Should I Quit Medical School If I'm Not Passionate About It? My father is a doctor and my older siblings are medical students. We all study medicine to make our father proud. Should I be strong and break the chain or is it too late after one year of medicine? My passion is actually architecture. Should I choose the safe road and continue medicine or should I take a risk and follow my passion? This question was originally posted on Quora. The following answer was written by Jae Won Joh: Dear Amelia, While it is wildly tempting for me or anyone else giving your question a cursory glance to simply say, "Yes, you should quit medical school and follow your passion in architecture", I don't think that would be the wise response here. This is your life, not anyone else's. So instead of giving a direct answer (which would be full of opinion and bias anyways), I would instead encourage you to dedicate serious time to really think about the multitude of questions that struck me as I was reading this page: Why did you choose to enter medical school? Is family tradition your sole reason for going into medicine, or are there other factors? What do you love about medicine? What do you hate about medicine? How much time have you spent exploring medicine as a career? How much time have you spent exploring architecture as a career? How do you know architecture is your passion? If you were to drop out of medical school today, how would you go about pursuing architecture? What kind of emotional/financial/other support from family/friends would you have if you chose to drop out of medical school and enter architecture? Have you discussed any of your feelings with family members? If so, what have they said? What do your close friends/confidantes think? Why do you feel that architecture is a riskier profession than medicine? Why does medicine feel like "the safe road" despite the constant contact with disease and other workplace hazards? I would also gently nudge you to consider the following: It is never "too late" to change careers. Plenty of people choose to leave the medical profession even after completing residency and practicing for years. I actually have a classmate over the age of 50 who decided to enter medical school after a long, successful career as an engineer. Burning bridges (severing connections) too quickly is a bad idea. Most schools allow for a sabbatical year for personal needs, and it may be wise to use this option to gain a year to explore architecture; that way, if your love of architecture turns out to be a passing thought, you've left the door open to returning to medical school after a year of self-enrichment--but if after pursuing architecture you find you would never return to medicine, you can formally withdraw from your current institution. Keeping your family involved in a decision is oftentimes a positive thing; letting your family make your decisions for you is more questionable. Even if they may not agree with your decisions, you're an adult, and will have to make your own rational decisions with confidence sooner or later, right? It might as well be sooner, given that if you continue with medicine, your decisions will eventually affect whether patients live/die, and what quality of life they will have while living. I wish you the best of luck in making your decision, and I hope that whatever path you choose brings you happiness. If you would like any more thoughts on this or any other matter, please feel free to leave a comment or shoot a message to my inbox. With love, patience, and encouragement, ~Jae Source
