This question was originally posted on Quora.com and was answered by David Chan, MD from UCLA, Stanford Oncology Fellowship If you look at the economics of being a doctor, it doesn't make much sense. I get asked this question a lot: "If you knew what you know now, would you have done it again?" My answer is an easy and quick yes. I didn't go into medicine to make money. I didn't set out to become a doctor when I was an undergrad and even when I was filing out applications I wasn't sure. After I was accepted to medical schools, I thought long and hard before I made the decision to go. Despite all my ambivalence in deciding, I have simply loved almost every part of medical school, residency, my fellowship at Stanford in oncology was great, and my teaching and patient care. I had a great time in internship and was very happy being on call and working 36 hours every 3rd day on call and 12 hours a day on my non-call days. I think that I had one weekend day off once a month. I learned a shitload of stuff. I made great lifelong friends with the nurses and doctors and I worked with. And this happened: You know what this is. It's an exponential curve. It represents the growth of my medical ability and illustrates what happened during my post MD training. It took me 4 years of medical school to get to the left side of the curve just in terms of learning the basic fundamentals and language of medicine. And then 6 years of post medical school training to turn me into a doctor that takes care of patients who have cancer, an oncologist. Should you go to medical school? From the standpoint of economics, it didn't make sense for me and it doesn't make sense for you. I have friends who are younger than me who did other things in life besides medicine. Some are retired. A lot of them have 5 to 10 even 100 times my net worth because what they did was scalable and sellable. They started companies, hired bunches of people to work for them, and a few sold their companies for tons of money. That's great for them. But I'm doing something I love. I'm reading all the time about my specialty because I find it so very interesting. I don't mind starting early or staying late. And it's not just me. Not long ago I ran into one of the young surgeons coming off a weekend on call, Friday night to Monday morning. She's also a mother with 2 young kids. Me: "How'd your weekend go?" She with big smile: "Great! I was incredibly busy and spent the whole weekend in the hospital. I ended up doing 24 surgeries." Me: "Did you get to sleep?" She: "I got catnaps here and there." Me: "Ugh, that's terrible." She very cheerfully: "Not if you love doing surgery." There you go. If you love what you do, it shows. Every day when I go to work I feel that I'm making a difference. And my patients and families tell me all the time that I am making a big difference. It's humbling and gratifying to do something so impactful. I think of it as a privilege that my patients trust me with their lives and I'm doing my best to fulfill their trust. How many people can say that about their daily work? And I don't have to tell you that it's not all great all the time. Some days are just gut wrenching in sadness. So going into medicine never was and shouldn't be about making lists of pros and cons, weighing one side against the other, and seeing how the scale tips. I agree with your list of negatives. I hate that stuff too. But I also love what I do. If you have to ask the question, then you shouldn't go into medicine. If you're smart enough to get into an American medical school, you are more than smart enough to do something else and make good money in the process. Source
