Money drives most of us because honestly without it, it would be difficult to do anything. For some people, money drives most if not all of their decisions whereas for others it only plays a small role in their decisions. It is important for you to understand where on that spectrum you are because it is a good idea to be aware of what drives our personal desires. It is hard to understand why some of us place more importance on money and why others of us do not place the same importance. Of course, there is a significant role of how we were raised that plays a major role in the way that we perceive money. Understanding this is important for your future and what you decide to do with your future because although doctors do make a lot of money – according to the general public’s view of doctors- there are different paths you can take in medicine and based on your perception of money that path can be chosen differently. When trying to decide which specialty you want to go into, people consider a wide variety of factors which include, but are not limited to, the following: lifestyle, monetary compensation, call schedule, type of people that generally go into that field There are many other factors also but these are some of the major ones. However, there are some people who place a significant amount of weight on one factor alone – compensation. For some people it does not matter which field they are going into as long as they make enough money (according to their own standards). Many of these higher compensated specialties are also some of the harder specialties to get into. If you are in this crowd of students that do place a lot of weight on money then you need to be cognizant of that and be prepared to put in the work that it takes in order to pursue that competitive specialty. The reason it is crucial to be aware of this is because you need to do well during all of medical school in order to get into a competitive specialty. It is okay to make minor mistakes on the way but for the most part you need to do very well. Most students enter medical school not knowing what they want to go into and that is perfectly fine. But if you take some time to assess what is important to you, then you will be able to enter medical school with a better idea of what you hope to achieve by the end of med school. Take some time now, while you do have the time, to determine what is important to you, especially if money is very important. Source
