere (but you will gain new friends, so it cancels out). I've kept my good friends from high school and college. A lot of the not-so-good friends have fallen by the wayside way before I started medical school. Also, I just went to my 5-yr college reunion this summer. And, my current rotation preceptor is taking a month off next month and another month off in the spring just to chill. My previous rotation preceptor took 8 months off last year to go live abroad just for fun. Sooo, there. 2) You will have difficulty sustaining a relationship and will probably break up with or divorce your current significant other during training. Well, given that your training is going to last 6-10 years, your odds of divorcing your SO or breaking up are quite high to begin with - and this has nothing to do with medicine, but simply the amount of time that passes by. The same could be said for high school or university. It doesn't mean university or high school are the WORST THINGS EVER FOR RELATIONSHIPS OMGZ. 3) You will spend the best years of your life as a sleep-deprived, underpaid slave. Thinking back to my past employment 7 am-3 am at a manufacturing plant, followed by 5 pm-11 pm restaurant delivery driver shifts, or working on the ambulance....not that different. Right? Wrong. For the same time spent out of college, your I-banking, lawyering and consulting buddies are making 2-5 times as much as you are. How do those I-bankers fare during recessions? Not so hot, eh? And the insane oversaturation of lawyers in the US and the futility of attending law school with hopes of ever paying off the debt has long been a hot topic there. 5) You will have a job of exceptionally high liability exposure. Yup, would never want to practice in the US, that's for sure. So you are scurrying around trying to take care of all of them at once, which means that each individual patient can only get a little bit of your time. Which means that you won’t have a chance to sit at the bedside of that sweet old vet and hear his stories of Iwo Jima. Or get to the bottom of why that LOL (little old lady — medical slang’s been around way longer than internet slang, buddy) can’t get her daughter to come visit. Or to do any of that idealistic stuff that you cooked up in your adolescent brain about really connecting with patients. Specialty-dependent, practice style-dependent, and personality-dependent. You'll see docs who want to get to know their patients and have time for it, and you'll see docs who don't want to know their patients beyond their disease and don't want to waste their time on social issues that they cannot fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLengr Posted September 28, 2011 Report Share Posted September 28, 2011 Residency is even easier, since (alteast at first), you dont REALLY have to study outside of work. Oh yeah, residency is a walk in the park.......I probably am gonna pick up a second job since I am only working around 85 hours a week or so inside the hospital. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaronjw Posted September 28, 2011 Report Share Posted September 28, 2011 Oh yeah, residency is a walk in the park.......I probably am gonna pick up a second job since I am only working around 85 hours a week or so inside the hospital. timmies likes part-time workers and you can sleep on the job and generally be a dope which will be perfect if you're coming off 30 straight hours in the hospital... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goleafsgochris Posted September 28, 2011 Report Share Posted September 28, 2011 Oh yeah, residency is a walk in the park.......I probably am gonna pick up a second job since I am only working around 85 hours a week or so inside the hospital. Just to respond to this: - I said "easier than clerkship," not "easy" - The residency im in has me working 55-60 hours/week---really not that bad, I guess its residency dependant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Student_Doctor Posted September 28, 2011 Report Share Posted September 28, 2011 Sounds like someone who went into medicine for the wrongs reasons, and was disappointed that being a Dr isn't quite as romanticized as it is on TV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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