Do you think Pre-med and Med students have no life?

Question

Well, I am still quite young (high school) and my dream is to be a doctor, but I want to have a life too, I don't want to lose my friends and I want to date and do all this stuff. Will I have the time? If a Pre-med or Med student is reading my question, I would appreciate it if you can give me a glimpse of your life. Details on a typical day/week would be great.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Answer 1

it depends on what you mean by 'having a life'. if you mean socialising on a regular basis, i'd say don't do medicine. my friend did her 1st year at university in medicine, went to parties regularly, had a life, and she flunked. she had to re-do her first year. i'd say make a choice... but if you're dream is being a doctor surely you won't mind giving up on social activities.

Answer 2

All of this is behind me now, but my experience was this: Medical school is HIGHLY competitive to get into. For pre-med: If you can live the party life of college and still get close to a 4.0 in mostly science classes, then more power to you. Most of the kids who lived like this in my premed days never made it to med school. Their grades suffered and you are not getting in without the grades, period. One C can blow your GPA to a non-acceptable level for med school. Besides that, all the premed people may be your "friends", but they are also your competition for grades so there may be a little tension to your premed friendships. During med school, you will have even less time but will have opportunity to socialize with your classmates and do some things, but not as much as others outside of medicine will be doing. Dont forget about once you are a doctor either and how this will affect your life and your family. If you are a female and plan on having children, think long and hard about this and what field you plan to pursue within medicine. Most will require long hours and alot of time away from your children. Every female MD I know has a nanny and a housekeeper. I think it is worse for the women since they generally are responsible for the children, the home and their work. Men are more accustomed to not being home alot. Besides that, medicine is not what you are thinking right now. It is not all about doing good and helping others blah blah blah. There is that aspect but also there is a tremendous amount of responsibility for the life and health of others and the fear of being sued is quite real. As a woman who has gone through it, now an MD I say this often: "I should have been a nurse" Nurses make good money (not great but very good), they dont have the heavy responsibility and dont take their work home with them and have great flexibility for work hours and type of work they do. But oh no, I just had to have that MD. I love my job, it is very satisfying but I work extremely hard, take work home often and need a vacation at least 3-4 x a year to avoid burnout. Overall, it was not worth it. BTW, you will never get rich either. you will work pretty hard for what you do and if you want to make money, will have to go into a field where you work even harder such as specialized surgery. On the other hand, dermatology and radiology have excellent lifestyles. Sorry just noticed your avatar is a male. It should be easier since you wont have the main responsibility of the home. But if you ever get divorced, you are in for major financial payout to the ex. so pay attention to the family too, besides your work.

Answer 3

I found some links that you might find interesting. The first link is a website designed for med students.



http://studentdoctor.net/



If you notice, there are links to student's blogs. Here is one of the blogs. Dave's blog is fascinating to read. He writes well and tells a good story. The one about the 23 yr old newlywed with a brain tumor was true insight. Dave had trouble facing the guy even when his mentor was the one carrying not so good news. Seeing first hand what goes on in Dave's heart and mind gives us a glimpse at what medical students face.



http://dave.studentdoctor.net/



I am assuming that at least one of the blogs will contain an email address of the student blogger where you might be able to get the real scoop on a med student's schedule and social life.



Here is one of Dave's funny entries:

med school makes you crazy



Second year’s moving along. We just came off a pretty tough stretch of cardiology followed by pulmonology, with hematology finishing off the semester. We’re staying afloat, and actually, my class is doing really well, posting some of the highest test scores at the Lafayette center in several years.



Alas: though there’s no anatomy in first semester like last year, there’s scads of stuff to learn, and the piling on never stops. People cope in different ways: finding new spots to study, the bar, no-study holidays, simple freaking out, and so on. Sometimes people get frayed, and sometimes they get a little loopy. We were in a loopy phase yesterday, but today things got taken to extremes.



One of my classmates brought in one of those fart noise machines and was using it during medicine class. At first, I had no idea what was going on - half the class was laughing and half was trying to figure out if someone was wearing a “kick me” sign or something. Often a target of jokes myself for my tendency to fall asleep in morning classes (I’m working on it), I was nervous that the joke might be on me again.



That’s when my classmate threw his pen on the floor, right in front of Dr. Babbs, said “Oops!”, reached to get it and then hit the button. This time I died laughing along with everybody else. One of the girls (who happens to sit next to the prankster) was laughing so hard she was crying. Dr. Babbs still had no idea what was going on, but to his credit, he realized something was up and said “Well I’m glad everyone’s in such a good mood today! Seems like everyone needed a good laugh.” Then he just kept going. Some people, who were farther away, still didn’t get it and tried to laugh along as if they did, but you could tell the difference. So I’m in a class of mostly 12-year-olds, but sadly enough I’m one of them. Ladies and gentlemen: the future of medicine.

Answer 4

I am also in high school right now, and i really doubt that doctors and other medical fields have no life, i want to be an RN (registered nurse)