Lazycoder

Is going to medical school worth it

A looming healthcare crisis n America: Not enough doctors! (Health Blog On 10)

I came across this article at the on10 healthcare blog. Dr. Crounse mentions that the medical school enrollment is down, but the baby boomers aren’t getting any younger (or healthier). I guess I would be one of those young people that turned away from medicine. I got a degree in BioChem with the intention of going the MD-PhD route and starting clinical research. Took the MCAT, even interviewed at K.U. medical school. Why did I choose not to interview the next year? I took a look at 4 years of medical school, about 2 years of PhD work, plus internships and post-doc work. It would be about 10 years before I was looking at any real money. Not to mention the hell that is medical school and internships, where a 12 on – 12 off with one 12 hour on-call shift is the norm. Who wants to be responsible for peoples lives at the tail end of a 36-hour shift? For ~$20K/year?! I’m happy with my position now, I get to use my degree to a certain extent but still focus on using my tech skills to improve patient care.

My number one suggestion for getting more people into medicine: Lower the hype around medicine. Doctors aren’t gods. You don’t have to be a super-genius to be a doctor. I knew plenty of dumb people who got into medicine and haven’t killed anyone in their clinical work. One girl that stuck out in my mind used to pipette silver nitrate using a mouth pipette. She got in to med school her first try.