Medicine
What kind of doctor do you want to be?…Shutup! You have no idea.
This is one of those “hindsight is 20/20″. Way back in high school before I had taken my first pre-med class and obviously way-way-way before my first clinical experience I had already made up my mind that Iwas going to be a neurosurgeon. Why? I like the way it sounds. Yup that’s all it came down to. Then in college when they asked I always had the same answer. Still like the way it sounded. My best friend was going to be a cardiovascular surgeon. He loved the way it sounded. By med school I had fallen in love with the Emergency room. Don’t ask why- you already know. Actually it’s because I enjoyed the hands-on nature of the ED. I like that patients come in and you have no idea what is wrong with them and your job is to discover(Sherlock Holmes/Encyclopedia Brown boy detective style). I guess a lot of peopel were watching the same episodes of ER as I was because that specialty became extremely competitive- That and the fact that salaries were pushing past the $200K mark -and the fact that you could do four 12 hr shifts and call it a week and had no call made it very attractive.
Fast forward a few years and me failing to secure an ER match position and I just signed a Psychiatry contract a few weeks ago. So I guess I’m going back to working on the brain but on a more chemical level than cutting it open. Brain surgeons can’t change your demeanor. A good dose of Valium can get you right! My best friend from med school just finished his Anesthesiology residency and signed on to a hospital in Atlanta. My best friend from Harvard -whose wedding I still have to finish my speech for- is in California doing Pediatric ICU. Several of the pre-meds that started out with us gung-ho have thriving law practices now.
The point is that if you’re applying to medical you’ll inevitably get asked “What kind of medicine do you see yourself practicing?” Think hard about your answer -make sure you can back it up. At the same time know that the person asking you the question fully expects you to entirely backtrack and change your mind and end up God-knows-where. The right answer to this question has more to do with your dedication to the field, your intellectual curiousity and your ability to sidetrack sounding like a know it all when you have not the slightest idea of what you will think and feel when you cut open your first cadaver.
Discussion
2 comments for “What kind of doctor do you want to be?…Shutup! You have no idea.”
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Have you ever actually had brain surgery yourself? Do you know what atrocities you are actually doing? Do you actually think it helps people?
It is for the 200K salary figure - you got it.
Does electroconvulsive shock therapy actually work? Or does it make you more docile?
Why don’t you actually get some ECT and then tell us if what you’re doing is actually productive and it helps you huh?
I actually avoid arguments with patients. Your comments are not even remotely relevant but I’ll let them stand and be read for what they are.