Medicine Stole My Twenties: Would I Do It Again?

Medicine Stole My Twenties: Would I Do It Again?

For most people, their twenties are a decade of discovery—travel, relationships, freedom, mistakes made without consequence, and building stories they tell for the rest of their lives. For doctors, however, those years are consumed by exams, overnight calls, and the relentless grind of medical training. Many physicians reflect on their twenties not as a time of youthful freedom, but as a blur of exhaustion, sleep-deprived nights, and sacrifices that shaped them but also left them wondering: was it worth it?

The Timeline of Sacrifice
The Years of Study While Friends Lived Their Lives
In their early twenties, many medical students watched friends graduate from shorter degrees, start jobs, travel, and explore independence. Meanwhile, they sat in lecture halls memorizing anatomy, lived on student loans, and often felt financially dependent while peers earned real salaries.

The sense of missing out begins early: weddings declined due to exams, family gatherings skipped due to rotations, and birthdays replaced by overnight calls.

The Endless Exams
Step exams, licensing tests, OSCEs, board exams—your twenties become measured by test dates. The anxiety never stops. While others were building businesses or experimenting with careers, doctors were chained to textbooks, flashcards, and highlighters.

Residency: The Lost Years
The mid-to-late twenties often mean residency. These are years defined by 80-hour weeks, back-to-back night shifts, and eating meals in hospital cafeterias. You are technically “earning” a salary, but when you calculate hourly pay, it is often less than minimum wage. Relationships falter, hobbies disappear, and vacations are luxuries many cannot afford.

The Emotional Cost of Medicine in Your Twenties
Watching Life Happen Without You
Scrolling through social media during call breaks often feels like torture. Friends are backpacking in Europe, posting engagement photos, or celebrating promotions. Meanwhile, your only “update” is a coffee cup at 3 a.m. and an exhausted selfie under fluorescent lights.

The Pressure Cooker of Expectations
Twenties are supposed to be for exploration, but for doctors, every decision feels final: which specialty, which fellowship, which city. The pressure to perform academically, clinically, and socially can crush individuality.

The Isolation of Non-Medical Friends
Explaining why you cannot attend birthdays, why you disappeared for weeks during exams, or why you’re too exhausted to talk—eventually non-medical friends drift away. Many doctors in training form insular circles with other medical peers because they’re the only ones who understand the lifestyle.

Burnout Before the Career Even Begins
Burnout is not just for mid-career doctors. Residents often feel emotionally numb before their thirtieth birthday. The passion that got them into medicine starts to dim under the weight of bureaucracy, poor pay, and endless shifts.

The Financial Reality
Debt Instead of Savings
While peers in their twenties save for houses, cars, or investments, doctors accumulate staggering debt. Medical education costs can reach six figures, and the repayment doesn’t even begin until the early thirties.

The False Promise of “It Will Get Better”
Young doctors are told repeatedly: suffer now, reap rewards later. But for many, the “later” keeps moving forward. The promise of stability, free time, and financial comfort often remains just out of reach, creating resentment.

Salary vs Sacrifice
Even when residency salaries arrive, the amount is laughable compared to the hours worked. Some doctors calculate their effective hourly wage during residency as less than that of service workers—a cruel irony for one of the most respected professions.

What Medicine Gave Us in Return
To call the twenties entirely lost is unfair. Medicine steals, yes, but it also shapes.

• Resilience: The ability to function after 30 hours awake is not something most professions teach.
  
  
• Perspective: Doctors witness life and death at an age when peers are still figuring themselves out. This creates a maturity unmatched outside healthcare.
  
  
• Community: The friendships forged in call rooms, study groups, and residency trenches are deeper than many bonds formed in ordinary twenties.
  
  
• Purpose: Even at the lowest points, many doctors admit the sense of purpose—saving lives, making diagnoses, being trusted—is profoundly meaningful.
  

Would I Do It Again? The Divided Answer
Ask ten doctors if they would choose medicine again, and you’ll get ten nuanced answers.

The Yes Camp
For some, the sacrifices were worth it. They argue that missing weddings or trips pales compared to holding a patient’s hand through recovery or being trusted at life’s most vulnerable moments. For them, medicine is not just a career but a calling.

The No Camp
Others quietly admit they would not do it again. They feel robbed of youth, resentful of debt, and disappointed by healthcare systems that exploit their sacrifice. They might stay in medicine now for practical reasons, but if given the choice again, they’d walk another path.

The Maybe Camp
Many live in the middle: they regret the loss of their twenties but accept that medicine gave them a unique identity. They would not necessarily choose it again, but they also cannot imagine life without it.

Why We Stay Despite the Regret
Inertia and Investment
After a decade of training, it feels impossible to leave. Doctors stay because of sunk costs: financial debt, years of study, and the weight of societal expectations.

Identity Tied to Profession
To say “I’m a doctor” carries weight. Many physicians cannot imagine themselves outside this identity, even if unhappy.

Loyalty to Patients
Despite frustration with systems, most doctors remain fiercely loyal to patients. It is this human connection, not institutions, that keeps them from walking away.

Hope for the Future
Doctors often cling to hope that their thirties, forties, and beyond will bring balance, stability, and fulfillment. For some, this eventually comes true.

Lessons for Future Generations
Be Honest About Sacrifice
Medical students should hear the truth: medicine demands your twenties, and maybe more. Romanticized visions of instant prestige and wealth are misleading.

Protect What You Can
Even in training, it is possible to carve out slivers of life. Small trips, hobbies, or moments with family help preserve humanity.

Support Systems Matter
Doctors who survive training with their sense of self intact often credit strong support systems—friends, mentors, or partners who anchor them outside the chaos.

Medicine Needs Structural Change
The fact that so many doctors feel their twenties were stolen reflects systemic flaws: underpaid residency, excessive hours, and lack of mental health support. Reform is not optional—it is necessary.

The Irony of Medicine and Lost Youth
Doctors spend their twenties telling patients to take care of themselves—exercise, sleep, eat well—while living the exact opposite. They counsel others on balance while sacrificing their own. This irony is not lost on physicians, and it deepens the sense of regret for the years gone.

The Quiet Resentment That Lingers
Even decades later, some doctors look back at their twenties with bitterness. They wonder what life could have been if they had chosen differently. These reflections often resurface during burnout, mid-career crises, or when counseling younger colleagues.

Yet, despite regret, many still say: I made a difference. I mattered. That, perhaps, is medicine’s double-edged gift—stealing years, but giving meaning.