Wouldn't want my kids to go into medicine

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Are you the moron who posted recently about being unhappy in his or her medical profession, and not understanding why parents pushed their kids into medicine? You didn't get the replies you wanted so you're back for another round?

My husband is a doctor and would be SO HAPPY to have one of his kids become a doctor. He already has a niece in medicine, and a nephew in veterinary medicine, but that's apparently not enough!

Stop trolling.

Your husband is a dermatologist? Anesthesiologist? Go on, what lifestyle specialty is it?

[Anonymous]

My parents (one in medical) both discouraged their kids to go into their respective fields. Dh's parents did the same, advising against their careers. Now, we don't want kids following our footsteps and are suggesting the professions of our parents to our kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have four doctors in my family. All of them went to med school straight from college. None of them have had grown up jobs other than being doctors. They all act like being a doctor is the worst job on earth.

They have no clue because they have never HAD other jobs. They've never had to try to hustle to make it in law, finance, consulting, etc. They don't know how much non medical jobs can suck as well. They are completely clueless as to how it feels to try to get a job, keep a job, worry about job security, because they have always been in demand and have never had to worry about those things.

I think this is true of many doctors. They're clueless as to how good they have it in many ways.

You sound clueless and presumptuous assuming you know better than FOUR people telling you they are unhappy in their jobs, despite never actually having done the work yourself. Yet you think it’s a reasonable conclusion they just don’t have enough work experience?

[Anonymous]

I worked in a teaching hospital till recently. A lot of MDs there had children following in their footsteps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Both my spouse and I are sub-specialists in medicine and wouldn't/don't encourage our kids to go in to medicine or be pre-med.

I don't understand why it is so in demand. The administrative grind, corporatization of medicine, unrealistic expectations of a "service industry" model, and overall lack of respect for clinicians is disheartening. This despite loving the privilege of being in patients' lives and their trust in us.

I don’t understand either. Spouse is a specialist recently retired. Tough, tough training, great risk taking, unrealistic expectations. The attorneys and business people we know do better financially Even top managers in the government do better for doing less work and taking far less risk on a daily basis. Yet, all these kids want to study neuroscience and go to med school. Why?

Maybe they actually care about helping people instead of just being a money grubber like you.

[Anonymous]

DH doesn’t want any of our children following in his footsteps to med school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have four doctors in my family. All of them went to med school straight from college. None of them have had grown up jobs other than being doctors. They all act like being a doctor is the worst job on earth.

They have no clue because they have never HAD other jobs. They've never had to try to hustle to make it in law, finance, consulting, etc. They don't know how much non medical jobs can suck as well. They are completely clueless as to how it feels to try to get a job, keep a job, worry about job security, because they have always been in demand and have never had to worry about those things.

I think this is true of many doctors. They're clueless as to how good they have it in many ways.

Seriously, they make a crap ton of money, almost guaranteed for life. They can down shift to PT when kids are in the picture, their is almost zero ageism in medicine, and never will be laid off.

Sure there are certain roles like surgery where people die on a regular basis in your hands, but your average dermatologist or rheumatologist is doing fine.

Almost nothing here is completely true.

-Doctors in Maryland make good money, but my government lawyer friends make more than I do (I'm in a speciality that is mid-range for pay). I work 50-60 hour weeks plus occasional nights and weekends (to be fair, my hours have gotten worse since Covid and the doctor shortage). Not many government lawyers have to answer phone calls all night long and then go work a 11 hour day the next day.
- not sure where you heard that we can go PT on a whim. Many hospital systems and academic centers don’t allow part time for MDs.
- non-competes are standard in medicine, so many of us are trapped in jobs that we hate because our spouse has a job in this area. To change jobs we’d have to move our family far away or to another state.
- of course there is ageism! And older doctors are well-paid, so they get pushed out first. My friend who works at Johns Hopkins said the institution was essentially forcing doctors to retire at 70 a few years ago. Not sure if they stopped due to the current shortage of doctors.
- regulations are so complex that it’s very difficult to have your own practice. Therefore, most of us on the coasts now work for a corporate overlord. They just keep squeezing us - if my workload get increaed and I’m told to “work smarter not harder!” one more time I’m going to scream.
-The training is brutal. It’s years and years of really hard work and getting yelled at and insulted. And if you screw up, someone could die. It’s hard for me to stomach my kids being treated like I was in training. I trained before the work hours regulations, and it abusive and high stakes with a lot of sleep deprivation. I’ve been screamed and sworn at, called names, and had pens books and medical instruments thrown at me by some attending throwing a temper tantrum over administrative issues or staff mistakes that were not in my purview. This kind of drama does make for good TV, but it kind of breaks your spirit in real life. I’m not as nice of a person as I think would’ve been. Like my kids would say that their teacher was mean, and I’d practically snarl at “that’s the just the way life is! Suck it up and Don’t be WEAK!” My kids say I was pretty harsh.
- Lots of doctors I know had a “real job” for 2-5 years before going to med school. We know it’s not perfect anywhere, but medicine has gotten really awful in the last 5 years and it was accelerated by Covid.

As an aside, patients don’t die on a regular basis in surgery - unless it’s a particularly high-stakes speciality like CT or trauma. (Honestly the anesthesiologists are really good at keeping people alive.) That’s just an odd thing to say… not sure you know much about the current practice of medicine.

Gov lawyers top out at $180k, are you a freaking pediatrician or something?

Ageism at 70!??? You are so out of touch.

Also curious - What's your approximate income? What's the income of your gov lawyer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both my spouse and I are sub-specialists in medicine and wouldn't/don't encourage our kids to go in to medicine or be pre-med.

I don't understand why it is so in demand. The administrative grind, corporatization of medicine, unrealistic expectations of a "service industry" model, and overall lack of respect for clinicians is disheartening. This despite loving the privilege of being in patients' lives and their trust in us.

Seems to me the thrust of the complaint is that doctors are being treated like other professionals?

"service industry" model -- yes, see for example, everyone else
corporatization - believe it or not, most people work in or for corporate America
unrealistic expectations - ask the lawyers, accountants, finance and other professionals about the expectations in their profession
administrative grind - the other professionals all have this. and frankly, it's probably worse for them

[Anonymous]

I am usually really happy with my job (psychiatrist at an academic institution), but I do get jealous when I come onto DCUM.
Everyone seems to take for granted that they will have weekends and holidays off and be able to use PTO or work from home whenever they want to with minimal notice.

[Anonymous]

I think most kids don’t want to follow in their parent’s footsteps. Either they see the downside or want independence from their parents.

[Anonymous]

My husband and I are doctors as well. I agree that there are a ton of problems in medicine and the training can be terrible. But at the end of the day, I make a lot of money doing a job that I would do for free. How many people can say that?

[Anonymous]

My kids didn’t follow our footsteps. They (3) all ended up following their dreams. Only 1 became a doctor and it was her dream. We are not doctors.

[Anonymous]

It’s helpful to say a lot of money or not a lot of money because no one knows what dollar figures you’re talking about. Put some specific $ out there, what may be a lot or not to you is different for others.

I find it hard to believe that there are a lot of doctors out there making less than me. I’m a government executive making $212k plus a 10% annual bonus. It can be very hard work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s helpful to say a lot of money or not a lot of money because no one knows what dollar figures you’re talking about. Put some specific $ out there, what may be a lot or not to you is different for others.

I find it hard to believe that there are a lot of doctors out there making less than me. I’m a government executive making $212k plus a 10% annual bonus. It can be very hard work.

Yes, there are a lot of doctors making less than you. Some, quite a bit less, even as subspecialists.

[Anonymous]

PP physician here who said I made less than 2 of my friends who are govt lawyers. I make in the low 200s, but it fluctuates (didn’t get bonus during Covid).

Both of my lawyer friends work for the SEC - we don’t discuss exact numbers, but it seems to me that they make around 250 - certainly not 180. I do know that both of these lawyers make more than their spouses (who are doctors - that’s how we know each other).The lawyers also WFH and only about 40 hours a week. And they talk about a pension, too.

It was so awful during Covid when we were working crazy hours, scrambling for childcare, and terrified of bringing it home to our families. All of the non-doctors appeared to view Covid like a fun vacation, and many of them still work from home!

It is true that doctors in the DMV are relatively poorly paid - if we moved to Alabama or Idaho we’d be doing much better financially. But then my spouse wouldn’t be employable.

And what’s up with the snide comment about pediatrician salaries? I’m not peds so I have no personal stake in this argument, but do you really think that it’s fair that peds is so poorly paid? Is children’s health that unimportant?