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Chris leaves for Boston today, for a one week review course for his exams. Which are in April. And which he's already mega-stressed about.
::sigh::
Anybody out there who knows anybody who wants to become a doctor... please, please, please talk them out of it. It's a miserable career. There's some very, very good reasons why 60% of doctors claim that if they had to do it over again, they wouldn't go into medicine. The figure is a little under 50% for specialists and 75% for GPs. They're probably the same reasons that the majority of doctors (sorry, I don't have a figure for this one) claim they would discourage their children to go into medicine.
And any parents who are thinking it would be great to have a doctor in the family, and are pushing their kids to consider medicine... if you like your children at all, stop it. Unless you believe the thrill you'll get from being able to say, "My daughter/son, The Doctor" is worth their misery, and that of their spouses and children.
Well, enough of that.
Hoping to go swimming with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ninja_kat today. Hoping the baby comes soon, too. She's not having the best time right now, is in a lot of pain and basically mostly housebound. But. She's past the 37-week mark, so hopefully the blessed event will happen post haste.
On the schedule for this week: my classes start tomorrow (both of them - heh), Daniel will go to Anne's house, and Justin will go to Laine's after school. Daniel starts Cubs on Tuesday, and Justin starts Beavers on Wednesdays. Tuesday is also the day to sign up for Justin's ballet class, so I'll have to do some fancy footwork with babysitters to get around that one.
Looks like a busy week. And yet I'm looking forward to it :)
::sigh::
Anybody out there who knows anybody who wants to become a doctor... please, please, please talk them out of it. It's a miserable career. There's some very, very good reasons why 60% of doctors claim that if they had to do it over again, they wouldn't go into medicine. The figure is a little under 50% for specialists and 75% for GPs. They're probably the same reasons that the majority of doctors (sorry, I don't have a figure for this one) claim they would discourage their children to go into medicine.
And any parents who are thinking it would be great to have a doctor in the family, and are pushing their kids to consider medicine... if you like your children at all, stop it. Unless you believe the thrill you'll get from being able to say, "My daughter/son, The Doctor" is worth their misery, and that of their spouses and children.
Well, enough of that.
Hoping to go swimming with
ninja_kat today. Hoping the baby comes soon, too. She's not having the best time right now, is in a lot of pain and basically mostly housebound. But. She's past the 37-week mark, so hopefully the blessed event will happen post haste.On the schedule for this week: my classes start tomorrow (both of them - heh), Daniel will go to Anne's house, and Justin will go to Laine's after school. Daniel starts Cubs on Tuesday, and Justin starts Beavers on Wednesdays. Tuesday is also the day to sign up for Justin's ballet class, so I'll have to do some fancy footwork with babysitters to get around that one.
Looks like a busy week. And yet I'm looking forward to it :)
no subject
I never understood why people who hated what they do simply don't get out of it. They do themselves and their families no favours by hating their lives and living for the day they can retire. The is literally wishing your life away. I can understand that once soneone has a family they worry about keeping up the standard of living the family is used to. But perhaps they will help their kids by teaching them that there are other things in life than money and that it is more important to be happy.
I would never try to talk a person out of law or medicine or any other career they are interested in. I would instead tell them what the life of a lawyer is like (being law is the area I know). Then hopefully they will take what I say seriously and really consider if they love law enough to live their life that way. Many lawyers and doctors DO love their work.
no subject
I've seen too many lawyers (or at least law students) who seem to have gone into law for the wrong reasons. But the student doctors I've met almost all went into the profession because they wanted to heal people. 4-6 years later, they were so beaten down by their final year of medical school/first years of residency that they didn't give a damn about their patients and sometimes, on particularly stressful rotations, actively wished a patient would hurry up and die so they could just get a little sleep.
To me that seems less a product of their faulty moral compass in choosing a profession and more a product of an inhumane and abusive educational system.
I never understood why people who hated what they do simply don't get out of it.
Try an average debt of >$100,000 and no other job skills, after anywhere between 8 and 12 years of post-secondary education aimed exclusively at becoming doctors. Not to mention the huge emotional investment that they - and their entire families - have made to get them where they are. It takes major balls to walk away from that.
I would never try to talk a person out of law or medicine or any other career they are interested in.
I would. If I saw that a disturbingly high proportion of people who have chosen a certain path hate it and feel they made a huge mistake, I would try to get somebody I loved to avoid that mistake. I would at least encourage them to talk to people who do that particular job, and see what advice they have.
Many lawyers and doctors DO love their work.
Many do. Too high a proportion of doctors don't, IMHO.
no subject
If a doctor realized he/she went into the wrong profession, there are plenty of other jobs he/she could take with a minimal amount of training. There is medical secretary, nurse or paramedic just to name a few. Really when you think about it the major part of the job of a nurse or a paramedic is helping people. A person makes a decent living in any of these jobs and would be able to pay back their student loan, so I really don't buy this idea that they are stuck in a profession they cannot stand and cannot get out. No time is ever wasted so the time they spent in school is no reason to stay in a job that makes them miserable.
Actaully we both agree more than we disagree on the final part. We both agree the best course of action is to have the person REALLY look into the job of a doctor or lawyer and then see if it is something they still want to do. Doctors and lawyers along with other high paying jobs simply have to put in a seventy to eighty hour week, that is the reality of the world. If you love your work, this is not a problem, if you don't like your work, well you are in trouble.
no subject
I was once told this during my husband's first year of residency, and I began divorce proceedings. It was only when I had talked to a few other people with a slightly better understanding of what residents and doctors really do that I decided to try to tough it out. And frankly, looking at it from the point of view of the wife of an upper year resident, the twit who said that to me at the time was talking out of her ass and had absolutely no clue what a lower year resident's life was really like. There is no comparison, none, between the workweek that Chris puts in now (50-60 hours) and what he was doing back then. The one is busy. The other was torture.
BTW, this may not be a great topic to discuss with me.
I don't know if this is an interesting theoretical discussion to you or not, but it is definitely not to me. I watched my husband and his friends get chewed up and spat out by an educational system that demanded 100-120 hour weeks on a regular basis; that's 7am-9pm Monday-Fri, plus two overnights at the hospitals (+20) and 30-hour weekend call, for months on end. The women all gained weight, the men lost weight - in my husband's case, 25 pounds. They were so sleep deprived they were hallucinating regularly. And this went on for, depending on their specialty and program, 3 to 10 years. Their bodies and psyches suffered, their marriages and their children suffered. Some of the scars they and their families received still run very deep, and much of the harm (health lost, marriages ended, etc), is irreversible.
For somebody who has presumably not gone through this process to say "The educational process is over in a relatively short period of time, and so doctors cannot continuely blame the educational process for making them hate medicine" sounds rather callous to my ears.
Please bear in mind that to me, when I think of all of this, I'm not thinking of random faceless medical students. It's not just statistics to me. It's my husband, my children's godmother and her family, our best friends, etc. These are real people that I know.
It's like many things; from an outsider's point of view, it's so easy to just shrug and say what's the big deal? Take armed forces people who bitch and whine about being sent into a combat zone just because it's 'morally repugnant' to them, or complain about their tours of duty being lengthened. Waa waa waa, so you spend three years away from your spouse, puh-leeze. This is what you signed up for; suck it up. Or, as another random example, people who are housebound for medical reasons. What's the big deal with that? They've got a roof over their heads and don't even have to work to feed themselves, they live off our dime, and then on top of that they whine that they're lonely? What crap! Or take teachers: at work from 9-3, two months off in the summer, and they complain that they're overworked and underpaid? Christ! Stay-at-home parents: all they have to do is feed, burp, and change diapers, they get to watch TV all day long, and then say they're stressed out? Get a life!
It's only when you have actually been in their shoes that you can even hope to judge, with any degree of authority, the particular hardships of their lives. Dismissing those hardships just because they don't at first glance seem all that onerous to you, is rather meaningless, and frankly, can be quite hurtful to the recipient of your dismissal.
My 2 cents
My mother is a retired RN, because of her lifetime of experience as a nurse, in all sorts of environments, I grew up knowing nurses, doctors and their families. I too knew surgeons who loved their work,I knew one in particular who was very talented though not particularly well known for his ability to get along with the nursing staff or for his bedside manner. I also knew his son and daughter who were very maladjusted children. His daughter told me when she was 16 (she was a year younger than me) that her father would give her anything money could buy, which was why she got a convertible for her birthday, but she said all she'd every wanted from him was his time. Then she said now, I don't even want that, I hate Dr. R. She no longer called him Dad or father but Dr. R.
Sometimes after investing a longtime in a career a person feels trapped. I know my husband feels that way. he is an architect for the Fed gov and they've so changed his job description that he's no longer doing what he loves to do and what he trained to do, but he's at an age where retooling would be difficult and our family would be devastated if he quit. Sometimes life doesn't give you options (even if it looks differently to outsiders)
no subject
My interest in this subject is both theoretical and practical. I have many friends who are doctors, they are not faceless people to me either. I see the hours they worked, many of them cry on my shoulder sometimes. I cry on their shoulder when I have something to bitch about. But there is a difference. They seem to understand what they got themselves into and do not spend their days blaming other people for their own problems.
Yes, in my opinion people who are unhappy with their lives should change them be they homemakers, doctors, lawyers or factory workers. I know it is not easy, but neither is it impossible. A person who owns a house, two cars and can afford medical school has a lot more options than many others.
But it seems to me there is something deeper here. It is almost as though you are painting you and your husband as people having NO options, choices and so on. You got angry when I pointed out that people DO have options and no one forced this particular life on them. You insistence that you have no control over your life and your deep seated anger towards other people is something you really ought to get a handle on. It will bring you nothing but misery, and off course it is bad baggage to hand to your kids. I hope you are able to work things out.
no subject
It is almost as though you are painting you and your husband as people having NO options, choices and so on ... You insistence that you have no control over your life and your deep seated anger towards other people is something you really ought to get a handle on.
... and perhaps this is where we should end this discussion.
Dear my cat tim: You are not a shrink....
"I would never try to talk a person out of law or medicine or any other career they are interested in."
--What about prostitution? Drug dealing? Tree planting (at one point the second most dangerous legal job in Canada)? Being a military mercenary? Terrorisism? Roofing (dangerous work and brain-decaying fumes)? If you honestly can tell me you wouldn't do the human thng and try to talk someone you love out of any career, then I would suggest you need to meditate on the 4 divine states of the mind, and particularly compassion. But that is my path, and it is not for me to impose upon you how best to show love.
"They seem to understand what they got themselves into and do not spend their days blaming other people for their own problems."
--Yes, we all realize we chose this, yet all the warnings in the world cannot prepare you for the reality of 36h on, 12h off for months on end. The system, and EVERY doctor I know personally (which I can be certain is more than you know), as well as every scientific study I'm aware of (such as the latest from CJP, 11/2004) is clear that the education system is unfair, service-oriented, and worst of all _dehumanizing_. The dehumanization leaves scars that cannot be erased without a lot of work. Come back and talk to me after you've been ordered to hold a compress against a needle boo-boo at 0400h, depriving you of the only hour's sleep you could've gotten in that 24h block, do the equivalent for 3 years, and then tell me it's not left any scars. I am blessed by a wonderful wife, patient children, and 3 years of lying on a couch 1-2 times per week. I love my job. But I would not do it again. Nothing is worth what I've put my family through.
-----continued-------
bikerdoc rants on
--If every health practitioner who _hated_ their job quit, there'd be no anaesthesiologists to put you to sleep, no one around to remove your appendix after you just had a stiff drink (since there's no anaethesiologist), no nurses to monitor you for infection when you did the surgery yourself, no social workers to help you arrange home care, a 24h wait in ER when your wound dehisces, and when you left in pained disgust, you _could_ go see your family doc, but she quit yesterday. There'd be plenty of Psychiatrists, though, to treat you after your pain-induced suicide attempt, since as a whole we're a pretty satisfied bunch. Of course, we are the poorest paid and least respected specialist (per hour), so there goes your theory of:
"They liked the money, the status," (which, admittedly, _did_ account for ~5 members of my class of 75 medical students' motivations).
--------continues-------
and on and on...
--It's not about stress. There are blasts of intense stress, but we cope with that (after you've run a few codes, everything is breezy by comparison). The problem is the long hours, which cannot be avoided (unless you're in one of the few specialties where you _can_ work part time). The problem is inadequate or inconsistent sleep massively increases risk for all diseases, but especially depression (which is THE leading cause of world-wide disability, and which increases mortality NOT INCLUDING SUICIDE by >8-fold). The problem is the crushing debt (cirocco's figure of $100K is low--most of my colleagues are in the $150K range). The problem is being under the government's (or in the USA managed care companies') microscope/direction (regardless of what's in the patient's best interest). The problem is doing everything possible to save as many lives as possible, then getting sued when the person dies (as if death is inevitably avoidable). The problem is having to hide (from colleagues, superiors, nurses, patients, etc) to be able to take a leak, eat, sleep without being chastised for being lazy. The problem is getting shit-streaked pus sprayed all over you every day and every other night. The problem is having to keep resuscitating a person, having already broken his ribs doing CPR last night, who's body just wants to go, but who's child and legal SDM insists must be kept alive. The problem is knowing that calling your 10 year old patient's school, to explain why little Johnny needs extra help, cannot be billed for, so it's being done for free (typically a loss of $30 per phone call). The problem is getting punched by your patients, before you even introduce yourself. The problem is not being allowed to live where you want, because the government can restrict your license to only certain towns, or because the hospital requires you to live within 15 minutes of the ER. The problem is never having time, for the 5-14 years of medical training, to keep your friendships, so when residency is finally over, unless your spouse didn't leave you (which is rare, according to every study ever), you are _alone_. The problem is (literally) begging a woman not to drink during pregnancy, then catching her mentally retarded fetal alcohol syndrome newborn, and wondering if you could have done better. The problem is begging your supervisor and any other senior doctor you can get a hold of to come help you, and being told you're over-reacting, only to watch your patient die. The problem is having to console yourself, 'cause you're alone (everyone else is just as busy on their ward). The problem is watching your colleagues console themselves with alcohol, and watching them lose their wives and kids. The problem is knowing how many of your colleagues will kill themselves, but being powerless to predict who. The problem is wishing you would get cancer and die, 'cause it's an honorable way out that wouldn't saddle your loved ones with the debt that YOU chose to incur. The problem is knowing that preventative medicine is cheaper and prevents morbidity and mortality, but being hamstrung by your payer to either not do it, or do it for free.
-------continues-------
...and on and on...
I am reasonably happy with my job right now, I love the actual work, and the future looks rosy. But I would not do it again, and have actively counseled my sister out of applying. Much to my sadness, she just wrote her MCAT. I love her, and hope she doesn't get in.
I'll sign off now, as I go to the Buddha for refuge, to the Dharma for refuge.
Re: ...and on and on...
How many doctors each of us know is not terribly relevent. What is relevent is that I made an reply to an issue Cirroco was pondering and was attacked in return. There was no cause to do that and she was simply out of line.
Perhaps you like to run other people's lives and you feel comfortable telling other people what to do. I think that if somone is interested in a legitimate career (which lets out drug dealing) the best thing to do is to have the person find out all the ins and outs of that career and then honestly question themselves if that is a good career for them. Like it or not, being in the military is dangerous, but we need a military. It is far better for someone who enjoys being in the military to be in the military than one who does not.
By the way, stop playing god with your sister, she may like being a doctor and it is none of your business. Instead, let her see what the life of a doctor is like and what a doctor does, help her to ask the right questions of herself which will help her determine if she will be happy as a doctor and then let her make the decision.
I know many doctors who really like their work. Why should they have been talked out of doing what they love? Incidently I checked with a few doctors about hallucinations due to long working hours and strange shift hours. They gave me a variety of symptoms they experienced that were purely due to stress. NO ONE hallucianted. They all suggested to me that anyone who was hallucinating might have a drug problem.
My comments in both messages should be re-read. My contention is NOT that ALL doctors go into medicine for money and prestige. There is nothing wrong with that. Money and prestige are good things BUT my point was it is really worth it if the job makes one miserable? I was accused of being callous. Isn't it MORE callous to force a person to stay in a job they hate, rather than telling them to get the hell out and do something that makes them happier? I UNDERSTAND they have completed a lot of schooling, but that schooling is NEVER wasted and it makes no sense to stay in a job you hate just because you don't want to waste a decade of schooling. I fail to see HOW that is callous.
I will stop to make a point here. You claim psychaitrists receive little money and no prestige. You are being disingenuous. Psychiatrists make more than GP's. Even if you are the low person on the totem pole, society still respects you as a doctor and people still treat you with respect. To say that these considerations never cross the mind of a person who goes into medicine is baloney. I also said that I don't think doctors are holier than lawyers. I said both probably want a career where they can help people and get some decent money and some prestige.
I disagree with you that doctors must remain in their careers so there is no doctor shortage. Doctors do not have to worry about staying in a career they hate. We have doctors coming out of the ying yang in this country and they ALL want to practice in the big cities. Rural area never have doctors anyway, so nothing will change there. Also enough people who want to be doctors and like their work and can take their place.
There is a difference between saying people are in bad situations due to their own fault and saying that many of them have the options to change their life. Think about it. All but the poorest of us really can make changes in our life to make us happier. The upper middle class (which doctors are) have more than enough resources to make changes in their life.
Dehumanization is a problem that everyone in society faces. But doctors as upper middle class people have more of a voice in the political system. Doctors should look to themselves more if they feel dehumanized. Look at every reform of the medical system in Canada. It always includes doctors getting more money and nurses getting less. For doctors to pretend they are helpless is silly.
Re: ...and on and on...
Doctors have withdrawn their services many times in Canada. In 1985, doctors in Ontario went on a province wide strike to protest the end of extra billing. The gov't believed that all Ontarians should have access to medical services without having to pay a surcharge that they cannot afford. Doctors did not worry about the sick, they walked. Doctors rountinely withdraw medical services from patients by placing "block charges" for things like renewing medicine and opening a file. We are told to pay or get lost. That shows a REAL concern for the sick.
Doctors are a powerful lobby group. They have a lot of sway in gov't policy. They will withdraw their services over money. Why don't they change their focus towards their working conditions if they are that bad? They certainly have the power to do so.
Doctors are not the downtrodden of society. Work in a legal aid clinic for a year ( as I did as a lawyer) and you will meet the REAL downtrodden. These people have nothing. They would love to change places with you. You know EVERYONE has something to say about other professions. Teachers put up with being called lazy buggers who work banker's hours and get close to three whole months a year off WITH pay. Lawyers are viewed as being greedy buggers who chase ambulances and porfit off of the misery of others [actaully that is part of the job I liked best! ;) ]. So why should doctor's be any different? Of course people are going to have something to say about them. It is ridiculous is that you take it personally and seriously.
Re: ...and on and on...
I was amazed by the eg you gave of the woman who drank during her pregnancy. Look at all the causes of alcoholism and you will realize that you have very little to do with her inability to stop drinking. You will realize that you have nothing to do with her drinking, her happiness or her unhappiness. You simply are not in the equation.
I think you will profit from the very wise words a doctor once gave me when I was an articling student working with refugees, and trying to get them in the country. I also did debtor/creditor litigation, which was how the law firm I worked for made their real money. I used to joke, I would get refugees in the country and then I would throw them out of their homes for the bank!
Anyway, reading testimonies of torture and all the different methods of torture and massacres did get depressing. I met a doctor who specialized in treating patients who had been tortured. I asked him if his job ever got depressing. I asked him how he felt when he was so limited in his ability to help these poor people who would probably never live a normal life again. I don't think any of these people even knew what a decent night's sleep felt like after what they had been through.
He told me that he did the best he could for his patients. He knew he had nothing to do with these people being tortured and all he could do was try and help them. He found them to be quite grateful for anything he could do for them. He did not see himself as the saviour of the world nor did he see himself as useless if he could not bring about perfect results. He simply did the best he could. His belief was genuine and hence he was able to take handle the huge responsibility he took on. He never saw himself as the be all and centre of his patients' universe.
I don't know how long you have been a doctor, but I would hope that you would have more of this guy's perspective on your work and on your life. I can be reached at reynaldo_the_cat@yahoo.ca I have enjoyed our discussion and am open to discussing it further. I don't want to clog up Cirroco's journal here, so it may be best to just email me. If you would prefer to simply post here that is okay too.
Take Care!