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.
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JPH said
May 25 2007 @ 2:15 pm
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?
Kypdurron5 said
May 25 2007 @ 3:00 pm
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?
MSG said
May 27 2007 @ 5:01 pm
“…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.
Guilty Bystander said
May 28 2007 @ 12:37 am
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.)
KK said
May 29 2007 @ 12:57 pm
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.
Hoover said
May 29 2007 @ 4:17 pm
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.
Hoover said
May 29 2007 @ 6:16 pm
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.
Hoover said
May 29 2007 @ 6:23 pm
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.
Hoover said
May 29 2007 @ 6:24 pm
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?
Sandra said
November 13 2007 @ 8:38 pm
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?
Hoover said
November 13 2007 @ 9:00 pm
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.
Pauli said
November 21 2007 @ 5:55 pm
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
Hoover said
November 21 2007 @ 6:29 pm
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.
adl said
May 23 2008 @ 6:24 pm
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.
Biljana said
December 25 2008 @ 4:00 pm
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
Hoover said
December 25 2008 @ 7:32 pm
Medical school in the US is four years.
That’s after completion of 4 years of college for an undergraduate degree.
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