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Please keep in mind at the time of writing this, I am still loopy from a combination of illness and extra-strength cold meds. Yay drugs!
I guess when everyone’s little they dream big. Some kids say “I want to be a fireman!”, and dream of wearing a fireman’s outfit, handling the big hose and kicking fire’s… ash. Others say they want to be a baker and make delicious buns. Some others want to be rockstars and play in front of and crowdsurf over thousands of adoring fans. Others want to fly—skyjumper, astronaut, whatever.
Personally though, I wanted to be a garbage man. I thought nothing was cooler than those big green trucks which om-nom’d down all the trash. The smell of gasoline (not so much the rotting food), and the roar of the engine, appealed to my little kid self. Riding them every morning, hefting up those huge things of trash, it just seemed so manly and viscerally awesome to me. Plus, I had a garbage truck autobot toy, which was arguably the coolest to transform. Yeah, so maybe not the biggest dream. Plus, I don’t do the waking up at 5 thing so well anymore.
At some point the dreams become smaller, more reasonable, or they just… change. The fireman kid settles for dispatcher or salesman. The baker settles for cashier or chef in a restaurant. The rockstar settles for a concert pianist. The flyers settle for airline pilots.
So yeah, they didn’t turn out so bad. Guess what the garbageman decided to become? A doctor. It’s almost unencouraging, isn’t it?
So why and when did I decide to become a doctor? Amidst the sports, extra-curriculars, books, doodles and internet, I honestly have no idea. I guess I could claim “I liked” biology and I was an “avid fan” of House, but are those really defining characteristics of a future doctor? Not really. Millions enjoy biology (I think). Millions enjoy House. I mean, how much does a seventh grader understand of House anyways? I picked up a handful of fairly obscure diseases, and maybe a tiny shred of House’s scathing wit (or so I liked to pretend), but really, watching House was hardly the first step to becoming a doctor.
At some point, I began to develop some sense of what I’ll call morality. “What do I want to do with my life?” I asked. “What is something good I can do for the world?”, I wondered. Save lives. Yeah. That’s always good right? It was something that seemed to (mostly) defy the greyness and spectra that all things have become today outside of politics.
It began with some grand ideas. I want to cure _____. Cancer. AIDS. You name it. I doubt any aspiring doctor avoided seeing themselves as the savior of mankind and scourge of (insert disease name here(, with cure in one hand and Nobel Prize in the other at some point. Somehow, I would be the one who made the breakthrough. I would be special. However, as I got older and more knowledgeable, I learned that many of these dreams were simply that: dreams. Every case of cancer was unique. AIDS was a virus, and a most complex and tricky one at that. And there were always more illnesses on the horizon.
So my dreams shrunk a bit, or rather, the world of medicine and health got bigger as I slowly climbed out of the well and saw the entire sky, beautiful and terrible at the same time. I visited poor countries, and saw doctors there. “I could do that”, I thought. Work most of the year in a hospital, take a vacation to a scenic third-world country and do some sight-seeing while doing some care for the locals. I would join Doctors Without Borders after med-school, and see the world while treating people. Life could be fulfilling morally, spiritually and financially (teehee).
So inevitably as one gets older, death and dying become more relevant issues. My grandpa died a few years back—he was old, and as much as I loved him, I did not know him well. A couple friends have died early through accidents and illnesses. My best friend who I have extremely confused feelings for was diagnosed with cancer, and is not expected to live past college graduation (we’re both freshmen).
Over Spring Break, I got pretty sick. I’m not quite sure how, but I have tendency to get ill whenever college lets out. Basically my (scumbag) immune system says “Ooh, break? Break for meeeee!” and conks the fudge out. And I get sick. This time, it was pretty bad—around Thursday I got a sore throat and a fever but managed to power through it. Friday was bad, but I was still fairly functional. Saturday involved a hellish (and somewhat hallucinatory) 8 hour bus ride back to school. When I finally took my temperature, it was ~104 degrees.
So, I tried to make an appointment with my school’s healthcare people. Apparently I can’t make an appointment within the next week. Are you kidding me? Last I heard, 104 degree fever was uncomfortably close to life threatening, but apparently still fell outside the 1 week limit of severity. I just did not understand. Admittedly now I feel much better, but seeing 104 on a thermometer was like staring at a death notice for me.
And in the end, a dose of Tylenol Cold and Flu Severe helped me more than a MD. I suppose I sound like a bit of a spoiled college kid complaining about lack of care, huh.
Being in this much… discomfort (I can’t say pain, because breaking a limb or a really bad cut is arguably more painful) has made me reconsider again why I really want to be a doctor. I don’t want to save lives. I just want to make people feel better, just improve their quality of life. It’s not as exciting as saving lives or curing cancer, but it’ll have to do. But even with a smaller dream, or maybe because I have a smaller dream, I’ll hold myself to a higher standard-- after all, curing cancer or AIDS and then retiring is almost sort of kind of a easy way out.
 
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Getting an MD is way more than just seeing patients. If you want to, say, cure cancer, MD is a good path to go.
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On March 19 2012 13:33 Sufficiency wrote:
Getting an MD is way more than just seeing patients. If you want to, say, cure cancer, MD is a good path to go.
If you want to cure "cancer" the best way to go is MD PhD.
As a future doctor, I will to give you my unbiased (JK) reasons on why there is no job in the world that is better.
(1) You get to help people when they are at the lowest points in their lives. People literally invite you into their lives.
(2) People respect you and you are given responsibilities and authority to do things to people that no one else does.
(3) Depending on what specialty you do, you will make bank once you start working as an attending (upwards of $600k/yr average for certain specialties in the US). Of course, you do have to go to school and residency which can be upwards of 11 years+ total after college.
But most importantly:
(4) You get to feel good about what you do.
When I have kids, I'll probably tell them that they can do anything they want as long as they are doctors!
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As an alternative to a profession in medicine, I suggest you also check out biomedical engineering. I'm not sure how many years into your biology/pre-med degree you are, but I made the switch from that to chemical/biomedical engineering after two years and I decided it wasn't for me after an epiphany not unlike yours. I was very fortunate to be able to support myself through the extra years of school, and I'm glad overall that I made the switch. Now, I'm about to go off on internship for a year and see what it's like out in industry.
Right now is a very exciting time for the field. Stem cell therapy, tissue engineering, personalized medicine - there are a lot of hopes and dreams, some of which will inevitably be crushed, but some of which will be realized. The thought of being able to actually expand what we can do to heal people is extremely exciting to me - to literally be able to give sight to the blind, to regrow and repair failing organs, the possibility to do magic like that is what keeps me going Maybe some of that is hype, maybe it's far off, but there is a lot of incredible stuff going on there nonetheless.
There are a lot of ways to help people in need without being a doctor! If you decide to go down that path, I wish you the best of luck, just remember to keep your options open and nothing is set in stone. =)
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Congrats on making a well thought-out and sensible career choice. A refreshing thing to read amidst all the girl blogs and "going pro" blogs. Just by looking at the way you wrote your blog, I think you'd be able to write a great personal statement. It's a rewarding career but the barrier of entry is fairly high -- getting accepted to a US medical school in the first place is no easy feat. Your heart seems to be in the right place though, and the fact that you're only a freshman in college right now bolds well for your chances because you already know what you're working towards and have years to build a very strong application. Check out sites like SDN & mdapps if you haven't already, though SDN tends to make people a bit neurotic, there's some good advice there.
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Hey dude,
I too have given the MD route a lot of thinking. I definitely was interested for all of the same reasons, but I have actually since chosen to take my life somewhere else.
I'm a senior now at my undergraduate institution, and will be making the push to go to graduate school for a PhD. I love science, I love learning, and above all I love receptors: Ionotropic, Metabotropic, Voltage-gated, whatever. If it's in the brain, even better.
I think that you should do whatever you think you will be best at. I really want to learn and contribute to receptors and drug development. There are lots of ways you can help people, saving lives as an MD would is a very physical, direct mode of gratification. It does come with its sacrifices, but you will be well informed before you make a formal decision.
Just keep an open mind :D
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On March 19 2012 13:43 ItsYoungLee wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2012 13:33 Sufficiency wrote:
Getting an MD is way more than just seeing patients. If you want to, say, cure cancer, MD is a good path to go. If you want to cure "cancer" the best way to go is MD PhD. As a future doctor, I will to give you my unbiased (JK) reasons on why there is no job in the world that is better. (1) You get to help people when they are at the lowest points in their lives. People literally invite you into their lives. (2) People respect you and you are given responsibilities and authority to do things to people that no one else does. (3) Depending on what specialty you do, you will make bank once you start working as an attending (upwards of $600k/yr average for certain specialties in the US). Of course, you do have to go to school and residency which can be upwards of 11 years+ total after college. But most importantly: (4) You get to feel good about what you do. When I have kids, I'll probably tell them that they can do anything they want as long as they are doctors!
-Dont do it for money. You forget to mention that the hours worked are incredibly high, then once youre home youre often on call.
-As you start out you will make less per hour than almost any other job, this is due to the crazy work hours.
-when you start med school, everyone there wants to be a surgeon etc and make 'upwards of 600k', in reality there is only a small percentage of your class who will make anywhere CLOSE to that kind of money. It looks good on paper but it is NOT common for a doctor to make that kind of money.
I'm not saying its a crap profession, its just that if you do end up taking the med path, you will realise that the jobs with such an income are rare and are really hard to balance a social life around. Most people will come out of their degree and take the lower paying jobs and opt for a family and social life instead.
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I agree, don't do it for the money. Do it because you love it and you will deserve the money you make. Even if you are an average med student you will make within top 1% of income.
Totally disagree on your claims on income and family and social life. I am a medical student at a top 15 institution in the US and I work with doctors that DO love what they do, make over 600k a year, are extremely fit, and have great family and social lives. It is possible to have it all as a doctor. The only downside is your residency where it is probably true you won't have a life. These are not my words but the words of some prominent neurosurgeons at my school.
I am not sure if it is different in Australia but it is possible to have it all here as 1) you are decently intelligent 2) you love helping people. The pay is nice but the privilege of helping people when they are at their moment of greatest need is priceless.
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I originally had considered doing a MD PHD, but I have more or less admitted to myself that I don't have the dedication to go through such a program. I'll go ahead and say that I'm a pretty smart guy, but I'm also way too scatter-brained and lazy. There's a pretty cool diagram of what a phD is (http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/), and well, I don't feel like I have that kind of needle-like focus to do it.
My parents are both phD's, and the more I realize the work they must have put in, the more I respect them. I also question if I am truly creative enough to do research. Like, I've worked in a lab before-- I was pretty darn efficient at bench work, and I even did a ISEF project where I isolated a new protein and then sequenced its gene. But it wasn't anything super creative.
Currently, I am both pre-med and pre-business at my school. I have yet to choose a major for pre-med, and a concentration for business. I think I'll probably end with around an A- average when I graduate. I'll take my BBA, hopefully find some use for it, and then go on to med school. In theory. Doing pre-business as well (its interesting enough, and my school has a top 3 program) unfortunately limits my choice of classes.
Being a regular old doctor seems like a comfortable and rewarding route. But I still do want to be a MD pHD despite my doubts. It's a dream I can't quite let go of.
Eh, looking back on what I wrote, I feel like I want to make some edits now that I'm a couple notches less loopy.
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I think its important that at this point in your life you're already giving this some thoughtful consideration. MD vs MD/PHD is a decision you won't have to make for awhile. Your research experience sounds pretty typical for an undergrad -- you basically have to be taught existing procedures or techniques that the lab is using, and sign on to an ongoing project and hope to make a contribution. Unfortunately its difficult to be "super creative" when doing bench work like that. The MD vs MD/PHD decision shouldn't be based on your current research experience because the work you do as a PI is more along the lines of being a manager/director, identifying projects, securing funding etc. and very different than the work you do as a undergrad research assistant.
I should also point out that plenty of MDs can and do become full-time PIs. If you plan to do bench research, MD/PHD is a good way to go, but you don't need a PHD to do clinical research. I did a lot of research as an undergrad but I chose MD over MD/PHD in the end and I had plenty of research opportunities in medical school so at no point did I feel like I was letting go of a dream. You can continue to do meaningful research in residency and beyond (some residencies have research tracks with protected time for research), and most fellowships require some dedicated research. I'm sure I'm biased here but I think the MD degree opens more doors than a PHD in a biological science; the door for research is never closed to you no matter where you are in your training.
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^^
Honestly, I still don't understand why people do MD/PhD's besides getting a name. If you're doing human research an MD gives you easy access to clinical samples and its not like its harder for an MD to set up a lab than an MD/PhD. Getting a PhD might give you some useful skills like how to read/write academic papers and provide knowledge of skills particular to a field but I can't imagine that its worth the cost of 4 MORE years before you finish med school.
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By PI, do you mean Private Investigator? (like Sherlock Holmes, jk)
Yeah, but nothing says intellectual badass like MD/ PhD. I have been reading Science (with varying degrees of success) since I was seventh grade, so I guess I do like learning stuff-- I just see a leap from learning new things and actually finding and discovering new things for me.
Thank you all for the advice though! So many different ways to go in life, hehe.
Oh well, I won't start worrying about med school quite yet. Unfortunately, my GPA looks like its not going to be super insanely perfect though.
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regarding your last comment; i work with post-graduate (law) institution and we often hold sessions regarding medical and health for doctors.
a very common theme i found is exactly your wording - understanding you cant save lives, but to make people as comfortable as possible. i wonder how many young people are aware of this viewpoint when beginning med school ...
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EPT
