Considering medical school...

Someone pointed me to this site from studentdoc.com. Hi everyone I’m seriously considering med school and have been doing serious research in all aspects of this field before I get more involved. I have been reading the forums nonstop for the past couple of days and have talked with a few doctors and some medical students I know as well. I have a pretty good idea of what med school requires from people I know. Well these are my stats and I am here trying to get a feel of what exactly will be entailed and if this is feasible and realistic with my background and status.


Here are my stats:


26 yr old


2003 - Transfer from JC GPA: 2.7


2005 - Univ. GPA: 3.0 - graduated B.A. History:


2005-2007 2 yrs work experience in eng.


2007 - current - Post-Bach in progress for (Int. Affairs) and taking med pre-reqs.


I originally planned to go into a defense related field but am having serious second thoughts. I am looking for a stable career that doesn’t involve a cubicle and where I can work on my feet and is a stable work environment. I also want to work in a field where I can use my knowledge to directly help people. I find medical material very interesting and had honestly overlooked it before. I’m planning on shadowing a doctor and volunteering at a hospital for awhile to see what the day to day work is like.


Well my stats arent the best. But based on them should I continue with my courses? So far I have wrapped up most of the math except for stats but I have done calc. and chem. and am scheduled for physics and bio classes.


Any input is welcome.


thanks

I’ve been looking into medschoolhell.com and I cant say that I know anyone personally who has reached third year rotations yet but that obgyn rotation being compared to the worst days of your life on the planet earth is somewhat frightening and so are many more 3rd year horror stories. I mean I can handle the material but is this what is really in store for me if I get accepted?

Don’t let stories about med school frighten you too badly. At its essence, the 3rd year is all about pushing your envelope. You rotate through, in 2 month increments, all of the ‘classic’ medical disciplines (many programs will have variations on the theme). The reason so many horror stories evolve is that you are constantly pushed up against you margin for “comfort” and then, quite frequently beyond it. On a daily basis you will be asking prim & proper elderly ladies about their bowel habits, character of their stool & how much/often they have farted - not very prim & proper. On Gyn, you will be checking cervixes over & over again - pretty intensely personal & a definite violation of the Western-established concept of ‘personal space’. Examining pts in the nude in detail can be very uncomfortable for both pt & examiner - because it will be patently obvious that you are a novice! Even more poignantly, you will begin doing invasive things to pts: assisting in surgery, assisting with art & central line placement, participating in conversations about dying.


To make it more complicated, with each rotation lasting approx 2 months, just about the time you are gaining a small modicum of comfort, you change. Furthermore, as the 3rd year med student, you will be the “dumbest” one on the team at all times. For folks smart enough to get into med school, it is a struggle to cope with being the fish on the bottom of the barrel.


But, it is all a part of the growth & education process. Could it be better, sure. And, we are actively trying to improve the education & training by making it more people-friendly, but we cannot sacrifice the intensity nor the ‘edge’ nor pushing your limits. It is a quite a conundrum.

Well I am wondering. What will life be like during residency? And will I be on call on Saturdays after residency? I mean whats the work schedule like for a family practitioner?

I am one year out of residency and now have a year’s worth of work as a family practice doc under my belt. I have five partners, which means that I am on call for one week out of six. During that week, I will take phone calls from home after hours and on the weekend but I do not go into the hospital because my practice has chosen to utilize the hospitalist service at our local hospital. The number of primary care docs taking care of their own hospitalized patients is dwindling for economic and lifestyle reasons. The economic rationale: reimbursement for hospital visits is low compared with what you could be billing during that same time in the office. (e.g. if I see three hospitalized patients, and take care of all the calls coordinating their care, it would probably “cost” me two hours away from the office, during which I would see six to eight patients, some of whose office visits could be billed for more than one of the hospital visits.) The lifestyle rationale: we work hard enough at our outpatient practice, seeing 25 or more patients per day, so that the idea of adding to it with hospital rounds before or after work, or during lunch, or on the weekends, is just too much to bear.


I am in the office from 7:30 to 5:30 or later, and bring home a couple hours’ worth of work each night. So yeah, I’m working pretty hard. Part of this is because I’m not yet a “seasoned” practitioner - it takes me longer to figure out billing codes, for example. Part of this is because I am admittedly a bit of a perfectionist and so I spend more time on this than I should, and delegate less than I should. I will generally spend most of one weekend day on work, from home.


But I AM home. I can do what I like. I go out with my husband, see friends, enjoy life. And I really like my job. I know I am good at it and I get a lot of positive feedback from my colleagues, my staff, and my patients. I wish I got paid better - primary care reimbursement through insurance is pathetic and so my salary is nothing compared to that of many procedure-intensive specialties - but for me, the reward of this specialty makes up for that.


Probably more information than you were looking for!


Mary

Do you really only make $10.hr in residency?


And my second question is whether or not you have to start paying on your loans while you are in residency?



You don’t actually get paid by the hour in residency, but the standard starting pay for an intern or first-year resident is probably about $40-$45,000/year. Figure out how many hours a week you will be working, and that’s about $10/hour.


As to your loans, you can usually get them deferred until you complete residency, but interest will keep accruing.

  • crive003 Said:
Do you really only make $10.hr in residency?

And my second question is whether or not you have to start paying on your loans while you are in residency?



Pay rate depends on the field. A close friend of mine, and an MD/PhD, was making 65K in the 3rd year of her Pathology residency, PLUS getting 35K/year in loan forgiveness. And yes, I have definitive plans to follow in her EXACT footsteps!
  • pathdr2b Said:
  • crive003 Said:
Do you really only make $10.hr in residency?

And my second question is whether or not you have to start paying on your loans while you are in residency?



Pay rate depends on the field and where you do your residency. A close friend of mine, and an MD/PhD, was making 65K in the 3rd year of her Pathology residency, PLUS getting 35K/year in loan forgiveness. And yes, I have definitive plans to follow in her EXACT footsteps!