Devil's Advocate

Since we've got some downtime, the med students have been posting really solid advice to premeds. As a more-or-less traditional applicant, I'll throw in my two cents.

The good, the bad and the ugly

Being a traditional applicant has it's benefits. For starters, we're still young, so we're supposed to be have a lot of youthful energy. Something like that. One of the problems is the traditional applicant often doesn't really know why they want to become doctors aside from the general feeling that they want to contribute to society. The truth is, they spent most of their time scrambling to somehow get into medical school that they haven't really thought about why and worse yet, for whom. But honestly, even non-trad med students have a hard time figuring out what specialty/what they want to do with the rest of their lives.

There are benefits that come with youth, aside from reduced recovery time from a hang-over. For example, a lot of the older med students are married with kids. Their significant others will divorce them if lets say they decided to go into surgical oncology where it is 5 years surgery + 2 years research + 3 years fellowship. I mean, come on. There are bills to be paid, children to be raised and time that needs to be put into maintaining a relationship. Therefore, I see a lot of students who would normally have gone into surgery, go into something else, such as radiation oncology, in order to have time and money for their families. On the flipside, there are a lot of us who'd love to have a loving family to go home to after a rough day in the hospital.

For you young gunners, myself included. Listen to the non-trads because they know what they're talking about. Enjoy life. Eat and be merry. Seriously, looking back at my undergrad career, my only regret is not having spent more time goofing off with my friends. That being said, don't fail your classes/MCAT and fuck up your future. Life does not stand still while you go through school. The whole bust your ass during undergrad, work hard in med school and residency, then make a family thing. You know, it doesn't always work out that well in real life. If somebody special comes along, even if you have to make a few compromises, you do whatever it takes to make it work. There's no guarantee of happiness or delayed gratification. Your work=life is your gratification. If you don't love what you're doing...I'm sorry, it doesn't really get much better. It is what it is. Do what you love and love what you do. Seriously. For all the people who rushed through undergrad in 3 years with their double majors and saved money by living at home. Well, I feel sorry for you guys. There are a lot of them in medical school who are really smart, but are incredibly selfish and have no social skills. I'm no don juan, but I get by with a little help from my friends.

For those of you who's parents are making you become a doctor, just stop. It's pathetic. You're old enough to know that you can make your own life choices. However, there is a saving grace. Medicine is one of those special fields where there is a niche for everyone. For the bleeding hearts who want to work in inner-city clinics, those definitely exist. For those fascinated by science and not turned off by the morbid, there's pathology. For you antisocial computer geeks, there's radiology. If you want to sell out and be a whore, you can do that too by working for the drug companies or joining hospital administration. There is a path for all. Medicine welcomes all who are smart and work hard. Compassion helps, but there are fields that don't require it. Worst case scenario, there are lines that you can learn to use in doctoring that makes it look like you care about your patients.

But yea, no looking back. Live without regrets. Once you start med school, it's hard to drop out and pay back those loans. Looking at my repayment plan, I feel guilty, but I'm glad that I'll be able to pay back my loans if urology works out for me. Aiite. Peace out.

-bender