When Did I Realize Medicine Wasn’t For Me?
First and second year was pretty decent. I got to make my own schedules and really only went to class for exams. I had my daily studying completed by the time my classmates got out of class by not attending classes each day.
At some point during the beginning of second year, we had to begin doing H&Ps on real patients in the hospital. We were assigned a preceptor, and we met with him or her once per week for a few hours while we saw our patients, wrote up an H&P, and then presented.
If I had to mark one single point during my medical school career that I started having second thoughts, it was during this time. From the first day I stepped into a “real” patient room and starting asking questions to get more information, and then finally going into the physical exam, I started to realize this wasn’t what I had signed up for.
But, most of my time was spent studying with my own schedule so life was pretty good. The fake H&Ps eventually ended and then we all moved to third year.
This is basically where my initial thoughts during second year were solidified. I started third year on pediatrics in the outpatient clinic. The hours were good, but I didn’t particularly care about dealing with lots of kids or the parents. Still, looking back pediatrics was probably the lesser of the evils in terms of clinical rotations.
After pediatrics was OB/GYN. Now, this is where it really got shitty. I hated OB/GYN. I mean I really, really hated it. It was at this point that I had second thoughts about quitting.
Why didn’t I just go ahead and bite the bullet then? I tended to always talk myself out of it. The thoughts in my head were something like “I’ve already done two years of medical school, what’s two years more?” Each rotation that I had completed (and hated) was only one step closer to finishing school — and one step farther away from me getting out.
But then I’ve always believed that sticking it out was the most ideal situation. Fall-back plans are great, as you never know what is going to happen in the future. The desire inside of me to always have a fall-back plan — all bases covered — is what kept me in for the long haul.
Knowing how things worked out, I am very satisfied with my decision and I feel that I made the best one for me. But making that decision with an unknown future was certainly scary. Now, the company is doing extremely well and I am completely happy. I could technically go back into medicine if I ever needed to. But, I don’t think this will ever be necessary.
What was it about H&P’s that sent up the warning flags? Did you realize that you didn’t want to deal with patients? Or that the clinical setting just wasn’t where you wanted to be? Was it not what you imagined it would be?
I have all the above questions and more… There are so many branches to medicine, both clinical and non-clinical; was your experience in the MD realm so bad that it turned you off to all possibilities in medicine? You sound like you quit and started a company (or something similar); did this opportunity have any bearing on your ultimate decision? Finally, whatever it was that really did it for you…why weren’t you exposed to any of that in your premed years; isn’t that what volunteering and shadowing are all about?
“…why weren’t you exposed to any of that in your premed years; isn’t that what volunteering and shadowing are all about?”
This comment must be from a pre-med because it’s just so naive. No, shadowing and volunteering will not EVER tell you what it’s like to train to become a physician. You’re not being treated the same way, expected to do the same things, and have to deal with the same BS as a medical student.
These things are used to establish at least some idea that you have seen what you’re getting yourself into, but they by no means will ever truly show you what you’re in for.
I hate H&P’s. Hate them. My reason: patients lie. They just freaking lie all the time. They don’t know what the hell’s going on with them and then they try and make stuff up, fudge information, or just omit altogether. Patients can be dealt with, but they honestly suck a lot of the time. It was for this reason I turned away from Emergency Med – too many of the worst.
What about Radioloy or Pathology? Those specialties would avoid having to deal with patients.
I’m just a Med 1 but there are a lot of family friends that are physicians (and not in academics where the BS seems to be thickest.) They usually tell me things like “avoid a specialty with a lot of call.” They’re mostly happy, too…but they recognize all the BS.
I think right now I’m looking into radiology, path, and ophtho. What do you think of those 3? I was hoping the specialty reviews would get to those (I guess you did have that one post telling of the awesomeness that is path.)
I was wondering Hoover, could you do a detailed post on the ROAD specialties. I know you’ve mentioned them but could you talk about each specialty (ophtho, rads etc). I’m personally interested in ophtho, it just seems very cool, and I find the eye fascinating.
It wasn’t the H&P’s by themselves that turned me off, but rather everything that went with them. Smelling crap from incontinent patients, the drabness of the nursing homes or hospitals, looking at bags of piss, open wounds on patients, blood in places it shouldn’t have been, etc.
I did realize I didn’t want to deal with patients around this time, but I also didn’t really want to do anything else in medicine either. I did not care for the clinical setting at all.
I can’t say it wasn’t what I had imagined it to be because quite honestly I never really imagined anything. I guess I assumed medicine to be another job, but I really never thought about the things that I was going to be exposed to.
My experiences did turn me off from medicine completely. If I had to, I could see myself going into pathology but that’s about it.
I didn’t quit medical school, I finished. The company didn’t have a bearing on my decision not to pursue a residency. Rather, the company was created from a passion of mine and the fact that I had to do something to make a living. It was either start my own company or go to work at a 9-5. I much prefer doing something that I love and making my own hours.
You’re really not exposed to the nuts and bolts of medicine from the pre-clinical years and shadowing/volunteering experiences. Honestly, you really don’t know what it’s going to be like until you get there and start doing it.
Shadowing and volunteering is broken. People do it because everyone else is doing it. In order to stay competitive, you have to do it. There’s nothing that volunteering in an ED for 8 hours a week is going to show you about medicine. Half the time you don’t get to do anything due to liability precautions.
What you don’t get to see is the actual lifestyle of these physicians. A more honest experience would be spending a month with an OB/GYN intern at a training hospital and being there every single hour that he or she is there — including call. That would be the closest thing to your clinical years in medicine that I can think of.
Radiology deals with patients moreso than pathology does. At least during residency training you have to learn all of the interventional procedures as well as do a transitional year in medicine. Pathology is certainly patient free, and if I had to go back to medicine it would most likely be in pathology.
Pathology is certainly nice, especially if you don’t want to deal with patients. Radiology has somewhat more patient interaction. Optho, while it pays really well, has too much OR and patient contact time for me. If you don’t mind those things though, go for it. You can do really well especially if you enjoy the work.
Sure man, I can work something like that up. What is it exactly that you want to see? Review-like information or just my general opinion?
My question is, what if you are a first year and know now that you don’t want to complete medicine? Is it worth it to finish the entire thing as a fallback plan?
It gets tricky if you’re a first year and already having doubts. Honestly if you’re absolutely sure that you want to get out of medicine now, you’re probably better off to go ahead and cut your losses before you’re six figures in debt or have accumulated three years of lost time.
I was a first year med-student, and am on leave because I was so damned depressed and essentially burned out. Ive never quit anything in my life, so this was really hard to swallow, and is why I am even thinking about going back.
So many people say “it gets better after the first two years”. Im just wondering how true this is, and if you think its worth it to go back. Keep in mind I was literally barely passing my exams, and was losing my mind. How could something that made me feel this way ever turn into something good. I may have answered my own question here, but just wondering what others thought
It never got better for me. I hated third year more than first and second year combined. In fact, it got worse. I absolutely hated clinical medicine.
I’m reading this from the vantage point of seven years of clinical practice as first an OB/GYN and for the last 5 years as a GYN-only. If you guys are having second thoughts about medicine and definitely if it’s making you depressed, get out now. I loved my first two years of medical school. The second two were ok, but I should have paid attention to the change in my enthusiasm and my grades. I absolutely HATED Ob/GYN residency and now hate private practice. I knew I should have quit after my first day of residency, but all I could think about is the debt I owed and how I would pay it. Now I own my own practice and am in the process of selling it and going back to school to get an Master of Public Health in Health Policy. This decision has come after 7 years of soul-searching and career counseling, and I am so stressed out because I want everything to work out so I can get out of the profession. I realize now that I shouldn’t have worried about paying back my $76,000 student loan because I’ve had to pay $31,000 in an insurance tail just to stop practicing OB and will have to pay another tail of $66,000 when I quit altogether, so this puts the student loan in perspective. If I had realized I would like something like policy 11 years ago, I could have done it then, made as much or more money than I make now and paid off my student loan with no trouble, but I had no one to advise me back then. Oh well, things happen when they’re supposed to, but all I have to say is if you know you hate it now, do yourself a favor and get out ASAP.
Hey I’d just like to ask you all: How many years is med school in your country (and what country do you live in?). Because all of you here talk about only 4 years, while the duration in my country is 6 years… Please write ASAP
hi, i live in australia. med school in this country is 5-6 years if you’re undergrad, and 4 if you’re postgrad. i’m undergrad doing a 6 year course at UNSW in sydney. so i would have been 17 when i decided i wanted to go to med school, and 18 when i started. and i should point out, i hadn’t done any volunteering…
i’m about to finish my 5th year, where we pretty much shadow a medical team all day and do what we can: med charts notes cannulas bloods etc; etc; and the interns/residents/registrars/consultants teach us little bits as we go along on rounds, to theatre, etc;
it’s not a real reflection of life as a junior doctor cos the doctors tend to send you home once it gets around 5pm or if it’s a slow day, but it depends how enthusiastic you are and what kind of vibe the hospital has
australian doctors work long hours too but not nearly as long as US ones… and from my experience this year on clinical (and i’ve done med/surg/paeds/psych and primary care) australian doctors and nurses treat their medical students a damn sight better!
Medical school in the US is four years.
That’s after completion of 4 years of college for an undergraduate degree.
But Hoover, this is ridiculous. How can you assume that because YOU hated clinical medicine everyone else does?? Obviously medicine was not for you, and it’s great you figured that out. Hell, I would be REALLY glad if everyone who feels like you do quit medicine ASAP. We do not need doctors that hate interacting with patients.
I just withdrew from a Caribbean medical school after 1 year, for similar reasons to those stated above by Pauli, I was depressed and sort of went crazy started partying alot, going to the beach to escape it the fact that I hated it, and found myself not really caring whether I passed or failed classes. it was really tough there because failing one class by 1 pt, I got behind almost 20K without any mercy from the school, got behind my class, in a class where students where thinking about organizing a protest because of how poorly it was organized. I also was passing my exams by pretty close margins the whole time. Also, as a woman, I didn’t think I could deal with the next 8 years of my life or so working constantly in a hospital, when I might want to have a family life. It was just too much pressure. In the end, I just don’t think I was born to be a doctor, I realized I’m not a cold hard scientist. Now, I just don’t know what to do with my life and with my loans. I want to work with children and do something easy that will give me enough free time to pursue other interests like painting and playing the piano, but it’s really hard to let go of the medical school dream, as there were some real highs and happy times in the process.
If I had to mark one single point during my medical school career that I started having second thoughts, it was during this time. From the first day I stepped into a “real” patient room and starting asking questions to get more information, and then finally going into the physical exam, I started to realize this wasn’t what I had signed up for.
^ Exactly my sentiments.
I’m halfway through 2ndyr med and I did not expect to feel this way. One thing I now know is that I don’t want to deal with patients. My classmates say I should consider going into pathology in the future coz’ they see me working well with the microscope BUT my pathology grades are just sad right now it feels like I have brain tumor already.
I feel like I knew before I started sending out applications that I might not want to do medicine. But it’s always been a dream of mine so I decided to follow the dream. I’m an M2 and my first year was hell. I had no motivation almost from the get go. I was barely passing exams, depressed and hating every minute of it. The turning point came for me when I became suicidal toward the end of that first year. So I took a year off. I thought maybe I was just burned out from undergrad and during that year I tried to think of things I would do if I didn’t go back to school but just couldn’t see myself anywhere but in medicine and after 6 months out I started thinking “Oh, maybe it wasn’t as bad I had made it out to be.” So when my year was up and I still hadn’t found something else I wanted to go I went back. Now the first semester of second year is almost done and I’m constantly thinking about how much I hate medicine. I don’t dislike seeing patients I just don’t want to be their doctor. I’m dreading, absolutely dreading third year. I watch my classmates and professors who get excited over medicine and I don’t. Every time I’m required to go to class I suffer anxiety, restless nights. I’m thinking about dropping out again but I’m still where I was in first year…stuck.
Love your blog, Hoover. There is much useful tips around here, and feels kinda good to read thoughts coming from ppl with similar experiences. Anyway, I probably would have done it all again, because the same personality features that made me choose medicine in the first place, would still exist. Narcissistic, highly dependent on external validation, not competent enough in science to be a big-shot professor or the next Bill Gates. Medicine just seemed perfect to boost my ego. It didn’t. Now I am stuck.