Yes, I am a medical student and some might say that I shouldn't be making this kind of remark or advice but yes, I'm still standing to my point: If you are thinking of taking up doctor as your profession, please stop and rethink about it. Let me tell you a few points about medical students' life that lead me to advising people to rethink about their decision to choose medical profession.
1. You don't have any life.
All your friends are having the time of their life: working and earning money, enjoying their life by going anywhere they want, travelling, having a great vacation, some are married and some even having their third or second child already! How about you? As a medical student, yes, you can say you are having fun as well. The fun of having experiences that other people doesn't get to experience or go through like the fun of slicing and cutting the human body part in anatomy class, the fun of holding real human organs in your own hand, the fun of stitching up wounds like you are sewing dresses and the list goes on. Yes, you are having so much fun of being surrounded by piles of books and notes and information that keeps renewing each time you are halfway through your books, exams that come once in few days or weeks that forces you to keep reading and studying almost all the time, burning that midnight oil for that sudden presentation tomorrow, oncall for 36 hours straight even though you're still a medical student and not a doctor yet, get screw up in front of patients for forgetting that one small information because you couldn't focus for being too tired and having too much in your mind, constantly being call stupid and useless by specialist and other superior and the list goes on as well. You seldom have the time for yourself, even when you wanna relax you think about the test that you haven't studied for tomorrow, the syllabus that you need to cover which is the whole book and maybe few more other books about the disease and mechanism that you need to understand. Just looking at all your friends enjoying their life makes you feel so jealous and sometimes depressed because you wish that you could be like them and only that time that you begin to realize that taking medical degree is one of the worst thing you have done in your life.
2. You don't have time to be healthy
Do you think that being a medical student or a doctor keeps you healthy because you know all the diseases and sickness in the world and knows how to treat them? No, you are wrong! Yes, maybe you are partly right in the sense of knowing the diseases and how to treat them. But the ugly truth is, even though you have all the knowledge, sometimes it's just inevitable to stay healthy because you have so many things to do. Normal adult people need at least 8-10 hours of sleep to be healthy and keep your body in the optimal condition for maximal performance. But you forgot one thing, university students especially medical students, rarely get enough sleep everyday. We have to study and study and study, prepare for case presentation if you are in clinical and so much more. Lack of sleep for a long time can decrease your performance and can lead to serious problems in the future. It's not like we don't know about the possible problems about this but our conditions don't allow us to do so. Sometimes, we even have to skip breakfast and even lunch because we are too busy. You have to arrive in hospital early in the morning and you didn't take your breakfast because you woke up late for sleeping in late last night. Sometimes, you are too busy clerking and checking the patients or doing some errands for the residents and specialists make you don't have time to even take your lunch. Of course, this might not happen everyday but there will be time where this kind of situation comes up and make you miss your lunch. And sometimes the first meal of the day is the meal you had when you finally goes back home after a full tiring day. That is why lots of medical students have problems like gastritis and most people doesn't realize this. This is true even after you become a doctor. Too many patients to attend to and after you finish all, you look at your watch and realized that lunch hour is over and you have to for your ward round at two. Hungry and tired but there's no way you can go to eat and leave out the patients who are waiting for you in the ward just so they can ask you about their conditions. When you are tired and lack of sleep, your immune system becomes weaker and it's easier for you to be sick. Seeing hundreds of patients everyday, everyone with different sickness, do you think with your weak body and immune system, you won't catch sickness from the patients? I don't think so. Oh yeah, did I mention that you might develop some mental disorders too? Starting with stress that slowly develops into depression, anxiety, sometimes hallucination, manic, addiction and even bipolar. Yes, these are the kind of disorder you might get even if you are physically healthy.
3. You won't be rich
If you want to be rich, you chose the wrong path my dear. If you want to be rich, go for other profession such as business. That is a much wiser choice rather than you jumping into medical profession to earn money. Yes, some doctors may be rich, that is only after years and years of working and saving the money and it all depends on which sector you are working for, government or private? Studying medical needs a lot of money, the tuition fees is one thing, you still have to buy medical books and all the medical tools and instruments that you need during your study like stethoscope and sphygmomanometer which are quite expensive. After you graduate, you still have to work your ass off and get paid lesser than what you deserve and pay off the loan you got for your tuition fees. For those who get scholarship, they are lucky but for those who didn't? Think about how pity they are.
The above are my reasons of telling people not to choose doctor as profession. Yes, I feel so stressed up, I regretted so many time and that feeling of remorse hasn't left me yet after 6 years of medical school, I'm tired and sick of everything but one thing that keeps me happy is the feeling you get after you save someone's life, the feeling you get when someone you treat gets better and they thanked you and smile to you for treating them. That feeling always overcome all the negative feeling I have previously and made my day. In the end, it all goes back to yourself. What is your main reason for choosing doctor in the first place? What is your motivation that drives you to jump into this profession? If your answer is saving life, then I believe nothing in this world can stop you from becoming a good doctor. Only a pure intentions goes through everything. But if your answer is for the money, fame and the title you get behind your name, then you might face harder time compare to other people. Believe me, God will always bless good people with good intentions. Of course. the things that I mentioned above might differ a bit depending on where you study or practice your profession in the world but overall, it doesn't change much and basically every medical student will face the same problems as me. I just hope that you will think properly and ask yourself, why do you want to be a doctor in the first place? If you goes forward with the wrong intentions and reasons, you will not only ruin yourself but you might harm other people as well, especially your future patients. I hope you choose well.
Thank you for bearing with me until the end of this post. Have a nice day!
Remember, for those who are struggling, think about the feeling you get after saving a life and receiving a simple smile and thanks from your patients. Stay strong! :)
