Survivor M.D.

[Guest Laura]

Hey everyone! This is just for anyone who's interested. On Tuesday night at 9pm on PBS (channel 27 in Vancouver) there's this really good show that documented the lives of 7 medical students beginning with their education at Harvard and ending with how each one is doing in 2001. There has already been two shows and this Tuesday's is the last one, but it is really informative and interesting. A little depressing too though, most of the doctors don't seem very happy, except the ones who decided not to practice. Hmmm...kind of makes me think...

 

(Don't watch it if you're afraid of having second thoughts!)

[Guest Ian Wong]

Hi Laura,

 

Just wanted to say that I caught about half of the last episode, and it really is a good look into the sacrifices that one has to make along the way to becoming a practicing doctor.

 

This sounds a bit arrogant, but to my mind it is very clear. It isn't just becoming a doctor that is important, but also what kind of doctor, working in the location that you want. As a premed student, your thoughts are occupied by the necessity to get into med school. As a med student, your thoughts are occupied by the necessity to get into your residency, and the stress of uncertainty is the same.

 

Once you enter med school, you will start to discover that the different medical specialties tend to have stereotypes about them, because each specialty seems to have a preponderance of a certain personality-type.

 

Ophthalmologists tend to be very nit-picky, anal, and fixated on find details. This is important in a specialty where being off by 2% can have massive vision consequences. You won't find an ophthalmologist with a messy, unorganized office, ever.

 

Pathologists are usually a very relaxed and easy-going bunch, often cracking obscure and involuted jokes that only a member of that profession could really grasp and understand.

 

Cardiac surgeons and neurologists are the epitomy of "God-complex" individuals. Something about poking around people's spinal cords, brain stems, or stopping people's hearts on a daily basis tend to do that to you.

 

Internal medicine folks and their subspecialized lik (cardiologists, gastroenterologists, nephrologists, hematologists) tend to be the cerebral bunch, with their heads up in the clouds somewhere.

 

Psych people are just on a different planet altogether.

 

By the end of second year or so, many of us can look at other individuals in the class, and place them into either the "take action and decisive" group of surgeons, or the "comtemplate and rationalize" group of internists.

 

As a result, whether it's a stereotype or not, the reality is that there almost certainly is a specialty that is best suited towards your personality, lifestyle requirements, and living arrangements. Never forget that after you graduate, you can't just buy an office and open a practice. If the area that you intend to work is saturated, you may not be able to get a billing number to get paid by the government.

 

These are things that I never thought about when I was applying to med school, but which now dominate my, and my classmates' thoughts. It is perhaps this constant hoop-jumping and uncertainty that makes it difficult to really enjoy this process of becoming a doctor, because the time sacrifices and emotional uncertainty are quite a handful. I think Dr. Bates used to mention in her admissions talks that approximately 30% of first and second year medical students are clinically depressed. Depending on the time of year (second year for us has been worse), I'd say that number is entirely accurate.

 

In any case, check out this link that has much more details on the Survivor, MD series, including biographies and summaries.

 

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/

 

Ian

UBC, MS2