Around 50% of kids would say they want to be a doctor when they grow up. And it's not because of Dr. House or Patrick Dempsey. It's because of parents' influence, misconceptions or not. Take me for example, no one in the family is a doctor. And yet, I was told to say I want to be one so I could help the sick. Secretly, I have wanted to go into the biz (just like all the little girls who dream of castles and dressing up). Had I known then that Daniel Radcliffe would be worth
£42M by age 12, I would have chosen the latter!
Here's the real deal. Medical school requires YEARS of studying - 20 years in my time (I heard they're gonna add more for the poor kids). The choice of a pre-med course is important. Nursing is a good PRE-MED course, although some have chosen to take it up later, as an afterthought (no offense). I chose medical technology, because it sounded cool. Later, I found myself really enjoying looking at parasites in peoples feces, poking needles and seeing all sorts of reaction mostly screams. Then came medical school.
Medical school is 3 years of classroom and 1 year of clerkship. Drop-out rates increase as you go through each level (no exact values. I guess no one wants to face that reality). Reasons could be because of high tuition fee, schoolwork gets more complicated or boring for some and others need psychological help (a lot of intellectuals have a dire need to be number 1 and can't stand pressure-overload or defeat).
Clerkship. It is when medical students become the lowest animal of the medical chain. Paperwork: patient information, history-taking, physical examination (that includes rectal exam, a must! so that you're seniors won't have to do it). They now go on night duty: BP monitoring (every hour if your resident hates you), and all sorts of monitoring. You are expected to answer questions on rounds with your attendings, otherwise, your whatever-hate-name-you-wanna-call-them resident will bite your head off because they've been too busy drinking the other night to read up). And so... the horror tales are never-ending, I should know.
Post-grad Internship happens after graduation. You may choose to go to a hospital with more horror tales, (to heck with it, you will now have a clerk to torture!) or choose a more lax place with lesser patients, less work, and basically bum out. The excuse of choosing one less toxic so one could study for the board exam is bull. Unless, studying entails night outs and alcohol. Board exam follows internship, which could come as a breeze if only you did read. 3 months at the least.
Residency training is when we choose our field of specialty. Some prefer to deal with kids (pediatricians), operate (surgeons), deliver babies (obstetrician-gynecologists), find comfort with the dead (pathologists) or read in the dark (radiologists), give pain-relief (anesthesiologists), or those who just miss their schoolwork and wish to punish themselves with more reading (internists). At this time, you must have come to realize that nurses can make or break you. Be nice and they will be nice to you. But, even then, if you are a first year, they can torture you, just for the heck of it. You likewise retaliate as you get more succesful IV insertions, intubations, and ABGs. It's the medical life cycle. Residency is tough. You'd prefer going back to med school coz you get bigger allowance from your parents, you have 2 months of summer break! It's all work. You need to master the art of pleasing your attendings... by bullying your juniors. You have to work well with your co-residents even if all you wanna do is push them down the stairs for always complaining about how they got it harder than you do, thus, you have to carry their loads for them as well. Sleeping with your phone in your face just so you could hear it ringing and wake up to a call, "Doc, the patient wants to fart but can't." Sometimes you just wanna get away from it all and scream. No wonder people change. Oh yes, they do, after a 36-hour duty, they change. Someone should change the system before we lose more sane people. But no one ever got the guts to do so, because then, people would say, Hey, we did it, why can't you?
So you go through another board exam after residency just to make sure your brains keep working. Then the decision to do another 2-3 year of Fellowship Training. That's Sub-Specialty. For those of us who chose Internal Medicine, we are forced to join the bandwagon because the trend nowadays is, the longer the title after your name, the more "superior" you are. Thus, separates those who are half-full and half-empty. Some do become successful in their chosen specialty. Earning usually begins after 40... 30 (if you're that lucky). If we want our kids to be M.D.s, by the time they earn, our generation (as parents) would be too old to eat out with them. We would be on a "low salt, low fat" diet! (Now, there's an idea for a good restaurant business).
Becoming a doctor is really difficult. It is not for everyone. As every minute you monitor the heart of your patient, you miss out on the many things in life like your kid's school fieldtrips and every opportunity to make more money like your highschool classmates who are now making names for themselves with a house and a car at the same age you're in. No wonder young doctors drop out from training and others would like to follow. And yet, some pursue it. We stay, not because we got nowhere else to go or we don't want to be called quitters. We stay, because truth be told, we love it. We love the simple feeling of accomplishment when we are able to send a patient home especially after years of staying in the hospital. We feel good when we are able to have a successful Code Blue. As selfish as it sounds, we just love feeling good about oursleves once in awhile, don't you?
It is tough for a reason. We deal with lives. We have to learn humility, respect and patience (get yourself slapped if you still don't have these). Accepting that you are the lowest of the animal means that you accept that even if you become an attending, there is someone higher than you who decides if your patient lives or dies. And that is the truth.
My 4 year-old son says, when I grow up, I want to go to the office like my daddy. And I smile... (we'll see about that).
