Do you enjoy being a doctor?

Question

My sister is currently in medical school and I am helping a doctor learn English...hearing about their experiences and the experiences of the doctors they know really makes me wonder if I would like to be one. I am a good student, and a workaholic, but I don't know if I could be a slave to my career for the rest of my life. The field I am most interested in is dermatology, if that helps.

Do you like being a doctor, or is it--as I hear often--"Not what is used to be?"

Answer 1

Oh yeah - I totally agree with what's been said here.

I LOVE being a doctor. It satisfies my urge to solve puzzles and deal with problems. I feel a useful part of society when I help people with their health problems and they go on to bigger and better things.

There are roles in medicine to suit most people whether you love to talk to people or if you abhor personal interaction.

The studying and the process of "getting there" is long and arduous. The usual university courses take 6 years (undergraduate courses) to 8 years (the pre-med & clinical med set up common in the USA or postgraduate courses) and that just gets you to internship. Then it's more slog in getting into the specialty area you are interested in. For Dermatology you will have a fair bit of competition.

It isn't what it used to be. In some ways that's good. I guess it's a nostalgia thing. But you know, if you go into medical school the body of knowledge will have progressed by the time you get to internship and it won't be what it used to be ... all over again. And then by the time you are a fully fledged practitioner you will be looking back nostalgically and saying "It's not what it used to be..." yourself!

It's great fun work with a good team of people around you. The rewards are great.

It's difficult and can be draining from an emotional and social point of view.

Doctors have higher rates of suicide than the general community. We have higher rates of alcoholism and drug abuse than the general community partly due to the stressors and the accessibility. There have been doctors who have been the subject of legal scrutiny and legal scrutiny all over the world, but there are many more who continue to practice and lead happy and fulfilled lives.

Hard to say.

Follow your heart. Make your dreams come true. But ... do you REALLY dream of being a dermatologist? :-)

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

There are days, of course, like any other job, when you'd rather be anywhere else, but it's very rewarding. Whether it's worth the limits on family life is a question that's simply too personal to answer for you. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the opinions of medical students and residents. School and training can be brutal. You basically sacrifice your twenties, but the rewards are great.
No, medicine isn't at all what it used to be, but it really never was. Nostalgia has a way of making the past look better than it was. I do wish, though, that insurers, government agencies, and business people would back off on the push to be more "efficient in the delivery of health-care," a common phrase. Medicine should be very inefficient. Trimming ten minutes off an office visit isn't the same thing as cutting the production time of widgets.

Answer 4

Different people have different reasons on being a doctor. But sitcoms definitely do not portray a realistic picture of being a doctor. :S And with the latest MMC cr*p it ain't a pretty picture in the NHS as regards to jobs. And when you DO become a doctor finally your social life is pretty much based in and around the hospital considering your hours and you'll have to juggle your "outside" life with the one you have in the hospital. But yep I feel comfortable in a hospital, it's a tough life, but in the end it's your passion for medicine and making your patients better that really matters. But what hey, in the end if you decide not to be a doctor, you can take your medical degree elsewhere and be a rich city banker or something.

Answer 5

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RE:
Do you enjoy being a doctor?
My sister is currently in medical school and I am helping a doctor learn English...hearing about their experiences and the experiences of the doctors they know really makes me wonder if I would like to be one. I am a good student, and a workaholic, but I don't know if I could be a slave to my...

Answer 6

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is being a doctor like scrubs? in real life people die of heart disease, cancer, strokes, mothers watch their babies die, children watch their parents die. wards are understaffed and riddled with flesh eating bugs. what do you think?