To go through medical school?

[mono feliz]

Hi there, I'm mono and this is my 2nd post on these forums.

I was wondering if there is anyone here who has been to or is currently in medical school?

I'm on a year's leave at the moment, having only started my first year last year. My interest in medicine was always in psychiatry, in fact although I'd wanted to be a doctor since I was a kid I had in recent years been debating psychiatry vs psychology. I stuck with psychiatry because I see mental/emotional/social/psychological health as being intertwined with the physical/physiological happenings of the body, and so I thought it'd be a great way to get a comprehensive view of illness and health. I've also felt that psychiatry is still scrounging around in the dark somewhat (trying so hard to make categories and create certainty) and that it needs to not lose humanism. I think the human body is amazing and am curious about how people operate so uniquely in the world and how the world operates on them.

However I've met a lot of dicky doctors in my life. Arrogant, judgemental, closed-minded, totally not empathic or even trying to appear so types. And I think hospitals are heinous environments. Both for patients and for workers.

It had been a lifelong dream to be able to be in medicine so that I could sit and listen, give proper care and attention to people's problems and their lives, and hopefully be able to help in some way. After school started I tried to find likeminded people or groups I could work for, to help me get through med school and the medical environment as it largely is at the moment. A cosy niche to help sustain me. But nothing held out, people didn't return emails or calls, humanitarian groups for students seemed to be about running the same old fundraisers each year or about encouraging students to use such groups as resume-boosting opportunities.

I eventually lost motivation to study, since I didn't know what all that hard work was for in the end - to be another cog in a machine that now seems to dehumanise rather than empower? Especially after hearing countless closed-minded, judgemental snipes about patients from classmates.

So I have until October to figure out whether to and how to keep going, if I continue with medicine. I still believe in my dream.... I still feel there is a need for what I want to do. I also have fantasies of eventually getting to a place where I could help change the way hospitals are, the way the medical workplace culture is. But the crisis I had last year made me really worry for my health and well-being, it was that part of it - concern for my health - that made me ask for leave.

So.... yeah. Thanks for listening.. If anyone has any thoughts (anyone at all ) I'd appreciate getting another point of view!

 

[Norton]

I met my INFJ wife in her first year of med school. We married at the beginning of her third year. She's been a practicing physician/clinical researcher for many years now. You don't really get a good idea of what it is to be a physician until your third year. Only then do you really deal with patients to any extent. So, I would say, at least stick it out until you've gone through your third year. OTOH, choosing to be a doctor is choosing a difficult life with many pressures coming at you from all directions. The compensation for all the difficulty is love of the profession, that is, loving the things that doctors do. If you don't love it, don't do it.

 

[soulseeker]

The compensation for all the difficulty is love of the profession, that is, loving the things that doctors do. If you don't love it, don't do it.

That's what I'm afraid of... I don't know what profession to take...my parents want me to take law but I DON'T!!!! and I told them that I'd go med

BUT... the truth is.. I don't think I LOVE it... or like it...

I think i'm stuck with going to med school ..because it's either that or law

I think it's also hard.. it's going to take up 10 years of my life


but yeah I think you should LOVE it and it sounds like you do, then maybe you should go to med school

 

[Norton]

That's what I'm afraid of... I don't know what profession to take...my parents want me to take law but I DON'T!!!! and I told them that I'd go med...

Parents should not tell their children what to do with their lives. Had I done so with my eldest son, I'd never have known to tell him to do what he ended up doing, something for which he is incredibly well suited and about which I know nothing. Children need to find their own careers, their own way.

Do what you love and the money will follow (title of a good book I once read). The problem with medicine and law is that it is often difficult to know whether you're likely to love the work until you get far into the education process. You have to use your intuition combined with volunteer work or something similar that gives you adequate exposure to the profession.

 

[Msdaisy]

I could have written this post word for word. I would love to know what you chose to do. I'm currently taking a year off after 1st year and considering software engineering via programming boot camp. But I am afraid I will miss the human connection and being able to improve lives one on one.

 

[Msdaisy]

I could have written this OP's post word for word. I would love to know what you chose to do. I'm currently taking a year off after 1st year and considering software engineering via programming boot camp. But I am afraid I will miss the human connection and being able to improve lives one on one.

 

[Awesome]

It's a very demanding field for sure, if you have the drive for it there is nothing to stop you.

Your description of doctors you've had experience with intrigues me. I distinctly remember a list that noted the most popular professions among (non empathetic) psychopaths and the medical field was high up on the list. It makes sense. They have dominance over human life and have to make objective based decisions with no emotional attachment.