What are you passionate about? Is it really medicine, or is medicine just a guaranteed way to make a nice buck?

If you were to win $100 million in the lottery tomorrow, would you continue to do the same things you are doing now, or that you have planned to do in the future?

The question posed above is important. It’s the “truth” question. Be truthful with yourself and you’ll discover if you’re really passionate about medicine, your job, or whatever it is that you do to put food on the table.

For me, I would definitely continue along the same path that I’m on right now if I won the lottery. I absolutely love the things that I am doing, and I would do them for free if I had to. It is certainly nice that it puts a decent paycheck into my hands each month, but that’s not the point. I know I’m in the right place.

My grandfather never went to college and worked as a machinist in a plant for a good portion of his life. Very typical blue-collar work that is common for my family. He couldn’t tell me about complex chemical formulas, or the physiological changes of the human body during pregnancy. Instead, he taught me how to fix lawnmowers and cars when they broke down, and how to do odd jobs around the house.

Despite that fact that the had very little formal education, my grandfather was very “street smart.” He had lived life, and realized the mistakes that he had made. Mistakes that he could look back on and see, but that he couldn’t do much about for himself personally. He truly cared for me and wanted to change my life, to share with me some shred of information so that I could have something that he never did. One day before he passed away, he did just that.

“Find something that you love doing so much that you would do it for free, and then find a way to make a living doing it. If you can accomplish this, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

Take that to heart. I did, and it truly did change my life.

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Veteran readers, I know this is a topic you guys are very familiar with. Please bear with me. =)

I’ve seen several hits in my stat logs from people looking for the ROAD specialties. For many students new to medicine, this might be something that you’re hearing for the first time.

The ROAD specialties are specialties that are generally considered “lifestyle” specialties in medicine. Lifestyle specialties are those that offer good pay with minimum work hours, low patient loads, above average working conditions, and typically low on-call time.

Historically, the ROAD specialties are Radiology, Opthalmology, Anesthesiology, and Dermatology. More recently, the mnemonic has been revised to E-ROAD or ADORE to include Emergency Medicine.

Anesthesiology is on the high-end of work hours, while specialties such as Pathology aren’t included. Expect the lifestyle specialties to change slowly over time as working conditions, hours, and pay fluctuate.

Other specialties that I consider to be lifestyle specialties are radiation-oncology, radiology (which is included in ROAD, but diagnostic only), pathology (mentioned above, but not included in E-ROAD), and reproductive endocrinology. Watch out, though, as reproductive endocrinology is an OB/GYN fellowship. If you can stomach the traditional OB/GYN residency and manage to match into repro-endo, your life should improve dramatically.

One specialty of special mention is Orthopedic Surgery. Despite the fact that it is insanely competitive, do not believe for a minute that it falls into the lifestyle category. The work hours are long, the work is manually intense, but the pay is great. I think the fascination with orthopedic surgery stems from manual labor with drills and saws coupled with an athletic or “appealing” build seen in most residents.

One last thing I wanted to mention is Anesthesiology. I’ve always heard the work hours and free time is great. Some of the most up-to-date data we have says otherwise. Anesthesiologists are actually working on-par with surgeons. I’m looking forward to seeing some more recent data on work hours before my argument can hold any weight. The students are still pouring into Anesthesiology as of 2006.

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I found a great article today while doing my daily reading. It’s entitled 7 Reasons to Quit Your Job, but can definitely be applied to why you should quit your residency. After all, isn’t residency basically just a very, very low paying job?

7 Reasons to Quit Your Job

His story is very similar to mine as to how he got started with his business.

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Do gunners who constantly go above and beyond tend to get under your skin? Do you frequently wonder if your fellow students do anything but study? If one of your goals is to enjoy life while still doing well in medical school, here are five ways to make your medical school experience a bit more enjoyable.

Read the rest of this entry »

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What’s so cool about saving somebody’s life? Can’t you just call 911 like everybody else does?

Is it some popularity contest, just like you had in high school? Do you tell your friends and neighbors about your medical school experience with pride?

Do you feel like you’ll get more pussy at the bars if you tell them that you’re a medical student? I used to think that, but the pussy was as frequent as before my acceptance.

Does your wife or husband realize that you’ll be working like a slave to uphold some underground celebrity status that nobody else knows about?

I don’t know. Do you?

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