SAVE LIVES OR DIE TRYING
written by: Jeffrey Shub, MD
When we hear a young college hopeful tell us that they’re pre-med the standard response is, “DON’T DO IT”. Not to discourage them, but rather to weed out the in-it-for-the-wrong-reason’s.
Medicine is not a job, it’s a calling.
And it’s a tough calling. It’s hard. It’s brutal. It’s heartbreaking. And the personal sacrifices to stay in the game are off the scale.
Not to mention, the $compensation$ will never match the work we put in.
But we knew that going into it because our predecessors warned us. In fact, that was a lot of the appeal. To do something that matters, something that actually helps people in the most concrete sense, something worth sacrificing for. To prove them wrong!
When we feel the system is beating us to the ground, we must remember what that
“something” was, and why.
But sometimes the ‘what’ and ‘why’ don’t turn out to be as we expected. We must periodically evaluate our path and pivot when necessary.
And always remember that the only opinion that really matters is our own.
1. Dr. Pamela Wible makes a great point about the difference between resilience and resistance to abuse during medical training. “Don’t train us to be more resilient. Train us to be more resistant to abuse.”
2. A medical student, Farrah Fong, presents the best example, in my opinion, ofthe process you should take to figure out if clinical medicine is right for you. It resembles how I believe you should go about finding your significant other. Try before you buy.
3. This medical student decided to give us the most real description of the medical school process and (wisely) chose to remain anonymous. Whoever you are, thank you for writing this! It describes my sentiments, almost to a tee. “medical students learn quickly how to play this game. We enter noble. We leave jaded.”
