are you considering going to medical school today's episode features five
urologists and female pelvic surgeons who are gonna tell you what they wish
they knew before becoming a doctor and stick around till the end of the episode
because I'm gonna give you my thoughts on what exactly I wish I knew before
becoming a doctor if you like this series make sure you check out my last
two videos that feature these same five surgeons talking about what to do for
your female considering going into a male-dominated specialty and why they
love what they do so what's something you wish you knew before you became a
doctor so I think when you go through Medical School you learn all of this
science you learn all of the medicine know that you've really learned how to
comfort patients how to be there for your patients as they're going through
challenges and I think that a little more experience with those kind of
things as you're going through medical school could be really helpful I wish I
knew how much emotion would factor into my day-to-day life and you know if there
were ways to prepare myself to be you know better that be a better shoulder to
cry on be a better you know listener at times when when you're really busy and
you're trying to get through the day yeah I think the reality of it all of
that takes practice and no one goes in knowing how to do that and you just
practice doing it and it's sometimes challenging yeah I do think we get
better at it as the years go on and you know sometimes it's because we have been
a patient ourselves so we start to see another side yeah and it helps us be a
better provider a better listener somebody who takes all the the small
things more seriously honestly I wish I would learn to type before I went into
medical school when I was in high school I was offered a typing class and in my
little mind I thought I'm never gonna have to type I'm gonna have someone
typing things for me which is not true I suppose most of my day on the computer
and having learned to type it's too late now
yeah I actually it was mandatory when I was in grade school to do a typing class
so I'm very good to know I was on for typing or computer programming and I
chose computer programming that was a
question there's so much I didn't know and I don't know I think what I wish I
knew is how to ask for a mentor I mean I think for me a ball would come my way
and I'd hit it and I'd say well I like that ball and I'd follow that again but
you know to have some somebody could who could help there are people out there
who would want to help you make a strategy make a plan and kind of how to
get there I think that just realizing that now is something that seems like
wow that's so obvious that people would want to help but you didn't know how to
ask right yeah so right um I guess I wish I I wish I knew that but I think
your podcast for instance is gonna make that visible for other people who are
creating a field now I'm I think asking for what you need is a big thing that in
general we just don't do well as physicians medical students are in
training and so that's that's really valuable do you have any suggestions on
how to ask for example how to ask for a mentor like how do you do email them do
you ask them in the hallway I think from a formal way to do it would be to make
an appointment to go visit them in office hours and I mean it's gonna be it
could be a 10-minute conversation or a 5-minute conversation I do really think
and we've talked about this earlier that I think people in general would be very
flattered to be asked and then you just sit down and say this is this is who I
am this is where I'm hoping to go and I was wondering if you'd be willing to
mentor me and again you know what's a mentor I mean there's different things
to different people but to me who can help you make a strategy help guide you
help open up opportunities for you and introduce you to the right people I
guess over time what I wish I had known or maybe understood a little
better is some of the emotional turmoil or the toll it takes on you taking care
of patients over the years you know I think people in my opinion people were
drawn to medicine are very conscientious people who want to make a difference in
people eyes but also you know take things very seriously and so you know
every little thing that goes on with my patients take personally and I bring it
home and I can't just leave it at work and you just have to be sure that that's
something that you can do in your life and you're equipped to deal with that
and so I didn't fully understand that I guess before going in and I accept it
but I don't think I understood it yeah maybe it changes as you go with your
training I mean I train there's always someone ahead of you taking care of me
or finding out where the person on the table you're the one they look to
definitely a challenge so when you're in the process of training and exams
getting to whatever goal in between we sometimes perhaps underestimate the
people that help us get there and the sacrifices that are made not just by us
but other people that are involved with us it is in the small tasks and it's not
a small task for anybody involved so I think that's number one I think number
two I think the big one is that we can't always treat everything and I still
sometimes struggle with that that I feel that since I am in a benign field if
it's not cancer I should be able to fix the problem
well you can think you fix the problem but if the patient especially given the
quality of life type surgery we do even if the patient feels that they're not
where they want to be no matter how good the job he did they may not be happy and
that is something that I don't think I was ready for I'm getting more mature
and handling it but what do I wish I knew before I became a doctor I wish I
knew that sometimes I wouldn't be able to help because sometimes there are
patients that are not surgical candidates that maybe are too sick or
too complicated to really do the things that you want to do for them and the
right answer is not always doing more sometimes the right
is doing less and knowing when the right time is to do less and that's hard
because you really want to help people I mean that's why we went into medicine
some of the best advice I got in my career was that the best surgeon knows
when not to operate and I think that applies for everything in medicine you
need to know when to have restraint and to hold back I hope you learned
something new about being a doctor in this episode and if you're still curious
why US physicians love what we do make sure you check out
my video on doctors and why we love what we do and always remember to take care
of yourself because you're worth it