Medicine is a great field but I am obviously biased.
While I do love medicine, it is not something that I would recommend for everyone.
It is very important that you are aware of the pros and cons and carefully decide if
it is the right profession for you.
Stay tuned to find out how.
What's going on guys!
This is Jay from MedSchoolInsiders.com.
Let's get started with the path to becoming a physician in the U.S.
First you complete four years of college.
You can have any major but must complete two years of prereqs which are mostly science
courses.
For this reason, most students choose a life science major, but again, you can study anything
from mechanical engineering to English to political science etc.
After college, you go to medical school which is another four years.
After medical school you go to residency which is at least three years but can be up to seven.
Fellowship allows you to specialize further which can be one or more years in addition
to residency.
Now, assuming you don't take any years off between all of that, you'll be around your
own late 20s or early 30s when you finally finish training.
Lots of people do take time off though, so it is not uncommon to be a few years older
than that.
Now, let's talk about the financial aspects of becoming a doctor: the average debt for
a graduating medical student is currently at $180,000.
In residency, you will make around fifty thousand dollars per year, so you will barely make
a dent in your debt and interest will accrue.
Your salary will rise after finishing training to a comfortable six-figure income but that
varies depending on your specialty.
Now that we understand the basic premise, let's talk about a few key deal-breakers.
Going into medicine for the money is not a good idea.
While you will be making well into the six figures after finishing training, you will
be significantly behind the curve due to debt and opportunity cost.
If money is your main concern, look elsewhere.
So, to go a little bit more into the opportunity cost, if you started working after college
and didn't have to take on the additional debt of medical school where you are not earning
any more money, you would very likely be in a much better financial situation.
I'm not gonna go into a detailed analysis in this video but I am gonna place some links
in the description to pages I found that actually do break down the numbers for a physician
and show you the impact of debt and opportunity cost on your lifetime wealth.
Next, if you hate school and hate learning, again look elsewhere.
I'm not saying that you need to love every single subject or love the annoying parts
of being a student, but if you don't enjoy science and don't learning about the human
body, then a career in medicine is going to be significantly more challenging for you.
A big part of being a physician is being a lifelong learner.
This means you have to continually educate yourself even after finishing training to
stay up to date with your treatments.
Next, if you don't like working with people, I again urge you to look elsewhere.
There are certain specialties that have limited contact with patients such as radiology or
pathology.
However, you still need to regularly communicate with your colleagues.
For example, in radiology, you'll be reading scans for surgeons, emergency physicians,
hospitalists etc and in pathology, you also still need to communicate with your colleagues.
So, now I've told you a few things that are deal-breakers; reasons that you should not
go into medicine.
It's much more difficult to tell you the reasons that you should go into medicine because those
reasons vary wildly from person to person.
One thing I commonly hear from pre-meds and med students is their desire to help people.
That's a noble cause and I fully support it.
I think it should almost be a requirement to pursue a career as a physician.
But at the same time it is not enough.
You can help people in a variety of professions, why not be a nurse instead?
Firefighters help people, so do paramedics etc.
So there needs to be something else there that draws you to this profession.
There are additional qualities of a physician that you should be aware of.
First, they are leaders of the health care team.
You don't have to already be a leader because it is a skill that you can develop, but ask
yourself honestly "is this something that appeals to me?"
second: being a physician is a very intellectually challenging profession; do you have an inquisitive
mind?
Do you like problem-solving?
Or would you rather follow protocols and not have to think too hard?
Next, do you like working with your hands?
Now, there is a broad range of specialties, some have little or no procedures like psychiatry
and others are very heavy on procedures like orthopedic surgery.
Are you a hard worker?
This is one of the most important factors to being successful as a physician.
I believe that most soon-to-be physicians, current physicians and most of even the public
believe that physicians are much smarter than they really are.
While you definitely do need to be smart to be a doctor, it is much more important that
you are a hard worker.
Diligence, discipline and persistence will overpower smarts.
I have a friend who went to a top college and was known for being a genius.
He never studied, often fell asleep in class and still crushed all of his tests.
He went to college and did more of the same.
But when he went to medical school, he really struggled.
From being in the top 5% of his class, he was now in the lower third.
And it’s because he never developed the proper study skills and habits.
The medical profession requires some critical thinking and understanding of complex concepts,
but it’s mostly memorizing vast quantities of information.
That’s why hard work trumps intelligence.
One of the most important things you do before either deciding on medicine or starting medical
school is to shadow.
Don't just shadow one doctor either, check out different specialties and in different
settings.
Learn what it means to be a primary care physician out in the community clinic.
Check out the operating room at the academic center.
Get some exposure to inpatient medicine in the hospital.
Medicine is an incredibly diverse field and you will likely gravitate towards only a few
select specialties that are suited to your personality and interests.
Before starting medical school, I was in love with the idea of being a gastroenterologist
motivated by a family history of GI illnesses.
I thought it would be a great fit because I loved nutrition, the science behind it,
I wanted continuity with my patients, meaning where you can build a relationship with them
over time and I've always found satisfaction from working with my hands and gastroenterology
has a lot of procedures you can do.
But once I actually got to medical school and got exposure to GI in my second year,
I realized that it was not the fields for me.
While I do love procedures, I didn't find the type of procedures in GI particularly
stimulating or challenging.
And while I did love learning about certain diseases and pathologies within that field,
there was a lot of it that also didn't really excite me.
So, luckily after gaining exposure to multiple specialties, I found a surgical subspecialties
that is a perfect fit for my personality and my interests, and I consider myself very lucky
for finding something that was such a good fit.
But in hindsight, I wish that I would have started shadowing and getting exposure before
medical schools started.
I did do volunteer research in the emergency department, I did work with some neurologists
and I even did a little bit of basic science research but that only gave me a tiny glimpse
of the medical field and what it means to be a physician.
So, knowing your areas of interest sooner than later will only help you in the long
run.
At the same time, I don't think that you need to feel any pressure to decide on a specialty
early but be sure you gain exposure and understand the different parts of Medicine so that you
have some degree of orientation going into it.
So, leave a comment below on why you love medicine and what helped you make that decision.
That is it for this video guys.
If you liked the video, make sure you press that like button.
New videos every week, so hit subscribe if you haven't already and I will see you guys
in that next one!