I'm married to a resident and this article is a very accurate portrayal of a resident's life. Her work schedule is insane. It's not just the amount of hours but the fact that these hours are packed and spent with difficult people and life or death situations. After a day of work she often mentions she didn't have time to eat or pee during the day. She has had some call shifts that lasted 40h strait (more than 3 days) where she got only 3 to 4 hours sleep breaks per night plus a few eating breaks here and there because it was busy the whole time. That meant no time for a shower in those three days, only superficial cleanups and quick change of scrubs when things got too bloody/amniotic.
Why you should not go to medical school
11–20 of 186 posts
Re: Why you should not go to medical school
#12[deleted]
Re: Why you should not go to medical school
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you to an extent but this article is especially relevant to the medical profession. There is a tremendous commitment to entering it. You must go to undergrad, medical school and residency (with standardized exams throughout) whereas for programming, there is no "traditional" path that you must follow. Moreover, although there is a tremendous reward—financial, societal and perhaps even moral—at the end, t…
I'd argue that this sort of article applies mostly to the "glamourous" professions -- things that kids want to be when they grow up, jobs that will impress your nephews. Actor, musician, doctor, certain varieties of lawyer, physicist cough , athlete, artist, airline pilot. These sorts of professions have a ready supply of suckers wanting in, which means that the competition is tough, the work is hard and the compensa…
Last I heard actuarial science is brutally competitive and quickly becoming a slog. Apparently all the asian math geniuses see it as their only way to please their grandparents without switching to medicine or law.
Re: Why you should not go to medical school
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
... pretty much. I'm doing med school now, and it's been fun. How does one balance this stuff with hackery and such? "You don't" is the answer I've been getting, but I suspect/hope that it takes some clever time management.
I started MacRumors.com in my 4th year of medical school, which is a very light year. And it grew in the following years. I quit in 2008 to do it (and other sites) full time.
Thanks for assuring me that it is at least possible. I guess I'm still one of those idealistic greenhorns... thinking that I'd be more useful to the medical community if I were also a computer hacker.
Re: Why you should not go to medical school
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
... pretty much. I'm doing med school now, and it's been fun. How does one balance this stuff with hackery and such? "You don't" is the answer I've been getting, but I suspect/hope that it takes some clever time management.
I started MacRumors.com in my 4th year of medical school, which is a very light year. And it grew in the following years. I quit in 2008 to do it (and other sites) full time.
Assuming you grew up with Asian parents (disclaimer: I did), how'd breaking the news to your parents go when you decided to leave school and run a website full-time?
Re: Why you should not go to medical school
#16One could say the same for any given field from sports to programming to business to pet-sitting. It's a hard knock life for us all. None of these reasons should have stopped any decent doctor from taking the path. The single reason would be: Don't go into medical school if you care more about money and an easy-going life than the actual field and people involved. And the same applies to every single field.
> One could say the same goes for any given field
Please name a sport, business, or other profession that involves staying up 40 hours straight unshowered, unfed, on a routine basis, for years, trying to not die or get anyone killed.
I can think of only two: medicine and the military. I do both. They're roughly equal. Given the choice between residency and deployment, I would need more information.
edit: Actually, I'm facing that choice now: do I apply for residency or orders which will probably involve going to Afghanistan. I'm leaning toward Afghanistan.
Re: Why you should not go to medical school
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I started MacRumors.com in my 4th year of medical school, which is a very light year. And it grew in the following years. I quit in 2008 to do it (and other sites) full time.
Assuming you grew up with Asian parents (disclaimer: I did), how'd breaking the news to your parents go when you decided to leave school and run a website full-time?
parents took it surprisingly well. don't think they would have taken it well if I had tried to quit years earlier. the site had grown pretty big/successful, and they mellowed over the years.
Re: Why you should not go to medical school
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I started MacRumors.com in my 4th year of medical school, which is a very light year. And it grew in the following years. I quit in 2008 to do it (and other sites) full time.
Assuming you grew up with Asian parents (disclaimer: I did), how'd breaking the news to your parents go when you decided to leave school and run a website full-time?
I grew up with Asian parents (who are doctors themselves, no less). Before I went off to med school, they were actually pretty open to other career choices. We spent quite a bit of time making sure that medicine was the way to go before confirming my enrollment. But after that, they've been committed to preventing me from giving up ;p
Re: Why you should not go to medical school
#19I practice, but most of this article rings true for me as well, and I think most of my colleagues would consider me pretty idealistic.
Residency training is mostly cheap labor for hospitals. Working 36 hours straight every third or fourth night (common when I was a resident) saves teaching hospitals from hiring night floats or other coverage. Trying to make any kind of important decision for another human's medical care after you've been up for 24 hours is like trying to do so after several shots of alcohol. Such a schedule does not teach efficiently, endangers patients, and stresses the mental and physical health of physicians. There have been new work rules supposedly limiting residents to 80 hour work weeks, but they are routinely ignored.
Physicians spend most of their time trying to bring order to chaos. Regardless of a physician's specialty, I daresay each was shocked to learn how much time he/she spends basically just trying to simply coax new behaviors in patients - as such, performing at some level as psychiatrists (who I respect greatly - tough work). That's the challenge; everything else is pretty much plumbing. Either you find that work interesting (and it can be) or you soon get pretty burned out dealing with humans as they are, and they are obviously at their (usually temporary) worst much of the time when they need medical care.
My own colleagues are the best people I know - I still see the driving compassion there on a daily basis, and I think that's true for the great majority of docs. On the other hand, I've met a few physicians who would be happiest in concentration camps performing medical experiments on the inmates.
Re: Why you should not go to medical school
#20Some of the comments on that page are even better than the main article/rant:
"Last note, what bullshit is it that your plumber can charge whatever he wants to unclog your drain, but if I replace both knees the insurance companies automatically take 50% off the second. What am I, fucking Payless?"