"My Parents Are Forcing Me To Study Medicine, What Should I Do?"

This question was originally posted on Quora:

My parents are forcing me to study medicine, what should I do?

** If I don't do this degree, my parents will stop supporting me financially and they'll make me repeat the tests I fail until I get in. **

I'm unsure as to what degree I should attain in college but I know that in the future I want to help as many people as possible, I want to run a company of dedicated people in the field of technology. At the moment me and a few friends are working on an educational web app for children.

So getting back to topic, my parents want me to study medicine. Mainly because they feel that it will make me rich and they will receive a lot of pride from it. I've told them that I'm not interested in it (even though I'm capable of studying it), I just feel that my area is in technology even though I'm not the best at mathematics (I'm studying hard at it) but I can programme and design.

Since I don't know what I want to do, should I just go along with my parents desire? They really want me to study medicine and if I don't they will stop supporting me, both financially and emotionally. I don't know what to do. Help?

Answer from James Pan, Med Student at Stanford


Tell your parents to read this answer. Hopefully it'll convince them that medical school is not for you.

Let's see why.

1. Medicine is not financially lucrative. Not only is medical school expensive ($160,000 average debt in the US), residency barely pays a livable wage considering that most residents are working the equivalent of two full time jobs. My friends who are medical residents say their salary is only enough to stave away the interest from their medical school loans. So part one is that it costs a lot of money to go to medical school, but also consider this: not only are you paying to go to school, you're also incurring a massive opportunity cost. While I'm sitting here losing $70,000 a year, my friends with tech jobs are making $150,000 a year. That's nearly a quarter of a million dollars in opportunity cost! Here's a cheeky little diagram that puts things into perspective:
   
   
   Chart Source: A Novel Look at Physician Income: Why a medical career is the wrong career if money is one of your primary motives
   
2. If you don't love the profession, you'll burn out. Physicians have one of the highest rates of burnout in any profession. Burnt out physicians also tend to have higher rates of suicide compared to other professions. Compounded with your disinterest in medicine, you'll probably (1) burn out, or even worse (2) commit suicide. Yes, I know I'm stretching things a little bit, but the risks of unhappy doctors committing suicide are very real. Going in grumpy is just rubbing salt in the wound.
   
3. If you don't love the profession, you probably won't even make it. Medicine is a long grind. 4 years of undergrad, 4 years of medical school, and 3–7 years of residency. Some of these years will put you on your mental and physical tipping point. You really need a sense of conviction to get through something like that. The system is designed to break those who don't.
4. And finally, physicians who do make a ton of money only do so because they work so damn hard. And they work so damn hard because they are convinced that they love their job. In the US, the most highly compensated specialities are arguably neurosurgery and orthopaedics. They are not a walk in the park. Neurosurgery requires a 7 year residency and is one of the most competitive fields to get into. Your residency will consist of 100 hour work weeks and after you "graduate", you're only being compensated so much because you're still working 60–80 hour weeks. That's two full time jobs!

Another answer was from Abhiram:

White coats flailing, stethoscope in hand, the speeding figure that dispenses health and has the power to cure has always been the fantasy profession for many children. Being a doctor is a dream come true still for millions of students.

Why Medicine?

What is a career in medicine like? Why do people choose medicine? What can I do to get some hands-on experience in a medical environment? How expensive is it? First, there are some easy, boring, true answers - I like science,I like helping people, I want to work in a fast-paced environment. But all of these answers only actually address " Why a career in the health sciences?"
Things get much more interesting, and more comfortable, when you start considering "Why medicine, specifically?" The best interview question I've ever heard was this:
"You say you want to help people. Why not nursing? There's a nation-wide nursing shortage, but a surplus of people who want to be doctors - wouldn't you be helping more people if you became a nurses?"




To his credit the person who told me this story was only panicked for a minute. He answered honestly: " Because, sir, I respect nurses, but I'd rather be trained to call all the shots."

This guy knew why he wanted to go into medicine. He also had the guts to answer honestly, even when his reason for going into medicine is something that, taken alone, would be a bad reason.

That said, I believe that every possible answer - when taken alone - is a bad reason.Because you want to help people? There's a million careers where you can do that better, and in some cases with a much better lifestyle. Because you want to make loads of money? Well, good luck with that. Because you want to impress your friends? You can't really impress them when you're so busy that you lose touch with them completely.



But i believe that a couple of "bad reasons"can be okay.The key is to make sure they're outnumbered by the "good' ones, and to know exactly what it is you will be sacrificing.

1. Write down a brutally honest answer to "why medicine?" Brutal is the key word. A lot of the time we know something's a bad reason to go into medicine, so we don't even acknowledge it ourselves. For example: if I'm being completely honest, I like how hard it is to become a doctor. I'm stupid ambitious, I know. I also like that it guarantees a modicum of financial security if you play your cards right. These reasons aren't anything I'd write in a personal statement but I'm glad I acknowledged that they existed before I decided on medicine.

2. Bombard yourself with reasons to NOT go into medicine . Read The House of God . Read the Anonymous Doctor blog. Read SDN. Invite your surgical resident friend out to a dinner,liquor them up, and ask them if they had to do life over again.Know the worst of what you may be getting yourself into.

3. Then go back to your brutally honest reasons for going into medicine. Is there another career that could satisfy those reasons?

I think often it's the dumbest reasons that narrow the choice down to medicine. It doesn't stop these reasons from being dumb - it's stupid for me to want to do something just because it's hard - but at the same time, 1) when you think about it, with all the sacrifices you have to make? You kind of need at least one dumb reason, and 2) I can't change that aspect of my personality.

The real question is: if you take all of your reasons together - good, dumb, and altruistic - do they outweigh the sacrifices?






Well, this would be the case if your decisions are utterly absurd!
And of course there are the detractors. Though intellectually fascinating, it is mentally and physically exhausting, with some serious ups and downs. And it is a long road. Admittedly, at this point in the process, the pursuit of a medical career seems like mountains beyond mountains.

So do make the right choice for it is your life that matters at the end of the day and not someones opinion about it. Good luck !


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