Why do you want to become a Doctor?

Okay, so we come here and read. We spend hours upon hours studying, spending half of our income on Starbucks so were able to stay awake, when most others are already sleeping.


What drives you to go through this grueling process, just to get to the point of being an attractive candidate for the application process for medical school?


Quite a few of our members are parents, mortgage holders, full-time employees and anything from a less than stellar undergrad GPA or even no college credits to begin this journey with.


What is it that has inspired you, or has become almost a need, to where the white coat? What sacrifices have you made already to get closer to achieving this goal in your life?


I hope classes are going well!

Gotta go study before I can answer this, but maddux, it’s not starbucks I spend half my money on. It’s Mc Donald’s Mc Cafe’s and sweet teas. (thank you employee discount)

lol…I was just showing love to our West Coast members…It’s dunkin donut coffee here in the midwest!

Caribou Coffee, tyvm!


I already answered this in another post… won’t belabor my drive here

so tired this morning. venti latte from starbucks eased the pain. thank you very much maddux for the shout out to my love of starbucks. tired from a screaming baby with some strange virus that makes her all polka-dotty.


Why? An amazing OB/GYN that showed me that even doctors can give you the delivery you want. Giant healthy twins! A love and curiosity of health and medicine. I want to KNOW! The realization that I can be an inspiring role model to my children. Yeah, you can do ANYTHING you set your mind and heart to. The need to feed my brain. I can’t do the “coffee, tea or me” forever. Knowing that this career is very rewarding, I don’t mean money folks.

  • pathdr2b Said:
  • maddux31 Said:
What is it that has inspired you, or has become almost a need, to where the white coat?

I've been wearing the long whtie coat for years first as a Lab Tech, then a Scientist, and now as a PA )and yeah I KNOW that probably doesn't count, lol!!). So it's definitely not the coat driving my insanity.

If the person sitting at head the scope with the Surgeon, residents was called a $hit shoveler, then that's what I'd be working toward. In other words, I didn't look at being a Doc then decide what field interested me. I've been interested in Pathology since I was in middle school, and it just so happens that medical school/residency is the ONLY way to become one.

OK one exception, Vet Pathologist, but Vet school is far more scary to me than med school

Excellent Path! Awesome articulation!!

You know, sometimes I worry that I don’t want it bad enough…but then I realize that it’s because I am feeling overwhelmed and spending too much time worrying about “how” it will all work out, which is exhausting and causes me a ton of anxiety. I just come back to the science…I just love all things that have to do with the human body and how it works. Just a miracle, and that drives me.

It sounds corny, but I have always wanted to help people. So I gravatated towards Law Enforcement and Medicine. While I have spent time in the LE field, I really like medicine better and especially Emergency Medicine. So that’s why I want to be a doctor, I want to help people.

Do I need to go copy paste my superhero story again? I am Elizabeth the star child from V the final battle and I can heal the rebels!

Susan, you are exempt!



Can I be exempt from biology too?

  • maddux31 Said:
Excellent Path! Awesome articulation!!



Thanks!

Susan…Sure! Pass Go and collect your Doctorate!

Path,


Your very welcome! I still say excellent answer!

So I can watch all my work peers get rich off their corporate stock while I live like a college student?


I actually had a serious answer all written and then I deleted it. . .for some reason I can share all the icky details of my daily grind, but I can’t share intimate details of why I’m here. . .my therapist is helping me with that.

  • AliJ Said:
I actually had a serious answer all written and then I deleted it. . .for some reason I can share all the icky details of my daily grind, but I can't share *intimate* details of why I'm here. . .my therapist is helping me with that.



Back in 2003 someone tried to plagarize my ENTIRE Master's thesis, word for word. I had used campus computers to finish it and thought I had deleted everything. Obviously not, and ironically it was my thesis advisor who caught the guy using my thesis when he interviewed with him for a job(dam, it just occured to me that this dimwit may be a premed, and still be passing my stuff off as his )

So it's probably not a bad idea to be a bit mum on the "whys". I sure would hate something I said to be used by someone else, then be accused by the med school of copying the person who had stolen my idea in the first place.

Of course, I'm not concerned about someone talking about being called a $hit shoveler in an interview.

Path,


That was the lowest of lows. I would even consider legal damages against him/her. I don’t think it would be “kosher” of me to tell you what I would say to someone like that.


That being said, what goes around, comes around! I never use to believe that when I was younger, but the older I become the more true the statement becomes.

I’ve thought about your question exhaustively for years. And now I’m sick of thinking about it. I could write out a list of reasons a mile long, but ultimately I just know it’s what I’m supposed to be doing. Its kind of like being in love – you just know, and you can’t explain it completely. Its a lot like that actually: there are a lots of girls that fit the bill, if you can find them, but when you commit to just one, then the relationship becomes untouchable and takes on a whole new meaning: the commitment itself becomes the source of attraction and affection. I could have committed to architecture, to business, to many other interests, but I thought about it for a long time, tried many things, and finally just picked the thing that inspired me most, the thing that would be the most fulfilling and the thing I respected most, and “she” said yes (haaha thats cheesy!), and it’s such a relief to know what my life is going to be about- Medicine. And I am in love with it. The greatest thing about it is, I’m the only one who can screw this up. I know exactly what I need to do and I just have to do it. No one can stop me. Medicine has to take me. It’s like knowing I’ve hit the lottery and all I have to do is work for a few years, follow the instructions, and claim my prize. In the meantime I get to study the things that inspire me most, forget about everything else, and just be a student. Why doesn’t everyone do this! Of course I know, this is not going to be easy, and I realize I that no matter how realistically I try to assess the entire process, I still posses a naiveté. But you can only calculate so many variables, consider so many angles, before you just jump in. otherwise your sitting on the shore watching it all go by…waiting for something…I did that long enough. If I sink, so be it.

Prior to going to med school, I felt that the non-traditional folks hanging around this board all became physicians for some variation on the theme of wanting to help people. It gave me the false belief that everyone went to med school to help people, so that it was silly for interviewers to ask. Now that I am in residency and have had a chance to interact with my peers in med school and with medical students rotating on my service, I have realized that there are so many reasons people go into medicine. Just a few of the things I have had med students tell me were…


– My dad is a doctor and it was expected of me


– I was graduating college and didn’t want to get a job


– I didn’t know what else to do


– I want to do research (more reasonable I thought)


Even if some of those more outrageous ones were true for me, I wouldn’t tell that to people.