Top 3 Reasons Not to Get Into Medicine

A career filled with prestige, dignity, and status; all these are adjectives that one normally thinks of when they envision a career in Medicine.  Most wish to be able to help patients recover from an ailment or find a cure for an incurable disease and in reality, this can happen in hospitals on a daily basis.  Unfortunately, this is becoming more and more rare in the US Health System as physicians are no longer able to spend time with patients.  With all the paperwork and the bureaucratic hurdles that an average doctor now has to deal with in a hospital, it is no wonder why there is a growing number of physicians who hate their profession.  I will present you the top 3 reasons why to avoid getting into Medicine to save yourself from the stress and negativity associated with this profession.  

Number 1:  Horrible Schedules 

Hopefully this is not a shock to anyone but if you will pursue a career in Medicine, you will work hard.  The hours for a resident are some of the longest and hardest hours you will work in your life and even if you have read the legislation passed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) stating that a resident's work will be be capped at 80 hours per week with a maximum of 16 "consecutive" hours for a 1st year resident, I promise you this is a lie. Most residents will consistently work around 100 hours per week and it is not a violation of this legislation because Residency Boards may just not report your 20 additional hours.  The most frustrating component about this start is the fact that you often find yourself working in VA hospitals or other large university hospitals with a team of other lowly residents and must make decisions without access to an attending physician.  At times, a young doctor may literally feel like "pond scum" (a phrase my attending loves to use much to our chagrin) where they are constantly getting yelled at by senior residents, attending physicians, patients, nurses, and hospital administrators just to name a few.  

What adds insult to injury is the fact that not only are the hours atrocious, but the financial compensation that you are forced to endure during this period makes you question everything.  With the average salary of $53,000 for a first year resident, it is just a drop in the bucket when you consider the debt of $250,000 dangling over your head.  Fear not, because as you progress up the ladder towards your specialization, you can command a sizable pay raise of a few thousand extra will earn around $57,000 by the fourth year.  Considering most of my fellow colleagues are around 30 years old with small children by this time, there is a lot of stress associated with this period. The salaries do not compensate for the work logged and you will be a stranger to your family for at least four years just trying to survive on the scraps you are offered.  

Two More Reasons to Absolutely Never Get Into Medicine 

Number 2:  Increased Risk of Suicide 

Although this is generally viewed as a taboo to talk about in society, it is something that you must be aware of when you are considering a profession in this field.  The working conditions are miserable, the hours are unbelievable, and there is an overwhelming pressure that erodes your psyche when you have to deal with patients day in and day out.  You will not understand the shocking realization of how close some of these patients are to dying and how much power you possess to determine their fate.  One bad decision can be the difference between their life and death and it can be emotionally draining after years of work.  

Even if depression and suicides are prevalent throughout many professions in society, physicians often find themselves at the upper echelon every year.  On average, 12% of males and 19.5% of females suffer from depressive symptoms in the general population. When looking at the medical student population, numbers in these field can peak over 30%.What more, this trend continues in multiple nations around Europe, Asia, and South America so the teaching style cannot be the only reason these students feel depressed.  You surround any form of social life you may have had before your studies and constantly have to deal with the competitiveness of Medicine.  Tests, exams, rotations: all can make a big difference in where you end up finding work and it can be a draining task to deal with for anyone. 

As you continue in your journey in Medicine, the risk for committing suicide in women is 250% greater than the average for the general population while the male physicians have a 70% increase.  When you see statistics like this, the first thing that should pop into your head is if this profession is worth your health? 

Number 3:  So Much Paperwork 

This is one of the most disappointing things about getting into Medicine and something I didn't fully appreciate while in Medical School. In reality, doctors do not get to see patients, there are just not enough hours in the day.  With a simple admission for a complicated UTI, a physician has to write an Admissions Note, Consultation Orders, Update Patients Notes, Order Imaging Studies and Labs, and Request Past Files From Other Hospital Visits after spending 15 minutes interviewing a patient (if that).  Doctors are anchored to their computers during most of the day because of the bureaucracy associated with this profession.  If you are thinking logically, you may have naturally come to the conclusion that the doctors could have someone else write their notes or have a nurse assist on some of the paperwork but in reality, this is a big "no-no" in the hospital.  Doctors are responsible for electronically signing all the paperwork that they complete during their rounds and hospital administrators will ensure that a physician knows his obligations on a daily basis.  I have heard from some of my friends in different Residency programs where an administrator can threaten you will written warnings, fines, and even expulsion from the Residency Program if all patient notes are not completed within 24 hours.

On the surface, this is a very reasonable request.  A patient should be visited multiple times a day and his note should be updated continuously to document any changes in his condition.  This is where the logical thinking of a hospital administrator will lead to but in reality, nothing is as it seems.  If a resident had to oversee 4 patients, that would be very easy to login to a computer and type out a note in 20 minutes but now consider that most residents carry patient loads of 15-40 patients throughout the day. Without any complications, that can already by 6-8 hours of just writing patient notes out to meet their obligations.  As we travel further into reality, now add some of the complications that are bound to happen during the day at a hospital so a few "coding" episodes where you have to spend an hour trying to resuscitate a patient each followed by battles with a nursing home refusing to take home a patient and even a few arguments with the nursing staff or pharmacists about messing up your orders and you begin to realize that 12-13 hours have already burned by.  Even if a doctor is able to spend 4 hours with patients daily, he will already be topping around 16-17 hours without even considering his commute to and from the hospital and times to "sleep" and "eat."  It should be absolutely obvious to you by now that this system is broken and will extinguish any joy that you may have in making a patient feel better.  

Don't get me wrong, there are times where the blood, sweat, and tears is all worth it and you feel pure joy that you chose this field but it is a path not for the faint of heart.  You battle your entire career with administration, patients, and we haven't even covered those lawyers out their waiting for the next malpractice case but don't forget them.  If you read all this and still feel that Medicine is right for you, then welcome to the field and good luck on your journey but if you are uncertain, realize that there is nothing easy about this line of work.