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Is Medicine Really My Passion?

Discussion in 'Medical Students Cafe' started by Dr.Scorpiowoman, Dec 4, 2016.

  1. Dr.Scorpiowoman

    Dr.Scorpiowoman Golden Member

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    Do you love your job?

    No, really. Do you? Is what you’re doing now exactly what you want to be doing for the rest of your life? Is it what, in the innocence of childhood, you saw yourself doing, in the rose-tinted FutureVision™ that we all see our future selves in?

    No, this is not one of those self-help ads you see on TV. As I’m sure any one of you has discovered if you've ever been forced to sit down and spend ridiculously long hours concentrating on ingesting material (read: cramming), revising tends to make you all deep and introspective. Along with the “I’m-never-doing-this-last-minute-cramming-again” promises you make to yourself (promises that inevitably tend to last until 24 minutes after your final exam), you tend to start asking yourself whether it’s all worth it. With the increasingly difficult financial situations of medical students, the long hours of work, and the sheer agony of being forced to stay in and revise whilst your friends doing other courses are out playing Frisbee and chatting girls up on the University lawns with the spring flowers out in full bloom (not that I’m bitter or anything), doubts begin to creep up in your mind about whether you’re truly doing what you’re passionate about in life.


    Donald Trump’s cardinal rule is “Love what you do”. Almost every self-help book written by successful people includes some variation of this. And the medical profession is no exception to this: there are many, many doctors, nurses, and medical students out there who are truly dedicated to their art. Some of them, including my fellow writers on this blog, are your dream doctors: kind, not money-minded, genuinely caring about their patients. They are missionary-like in their zeal (and some of them ARE missionary doctors, come to think of it). Whilst some of them might come off as being ultra-competitive nerds, like Cristina Yang on Grey’s Anatomy, underneath the whole must-win medical-junkie image is a true passion for what they do.


    Then you have the other extreme: medics who got into medicine not because they wanted to. Some of them were forced in by their parents (“we know what’s best for you, honey” sound familiar?), some of them just didn’t know what else they wanted to do, some of them want the money, and some of them watched an episode of ER and went “Hey, that’s so cool!”


    Then there are those of us in the middle. Those of us still going through the motions, still unsure of whether medicine is really right for us. Some of us stuck in this limbo will eventually come to our senses and leave for new pastures that really excite us (Jonathan Miller, Che Guevara, Deepak Chopra and Michael Crichton were all trained as doctors). Some of us will find something about medicine we love, and stay. Some of us, the really talented ones, will do both.


    But for now I count myself in this limbo. I know I really like medicine, but I have other passions too. Maybe I can find a balance. Or maybe I should listen to my lecturer, who when consulted said “The more you do something, the more you realize if you like it or not. So shut up and get back to work, you lazy bum.”


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