Are there any medical students/residents/doctors that can talk about what sucks and what's great about becoming a...

>To call an entire field of medicine boring is a pretty ignorant statement
Breh
I know dermatologists. The most exciting things they do is pop cysts and zits once in a while. 99% of the time it's prescribing medicine for psoriasis and acne and shit.

Well, you could say the same for several specialties. Most specialties outside of surgery and emergency medicine don't have overly exciting typical days.

US fourth year med student reporting in

Pros
>satisfying, challenging work
>depending on what you do it can be super cool/interesting like surgery
>working with all kinds of people, often at the lowest/worst times of their lives and being able to help them
>what you do matters on a daily basis
>provided you dont kill anyone set for your career for life**
>can use a medical degree and license to do all sorts of shit outside daily clinical work

Cons
>everyone is type A to some degree, youll hate most of your classmates pretty fast
>everything is super competitive
>overall people (patients) tend to be shitty and entitled as fuck
>long, long hours until youre established
>takes 10 years to get established, which is a long. fucking. time.
>had to learn how to be a chadbro because vast majority of people are chadbros or stacies

some cracked out bums set a fire outside my hospital while i was on shift today so that was fun

How hard was medical school in reality? I hear that it's literally university level work, but with enough to take you all day to finish.

Depends on what you want out of it. In reality its graduate school, and as a graduate student its your full time job to be a student. Generally about 40hrs/wk worth of lectures and labs + studying every day in the first two years. When youre doing clinical work it can vary from 50-80hrs/wk of being the hospital/clinic + studying at home. Just doing the bare minimum and passing is hard, much much harder than college. And doing just the bare minimum will land you a shit job in a shit field.

Pushing yourself to be the best so you get the choice of residency in the field and location you want is extremely fucking hard, and will consume your life. But the payoff is very real.

Gotta be seriously self motivating, goal directed, and future oriented, which you sort of need to get into med school anyway.

Isn't it sort of an oxymoron that you're working this much? It seems very unhealthy.

>work so much to make a lot of money
>don't have time to enjoy money

Why?

Honestly it's prestige more than anything for most. At the age where you decide to be a pre-med money isn't even a concept to most.

I think the prestige stuff is a bit silly.

People will respect you if they know you personally, maybe.

That's really the extent of it.

Because their moms told them to study Medicine.

because finance doesn't automatically pay 150-750K per year. that's why.

>can use a medical degree and license to do all sorts of shit outside daily clinical work
What do you mean by this?

Not all people go in med school for money

I don't want this thread to die, aspiring med student here, although for me my general motivation is self sacrifice bullshit, want to really find out bout the day to day endeavours a doctor faces.

Pros
It's fun learning interesting applied science. Plenty of opportunities for well funded research if you're interested. Most patients are pleased to see you, some are indifferent and only a small proportion are shitty.

Cons
Classmates can be draining, administrative bullshit is ever expanding.
Training is competitive and demanding (but so is anything worth doing).

physicians know a lot of shit. they have on plenty of occasions invented/patented shit.

That's a nice meme. Most doctors work just as much as engineers.

So isn't medicine worth it? Study extra 4 years, 300k starting

Well, you forgot to add in the extra 3+ years after medical school, but yes. You're paid about 50K per year while in residency, so i guess it really doesn't count. Dermatologists do 4 years after medical school and make 300K+ at a minimum and work about 9 hours per day with weekends off, like literally every engineer ever.

Wait, don't dentists get more work life balance than dermatologists?

And they earn quite a lot as well
>200 bucks in a privileged dental clinic for tooth extraction
>600 bucks for tieing your teeth with metal

Dentists will work more than a dermatologist and they will typically make less than half unless they are an orthodontist as they will then make about 1/2 to 2/3rds of a dermatologist, so no.

I cant be bothered to read the whole thread.
As a student that just finishes med uni I wish I never to get into it in the first place.
Corruption,nepotism,connections,more than half the people dont know what hey are talking about,long hours,no returns,big risks with patients,patients being cunts like im guilty of their sickness and so on.
If you plan to do it dont get into it,I lost health,nerves and money.

don't be a bitch.

>gp in germany gets 50k
>gp in the usa gets 150k on average

Jeez, hope my md gets recognized, if i ever get it :^)

easy to say

Everyone feels that way that gives a shit, user. Just get through it and don't be a bitch.

deez nuts

>I don't know how you could motivate yourself for such a delayed reward without a passion for it.
The answer is day-by-day without thinking of the long term. You don't have to think "why am I doing medicine" every morning, all you have to do is go to today's class or pass today's exam. Could be a good or bad way to live life depending on your perspective.

A few off top of my head

>consulting ($$$) for various healthcare industries like pharm, healthcare IT etc
>be a traitor and become a professional expert witness that testifies against other doctors in malpractice cases
>business of healthcare, be a CEO, CMO of a hospital or medical company
>work for medical device companies
>straight up do entrepreneurial shit and be respected and get easy financing because you're an MD

Etc etc.

>>SDN

Can we talk about chemotherapy, is it a hoax?

All sounds like shit not worth spending 10 years in total studying for

breaking the news to families when you were expected to save their loved one.

There's none of that "ive been doing this for 30 years and im a numb edgy sociopath who just doesnt care anymore" bullshit in the doctoring game. It's pretty common for physicians here to break down in front of families when their patient dies. especially if they've been caring for them for a couple days or more.

If you're referring to the recent blowup thanks to the Tele in the UK I would encourage you to read the study which it refers to. It is nothing groundbreaking. I haven't read it myself but from what I understand it just talks about the numbers of people who die while receiving chemo for a whole number of reasons. As you imagine this number is high. Because the people are being treated for fucking cancer. Also quite often people will be old, frail and immunocompromised and this leads to their death. I understand that chemo is an effective treatment for cancer. Unsurprisingly but unfortunately it's not fully efficacious. The lesson: take media reporting on science with a grain of salt and refer to the source when in doubt.

Following on: often studies themselves are flawed and what is considered "best medical practice" is often not based on the best evidence itself. Accessing the best information is incredibly difficult and frankly beyond the capabilities of pretty much everyone. Still, stay critical and if you are to trust any source I'd trust clinical practice guidelines and systematic reviews over the daily telegraph

>get told your whole life you're smart and special
>Spend 20+ years in school to save the world
>Finally enter the real world
>Can't do shit

Reputation and greed. Most spend their money on things they can't afford or don't need and patients or the government ends up paying for their expensive shallow lives.

>10 years of higher education
>memorizing shit all day
>never being able to memorize it all
No thanks id like to not kill myself in the next few years

>vast majority of people are chadbros or stacies
>long, long hours
>everyone is type A
I really really like medicine, also like the money but christ if those above are not very hard compromises to make

on the other hand I'm a 28 year old phd student in a medicine related field, so I guess I dont have to worry about medschool?

I'm in my first year of health science, and eventually planning on specializing in psychiatry. Can anyone here who is a psychiatrist tell me their job experiences?

I'm gonna make you proud Mum, despite you having married a rich man and just dick around having left so many jobs because 'they were not right', and now own your own 'counselling business' which involves a few hours of talking to people who are forced to be there. Sorry I'm not meeting my potential

just read slatestarcodex and lastpsychiatrist

>tfw this combined with an interest in the science of medicine is why I'm trying to be a surgeon

Anyone a DO?

I blew my undergrad and am in a dead end job. I've finally got that out of my system and ready to do the right thing.

Osteopath?

I had a shitty undergrad that would exclude me from a MD.

Now I want to redeem the wreckage that is my life.

>friend is a Physicians assistant
>constantly bragging about how awesome it is being a 'doctor'

he's basically a glorified secretary.

>>provided you don't kill anyone set for your career for life
Implying no patients will die due to your faults...

Chemotherapy is not a hoax just consider the following. You get cancer
A.You die
B.You have chemotherapy
B1.You have 10% to get cured
B2.You have 90% to die faster than picking A

cons:

malpractice insurance and lawsuits

The whole existence of DOs a completely new concept to me as an Australian. I was really pretty surprised to learn about it and how DOs have the legal power to practice the full spectrum of medicine.
I did a bit of reading about it and it seems like many DOs are no different to their MD counterparts but there is still a section of the DO community which believes in mystical shit like musculoskeletal manipulation to cure non musculoskeletal related illness.
I guess if you do it just practice only evidence based medicine and try and be a voice against the crackpots

Alternatively do something like nursing which is what I am studying. There's a lot you can do as a nurse career wise these days

This is the biggest lesson to learn in healthcare. The severe limitations of your power to change anything

DO will basically banish you to primary care. Do it if you want to be a primary care physician. I wouldn't recommend it at all, though.

>I understand that chemo is an effective treatment for cancer.
Nigger it's basically the only treatment there is, if we had another one that outclassed chemo we would be using it already.

Yes. I was just being conservative in my wording as I'm by no means an oncology expert.

Resident here
>Sucks
Long hours of study/work (varies between specialties)
It's full of egocentric people
It's full of people who only parrot what they read whiteout understanding the core of what they say
By the time you start gaining decent money all your friends already have families, a businesses or their own place
People who think they can know as much as you do after a night of Wikipedia
People who think throwing money in the last second can save their/someone's life
Every single lawyer turning into a vulture around you
Needing a third party in the room to be able to do your job (treat a woman), or risk being sued into oblivion (male exclusive)

>Great
Say what you want, there is no better feeling than seeing someone who was about to die be with their families or the face of joy of a newly mother who sees her newborn for the first time
Most people treat you nice and respect you even if you don't really deserve it
Good money

It seems like surgery has by far the worst residency, and the rest of the specialties are sort of hit and miss, like 9-11 hour days.

>sort of hit and miss
>like 9-11
too soon, user

I didn't realize what I did.

all hit no miss

The media often talk about "chemo" as it was a single, identical therapy for all cancers.
The reality is far more complex: for acute leukemias and most B-cells lymphomas the "traditional" chemo (you know, the drugs that make you lose your hair) like cyclophosphamide or adriamicine are highly effective, with the mjority of patients that are still alive after 10 years. For non hematologic cancer, like breast or lung cancer... It depends. For example you can do a neoadjuvant chemo to reduce the tumor size of breast cancer and then surgically remove it. For 4th stage cancer the chemo can only try to make you live longer, sometimes it works well, especially in certain tumor types. In other cancers, like prostate for example, there are ther therapies which are not "chemo", androgen deprivation is the first that come to my mind.

Actual medical oncologist in training

Or overdose on apricot seeda

I've been told that after the first few years in med school, it all becomes regurgitation, rather than critical thinking.

Assuming that this is true --although I hope it isn't -- would you say that it's worth it to subscribe to some scientific journals relating to whatever field I end up in, in order to keep in touch with the science behind medicine?

>would you say that it's worth it to subscribe to some scientific journals relating to whatever field I end up in
Lmao no.
Waste of money and time.
You just focus on whats on your plate in front of you,it will be plenty i can promise you that.

7 weeks into first year.

things that suck

1) fuck ton of workload
2) a lot of memorization
3) no longer being top percent in your classes. (easy to be top 1% in undergrade, much harder to be top 1% in med school)
4) high stress from constant testing and studying
5) majority of lectures are not useful. 80-95% of your learning is going to be mostly self or group directed with textbooks.
6)expensive.
7)higher percentage of gunners.
8) people asking you medical questions when you mention you're a medical student, despite not being in residencies yet.
9) type A fags are the worst

things that are great
1) you'll make friends for life, the people you make friends with are going to be amazing friends. think of it as brothers in combat, except medical school related hell is the stress that makes the bond strong.
2) you can always bitch about your life to other people, and they'll almost always look up to you.
3)people think you're smart.
4)it's a good conversation starter, and girls love to flirt with med students.

The stuff being learned isn't conceptually hard, the problem is with volume. Like we get 12 weeks for gross human anatomy and physiology along with clinical context; all while having a 12 week course for embryology, and 8 week course in histology, and other general medicine course work.

depends on your residency, and your field. PCP don't make much, and if you're stuck in rural area you simply won't make much.

Currently in DO school. Do post bac programs, raise up your GPA, take MCAT. Apply.
If you do well in post bac along with doing the proper extracurriculars, with decent mcat scores, MD schools are still a possibility. So long as you're able to explain your early failures
.>repeating this meme
Don't listen to this retard, AOA and ACGME residencies are fusing in 2020, you'll have access to all residencies so long as your board scores are good.

That's because you neer a vast knowledge base to be an effective physician. You won't be able to use "critical thinking" until you learn all those different concepts that make your body tick and how our interventions can help or harm them.

However, this does indeed lead to many of the "highest tier medical students" being nothing more than people who memorize textbooks and have no critical thinking skills whatsoever, which is why the board exams are focusing on problem solving skills and clinical scenarios instead of just route memorization skills.

Well as a student you'll have access through your university. Hospitals should also have access. But yes, one of the duties of being a clinician is keeping up to date.

just my $0.02, but being a medical student gave me so many brownie points with just about everyone I talk to, I could start a fucking bakery. You're automatically seen as a smart, hardworking, respectable individual to most people, because it does require quite a lot of work. If you're already good looking, Veeky Forums, and Veeky Forums, girls fall into your lap. Even the most shy girls will perk up with you. Whether it's because of money, respect, it makes no difference.

it's not what I asked for, but it's a perk for social situations outside of the job. I became a doctor because I thought radiology was very intrinsically interesting and useful to me. I very much dislike surgeons.
>and I majored in physics and definitely didn't want to go for the PhD route.

Nah not really. Sure there is stuff you need to learn but unless you're thick you don't do most of it by rote memorisation. The best clinicians are people who are thorough and actually switch their brains on with a patient in front of them - it's not usually the person who knows the most facts.

how's pathology?

Do you like microscopes m8?

>If you're already good looking, Veeky Forums, and Veeky Forums, girls fall into your lap.
thats bs.
t.ex-Veeky Forumsizen and medfag