Because your post is quite far down, I'm not sure it'll get many views/replies. Just wanted to say that I read it all and it's both informative, interesting, and (regrettably) demoralizing.
In my first year of college I wanted to be a doctor and landed an absurd position - in hindsight - over my freshman summer where I was in the operating room with my surgeon nearly everyday (he led the residents). I tagged along through all the rounds, operations, and (of course) the tedious paperwork and billings.
By the end of the summer I was entirely jaded and switched programs. I still often think about whether or not I should have stuck it out.
However, what I ultimately saw (as you mentioned) were residents at this top, well-funded hospital who deeply loved medicine when they began medical school fall into a deeply jaded, pessimistic state. They made no money (while living in a high CoL city), were consistently overworked, and riddled with anxiety about where they would actually get a job post-residency.
Becoming a doctor - a surgeon in particular - struck me as a dozen year journey of constant make-or-break tests, quasi-lotteries with regards to residencies/fellowships, and then complete ambiguity as to where you would actually work when it was all done and you hit your mid-thirties. It also seemed increasingly devoid of any kind of professional autonomy and, most surprising to me, was how ungrateful and mean-spirited many patients were. Their lives would be saved, but they would yell at the surgeons over cosmetic concerns about the scars.
I often wonder whether my experience was not representative or simply too much to absorb as an 18-year-old at the time. However, the only folks I've talked to who seem to be truly satisfied and content with their careers are family doctors operating (largely) on their own terms and making 200-300k a year.
EDIT: I should say, I wish you the best moving forward and hope you find a level of contentment and happiness in a bruising - to put it mildly - system.
> I often wonder whether my experience was not representative
Everything you described is concordant with what I saw on my surgery rotations in medical school, and everything I've seen of surgeons in the hospital since then. Especially the mean-spirited and ungrateful patients. The ones that hurt, though, are the ones that come into the hospital hostile and confrontational from the outset.
"I know exactly what I need, and exactly what you need to do, and you're going to do it, or I'm going to have your balls!" I mean, that might be true. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't. But nothing about talking to me like a rabid dog is going to make the process any better. And honestly, if you know your health, that's great - that will be very helpful. But ignoring other things it can be that masquerade as what you've got would be tragically irresponsible, so please don't bite my head off when I address the other conditions on my differential. I'm not ignoring you, I'm just trying not to be negligent.
Some patients will understand that, if we're given time to talk to them like human beings. But we basically never are, which makes things terrible for everyone.
The constant make-or-break tests and quasi-lotteries are a particularly apt description of medical school, and why - IIRC - the most recent stats put medical student rates of anxiety disorders at almost 50% of med students, and depression at approximately 30%. We absolutely destroy young physicians right at the outset. Studies of physician compassion have found that med students' compassion drives into the ground somewhere in third year - not with their first "your entire career relies on this" exam, but with their first exposure of what medicine has become, and how patients will be treating them.
In my first year of college I wanted to be a doctor and landed an absurd position - in hindsight - over my freshman summer where I was in the operating room with my surgeon nearly everyday (he led the residents). I tagged along through all the rounds, operations, and (of course) the tedious paperwork and billings.
By the end of the summer I was entirely jaded and switched programs. I still often think about whether or not I should have stuck it out.
However, what I ultimately saw (as you mentioned) were residents at this top, well-funded hospital who deeply loved medicine when they began medical school fall into a deeply jaded, pessimistic state. They made no money (while living in a high CoL city), were consistently overworked, and riddled with anxiety about where they would actually get a job post-residency.
Becoming a doctor - a surgeon in particular - struck me as a dozen year journey of constant make-or-break tests, quasi-lotteries with regards to residencies/fellowships, and then complete ambiguity as to where you would actually work when it was all done and you hit your mid-thirties. It also seemed increasingly devoid of any kind of professional autonomy and, most surprising to me, was how ungrateful and mean-spirited many patients were. Their lives would be saved, but they would yell at the surgeons over cosmetic concerns about the scars.
I often wonder whether my experience was not representative or simply too much to absorb as an 18-year-old at the time. However, the only folks I've talked to who seem to be truly satisfied and content with their careers are family doctors operating (largely) on their own terms and making 200-300k a year.
EDIT: I should say, I wish you the best moving forward and hope you find a level of contentment and happiness in a bruising - to put it mildly - system.