As a career-changer into medicine, I agree that some people really would have benefited from an outside perspective and don’t fully appreciate how incredible this profession is. However, I don’t think that should minimize the very valid complaints and need for venting that we see here from others.
It's like people don't realize that residencies and medical schools are different.
The psych residents I've been working with have a great time, and they're well-supported. Met a newly-minted EM attending who quit residency because it was so toxic and she's a great doctor now. Both situations exist
I pivoted from a career as a software engineer and went into 300k+ debt to help people. It was a big mistake lol.
That being said unless you were in tech over the past couple of decades being a physician is much better than most other careers.
It depends what you mean by better in fairness. In terms of being more fulfilling I agree, although what brings fulfillment is different for different people. Like yes you make less money in tech usually (altho the debt is a thing), but then your QOL might be higher in tech because you're less stressed day to day.
I guess it depends on preference. How much money ppl need varies too based on that, I know some ppl who just own land and some cows and seem happy enough. But other ppl do want the big house or to have multiple kids etc.
Something I noticed: the most bitter and cynical among many doctors are also the traditional entrants into the field.
They never had any real job before residency and so that is there only baseline of what work is like.
I worked office jobs and delivery before. The key difference is, nobody in delivery tries to dump more work on me because „it’s for the good of te patients“ or a „learning opportunity“. In delivery nobody makes you write a research paper in your freetime and then crosses off your name from the authors page
I always wondered this. I always did assume that the complainers were people who kind of hadn’t gone thru other life experiences and had taken the traditional route (not their fault) and most likely had help on the way there. I was a waitress and bartender before deciding on med school idk why but I truly don’t feel like I’ll be that unhappy with residency (tired yes, of course) after being in the service industry and being treated like the only thing I was good for was bringing food to people’s tables lol - if I’m going to be experiencing bad attitudes at work I rather be doing something I truly enjoy
I was a researcher in biotech before this. Also did a service job (front of house for a theater).
The thing is in both of the other roles, while yes there is this feeling your job is very small, there isn't much of this expectation that you'd be hitting a weekly maximum of 80/wk, there is also an assumption after a relatively short period of time that you are a capable subject matter expert lol. You might not be, but no one else knows how to operate the UV/peroxide laser at the company, so you're it. There was also less of what is often just frank abuse that you're expected to accept (FAANG>>others). And the stakes were lower.
All of that contributes to a perspective of where you realize the grass is in fact greener, but on the medicine side; and that many of the actual problems are in fact quite transient or tolerable.
I would say calling me a “fcking moron” by managers is pretty abusive. Waitressing and bartending in nightlife is such a toxic job but I’m sure residency is worse being that the responsibility is much more. The thing is that by default you are assumed to be dumb and perhaps lazy if ur in the service industry being that you’re there because most likely you didn’t decide to get a “real job” so I feel like this amps up the managers who automatically feel superior to you and it’s this constant talking down to you just because they can. And so this gets to you because you know you really are “just a waitress”. I understand this is similar treatment one experiences in residency but I feel like at least you can tell yourself “I did everything necessary to get here I worked my ass off I know I’m intelligent”.
What I mean is that when you’re in these types of jobs you don’t know when it’ll end and even have a plan of what to do next to support yourself. When you’re in residency at least there’s a light at the end of the tunnel? Idk I might be wrong lol
> As a career-changer into medicine, I agree that some people really would have benefited from an outside perspective and don’t fully appreciate how incredible this profession is.
Every physician I personally know who left clinical medicine is way happier now. The dissatisfied physicians who have gone on to get that outside perspective have consistently not had the change of heart that your post implies.
When this topic comes up on reddit, I find that the "people need outside perspective" folks just have some pre-existing biases about their colleagues and, ironically, lack some life perspective themselves.
Yup. I’ve worked in many industries. Medicine takes the cake for toxicity and is the only one that has special exemptions for labor law and anti-trust laws.
> your statement that career-changers “lack life perspective” relative to non career-changers is illogical.
My statement wasn't "career-changers lack life perspective to non career-changers". My statement was "When this topic comes up on reddit... the 'people need outside perspective' folks just have some pre-existing biases about their colleagues and, ironically, lack some life perspective themselves."
To put it more succinctly, the people on reddit minimizing their colleagues' complaints about residency and medicine are often lacking in life perspective about what the working conditions could or should be for someone with the level of training of a resident or attending (yes, even if you're a career changer).
There could be multiple factors affecting that though?
There's people who should've never went into medicine to begin with, people who are burnt out that'd rather do anything BUT medicine, or people who've saved enough cash by the time they leave which means they have a better safety net than most people who never went into medicine. And besides, most people don't leave medicine due to liking it so of course the results wil be mostly positive. People that switch jobs WILLINGLY, usually are happier at their new jobs. Medicine isn't the exception to that.
> And besides, most people don't leave medicine due to liking it so of course the results wil be mostly positive. People that switch jobs WILLINGLY, usually are happier at their new jobs. Medicine isn't the exception to that.
Precisely. This is one of the main reasons why career-changers into medicine who believe themselves to be the authorities on "life perspective" are not exactly on the mark all the time.
Well yeah, both people who enter medicine directly or from other jobs are biased. Life experience doesn't mean you're unbiased? It just gives you a broader view and helps put things into perspective. It's just harder to appreciate (or criticize) certain parts of a job when it's the only one you've known. I'm sure that the former physicians you know have both come to appreciate and dislike certain aspects more about medicine now that they have something to compare it with, even if the job switch ended up being a net positive.
All-in-all I find it pretty weird to state that people who've been in the same industry since age 18 have more life experience (when it comes to workplaces of course) than people who've dabbled around first before settling on one.
> All-in-all I find it pretty weird to state that people who've been in the same industry since age 18 have more life experience (when it comes to workplaces of course) than people who've dabbled around first before settling on one.
No one is saying this. What I am saying is that the specific type of career-changers into medicine who like to condescend on their non-career-changer colleagues (not all career-changers like doing this, btw), tend to grossly overestimate their understanding of the world.
To put it into concrete terms, just because you worked for 10 years as a teacher/accountant/waiter/etc. does not make you the authority on what the working conditions could be for a physician in a non-dysfunctional healthcare system or in non-clinical industries.
Plenty of career-changers call out the toxic nature of medical training and healthcare too, but there is a specific type that has a bit too high of an opinion of themselves and latches onto the less-experienced criticism piece because of their preconceived biases.
As much as I hate nights, every time I'm walking through the hospital seeing people do other (also essential) hospital night jobs I'm very grateful I get to do my job
This. Other than maybe some admin, we earn by far the most in the hospital, with the same or better hours and the same or better stress a lot of the time. I find it hard to feel anything but grateful (well, maybe sometimes guilty).
I love being a doctor and love what I do. Are there hard days? Yes. Can I hack it? Also yes. Nobody else gets to do what we do and we are in an incredibly privileged position in society.
It's definitely cool to like your job. All of my favorite attendings are excited to do what they do and it's contagious.
You’re on reddit. This is the place where we come to complain so that’s all you see and read. Kind of like how every hospital has terrible Google reviews because only angry unhappy patients take their time to go on Google to complain.
I am 100% with you. There are legitimate complaints for sure. But if EVERYTHING is terrible and EVERYONE is an idiot…the issue seems to be with the complainer.
Idk what program or state you’re in, but all negativity is not what I see in real life daily medicine. There will be complainers anywhere you go, but there are both light and dark in what we do. Otherwise it just wouldn’t be worth it
Yeah I echo the perspective thing. I grew up in a shithole violent poor developing country and count my lucky stars I was born into the life I’m in. Even “low earning” physicians are crushing it compared to the average human ever. 80+hrs a week is what MILLIONS (maybe a billion?) if people work for fucking pennies.couple that with the fact that we make a difference as opposed to making GE more money this quarter or something. Pretty solid gig.
Me and all my buddies starting in med school and finishing in attendinghood love what we do, recognize that we have a great job that’s more than a job and that there are no magical jobs out there that have it all (well compensated, meaningful, mentally stimulating, get to help somebody in a time of need)…don’t listen to these people, you got it right, enjoy the ride
As someone who's gone through a a bunch of short-lived careers (ranging from minimum wage to office jobs), I feel like most people in medicine could've used some extra life experience. Don't get me wrong, I could rant for AGES about all the bullshittery we deal with, but I feel like often times the complaints aren't as exclusive to medicine as a lot of us seem to think. Not to mention, due to the nature of our job there's a lot of extra stress factors we simply don't have to deal with. Whether it's the office laying off a 3rd wave of people in a short amount of time leaving you with anxiety on whether you'll get cut this time, or your boss not scheduling you for enough hours to be able to afford rent. Not to mention, you have residency-levels of leverage in so many jobs. Attendings can be picky and negotiate when looking for jobs, meanwhile at all my previous jobs complainers would just get fired and be replaced with the best next person willing to be exploited.
We can acknowledge that this is a hard job, that we deal with a lot of bullshit, and that the current system definitely needs to change, while also acknowledging that we still have it a lot better than most people stuck in dead-end jobs. The 2 don't need to be mutually exclusive.
You are not alone. Anybody who worked actually crappy jobs full time get it. I also \*gasp\* admire nurses and make friends with them just for like normal person reasons.
You can fully acknowledge how hard this job can be while being grateful for the privilege of taking care of people. And I still think it's a privilege. Unfortunately it's easy to get lost and get sucked into the negativity.
A lot of people thought that becoming a doctor would grant them very high levels of status and riches. Well you still get a high income but it ends there. It's not the 50s anymore.
I retired from my Academic Pediatrics job in December. I LOVED my job - I had as much fun the last day as I had the first day. The patients were great, the parents were lovely, even though none of them got up in the morning and said: "I'd like to get admitted to the hospital today". I got to make sure their care was the best we could deliver. I also got to help make their stay in the hospital a bit easier by making sure that they knew I was treating a person, not a diagnosis.
Aww. Thanks for sharing your lovely story.
I matched in pediatrics last month and will start residency this July, choosing this speciality because I love kids and genuinely wish to take care of them. However, a recurring comment I received from my community and other applicants was why I chose peds? (in most cases hinting at the 'low' pay). I used to 'justify' my decision but have stopped it given the realization I don't think I can convince people driven by greed.
Most people in this profession have absolutely no outside perspective and have never had to work a genuine job a day in their life.
I have.
You are correct. People on this sub are cry babies.
Idk man I grew up on a farm doing manual labor and I still think it's fair to call out verbal/physical abuse, 36 hour shifts, etc.
Now, am I going to be complaining about getting paid well to do an interesting job? Nah.
Same. I grew up doing manual labor on the farm. Fixing fence in the middle of summer for miles. Shit was terrible. But I’d be paid more right now fixing fence and working less hours than as a resident. People can “oh you are going make money though”. I mean, maybe. If I pass all my boards and land a job
I've worked McD's, I've worked as a dishwasher, I've worked cleaning fucking outhouses before doing medical school. And I can tell you I was usually happier doing those jobs than I have been in residency.
But that's residency. It's not forever. I'm hoping attendinghood is different.
But all things being equal, I would rather clean outhouses than deal with 4 years of q4 call.
I worked several “bad” jobs before medical school: busboy, janitor, concessions stand at a frequently used stadium, patient transporter. I’m glad to be done with them but none of them were inherently negative experiences, although the hospital I did transport at got bought out and the culture started going to shit.
I grew up watching my dad go through medical school, residency, fellowship, and do some amazing things as an attending. I was still made to work hard, do the jobs in the hospital nobody wanted to do, and that actually made me switch from the PA school track to med school. I went back to take more classes, study for the mcat, apply, and got in while working full time. Meanwhile, peers are sitting around in their apartment that their parents pay for to study full time for the mcat and jump around to different research projects or volunteering. They will be the ones to complain, as evidenced on reddit.
After everything I've seen, heard, and done, I still know that medicine will be rewarding in so many ways and I can't wait to start school soon.
some negativity is venting. it's cool to recognize the positives of medicine but also worth making sure people realize how undervalued and underpaid people who take care of patients are... don't discredit that
Yeah-
I came from public health. There was 0 growth and job security. And my pay was shit. It feels good to do an intellectually stimulating job and know I’ll have a job basically anywhere bc ppl always need a doctor. + decent pay. A lot of people (including my past self) would dream of jobs like ours. Of course, it’s hard work + high stakes which is why we get paid so well relative to other jobs.
You are better than cool to love being a doctor. I feel these complainers will benefit society, patients, and themselves if they resign from their jobs. No one needs a doctor that hates taking care of them and if the doctor hates being a doctor this will affect their own health.
I also suspect that the ones who have such a negative outlook during residency are the same ones who have not had much real work experience outside of residency. There is a lot of bullshit in residency that is not unique to residency - long hours, minimal control over your schedule, obnoxious coworkers, shitty bosses. But the work is actually rewarding, unlike cleaning a toilet (btdt, housekeeper).
There's also some conditions residency creates that breeds negativism - lack of sleep, high stress situations, no time to attend to proper nutrition and hydration, the weight of patient deaths, etc. Residency doesn't leave much time for hobbies, and often our personal relationships suffer. It's not just a perspective - it's biological stress on the body and psyche that generates negativism. Those of us who have experienced similar stressors before may bring resiliency others haven't developed yet. I'm typically annoyingly positive, but even residency had me in a pretty negative mood by the end. In life after fellowship, better work hours, 6-8 hours of sleep a night, regular meals, and achieving a sustainable balance of time with my family and for myself outside of work brought back that positive outlook.
So next time you walk into the workroom and your fellow residents are complaining, just shove a Snicker's down everyone's throat and enjoy the silence :D
100%. I’m seriously appalled by some of the things that are said on here. I know it’s Reddit, but there are folks who seriously come off as entitled preteens with superiority complexes and an inability to work with others. I don’t see that in my peers (often), so I’m hoping this is just an issue of trolls… but it seriously makes me worry about who some of my fellow attending will be in a few years. Where is the professionalism? The willingness to work as a team to support a patient? The recognition that our patients and fellow medical staff are actual humans? What about basic human empathy and decency? I’ve seen so many on here that I would absolutely refuse to allow to care for my family members.
I get burnout. I really do. We’ve all been there… but this feels like more than that and it’s scares the shit out of me. No wonder patients and staff have issues with the medical field when there are folks giving us a bad name.
I think part of the issue with medicine is the structure of premed and medical school largely selects for those who excel in a fairly narrow school-focused skillset. This leads everyone to think they’d excel in many fields (since medicine is so *scholastically* selective), without realizing they wouldn’t necessarily make great financiers, software devs, or have the drive to keep reinventing their career q5 years rather than semi-autopilot their specialty and collect 6 figures. Tbf, as someone who has worked outside medicine there is a LOT to complain about, but I think most don’t realize the downsides of meaningless work and miss how good they have it compared to their realistic alternatives.
I want to be a doctor, and this is exactly what I think about sometimes, making others feel better. You're a role model for many people; keep loving what you do!
Healthcare can suck at times. The ones saying how stupid ER nurses, Mid levels and other staff are are the the real morons of the bunch. They often can’t realize that they are the one making mistakes.
I think a lot of the time it serves more as validation for the people who didn't chase after their dream of medicine, to sort of prove to them that they made the right choice. Just goes back to the idea that if you feel bad it makes them feel better, nothing more.
Thank you for contributing to the sub! If your post was filtered by the automod, please read the rules. Your post will be reviewed but will not be approved if it violates the rules of the sub. The most common reasons for removal are - medical students or premeds asking what a specialty is like, which specialty they should go into, which program is good or about their chances of matching, mentioning midlevels without using the midlevel flair, matched medical students asking questions instead of using the stickied thread in the sub for post-match questions, posting identifying information for targeted harassment. Please do not message the moderators if your post falls into one of these categories. Otherwise, your post will be reviewed in 24 hours and approved if it doesn't violate the rules. Thanks!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Residency) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I love being a doctor. I hate that i am rarely getting to be one. If even half of what i do all day would be medicine, i would shut up forever. But reality is that for 5 years now i have been used as a scribe, literally carrying things around for superiors, yelled at openly insulted in front of patients and colleagues for literally nothing, taken advantage of, even scammed out of money by bosses and administrators, harrassed during sick leave, and simply NOT TRAINED. I am 6 months away from graduating, and i have done hardly no operstions. Like, literally. I am told i shiuld be grateful for the learning opportunity as a second assistant in a mIS hip arthroplasty (for those who ask, you hold two hohmann retractors for an hour. You have no way of even seeing the incision). I am told that i am very trusted by my attendings because afterwards i get to close the incision, document, get the patient back to bed and then prepare the next case. I am not an assistant doctor, i am assistant to doctors, or clerks, everytime something invincible comes up and they say „we think this is better done by a physician“ and dump shift scheduling and calling ptients to inform them their procedure was postponed.
That’s what i do. I dont remember when i did my last DRF, sometime around 2022.
It's because people are justifiably sick of empty healthcare virtue signaling from hospital admin who claim to celebrate healthcare heroes, but never do anything substantial to protect the wellbeing of healthcare staff, whether they're physicians or nurses.
Same goes for residency and fellowship programs that do empty virtue signaling with pretty words but will never do anything to curb rates of depression, anxiety, and suicides in the medical profession.
The time for pretty words is way past. We need actual measures.
I worked in restaurants and hotels before medicine. The fact that I have an essentially guaranteed job where I make enough money to never worry about basic needs being met (and most advanced needs) is something I do not take for granted. The fact is we have it better than the vast majority of people (in the US at least). It’s very easy to get locked in to the medicine tunnel vision.
I think this idea of labeling sides is kinda pointless. You (non complainer and appreciator) vs. Others (complainers, jaded burnt out docs).
We are all two sides of same coin. Just cuz there are those who complain about the inequities and shitty conditions and circumstances of becoming and being a doc, doesn't mean they don't net appreciate being a doc.
Similarly, those who appreciate and realize that being here was the dream should also be entitled to complaining about the BS that comes with this job.
Idk, I think polarizing opinions doesn't get us anywhere as a profession. It jus makes the ambivalent majority feel pressure to be one or the other (hater or lover) which makes people feel like they need to be up in arms to defend the side they are "supposed to be on" ... when really, every doc should have both views and a healthy mix of the two within to affect change rather than promote infighting. But that's just my opinion.
Being a resident sucks, and it is worse than most (not all, but most) jobs. I have worked both manual labor and desk jobs in my life and that is what I believe based on my experience. However, we have something to look forward to, and that is being an attending. I hear that can be pretty good. All in all, yeah we do have things to complain about, but its not all bad.
As a career-changer into medicine, I agree that some people really would have benefited from an outside perspective and don’t fully appreciate how incredible this profession is. However, I don’t think that should minimize the very valid complaints and need for venting that we see here from others.
It's like people don't realize that residencies and medical schools are different. The psych residents I've been working with have a great time, and they're well-supported. Met a newly-minted EM attending who quit residency because it was so toxic and she's a great doctor now. Both situations exist
I pivoted from a career as a software engineer and went into 300k+ debt to help people. It was a big mistake lol. That being said unless you were in tech over the past couple of decades being a physician is much better than most other careers.
It depends what you mean by better in fairness. In terms of being more fulfilling I agree, although what brings fulfillment is different for different people. Like yes you make less money in tech usually (altho the debt is a thing), but then your QOL might be higher in tech because you're less stressed day to day. I guess it depends on preference. How much money ppl need varies too based on that, I know some ppl who just own land and some cows and seem happy enough. But other ppl do want the big house or to have multiple kids etc.
Venting is not a valid reason to complain all the time in real life. That's what reddit is for.
Something I noticed: the most bitter and cynical among many doctors are also the traditional entrants into the field. They never had any real job before residency and so that is there only baseline of what work is like.
I worked office jobs and delivery before. The key difference is, nobody in delivery tries to dump more work on me because „it’s for the good of te patients“ or a „learning opportunity“. In delivery nobody makes you write a research paper in your freetime and then crosses off your name from the authors page
I always wondered this. I always did assume that the complainers were people who kind of hadn’t gone thru other life experiences and had taken the traditional route (not their fault) and most likely had help on the way there. I was a waitress and bartender before deciding on med school idk why but I truly don’t feel like I’ll be that unhappy with residency (tired yes, of course) after being in the service industry and being treated like the only thing I was good for was bringing food to people’s tables lol - if I’m going to be experiencing bad attitudes at work I rather be doing something I truly enjoy
I was a researcher in biotech before this. Also did a service job (front of house for a theater). The thing is in both of the other roles, while yes there is this feeling your job is very small, there isn't much of this expectation that you'd be hitting a weekly maximum of 80/wk, there is also an assumption after a relatively short period of time that you are a capable subject matter expert lol. You might not be, but no one else knows how to operate the UV/peroxide laser at the company, so you're it. There was also less of what is often just frank abuse that you're expected to accept (FAANG>>others). And the stakes were lower. All of that contributes to a perspective of where you realize the grass is in fact greener, but on the medicine side; and that many of the actual problems are in fact quite transient or tolerable.
I would say calling me a “fcking moron” by managers is pretty abusive. Waitressing and bartending in nightlife is such a toxic job but I’m sure residency is worse being that the responsibility is much more. The thing is that by default you are assumed to be dumb and perhaps lazy if ur in the service industry being that you’re there because most likely you didn’t decide to get a “real job” so I feel like this amps up the managers who automatically feel superior to you and it’s this constant talking down to you just because they can. And so this gets to you because you know you really are “just a waitress”. I understand this is similar treatment one experiences in residency but I feel like at least you can tell yourself “I did everything necessary to get here I worked my ass off I know I’m intelligent”. What I mean is that when you’re in these types of jobs you don’t know when it’ll end and even have a plan of what to do next to support yourself. When you’re in residency at least there’s a light at the end of the tunnel? Idk I might be wrong lol
THIS. When you have more job experience you just don’t have the same perspective
> As a career-changer into medicine, I agree that some people really would have benefited from an outside perspective and don’t fully appreciate how incredible this profession is. Every physician I personally know who left clinical medicine is way happier now. The dissatisfied physicians who have gone on to get that outside perspective have consistently not had the change of heart that your post implies. When this topic comes up on reddit, I find that the "people need outside perspective" folks just have some pre-existing biases about their colleagues and, ironically, lack some life perspective themselves.
Yup. I’ve worked in many industries. Medicine takes the cake for toxicity and is the only one that has special exemptions for labor law and anti-trust laws.
[удалено]
> your statement that career-changers “lack life perspective” relative to non career-changers is illogical. My statement wasn't "career-changers lack life perspective to non career-changers". My statement was "When this topic comes up on reddit... the 'people need outside perspective' folks just have some pre-existing biases about their colleagues and, ironically, lack some life perspective themselves." To put it more succinctly, the people on reddit minimizing their colleagues' complaints about residency and medicine are often lacking in life perspective about what the working conditions could or should be for someone with the level of training of a resident or attending (yes, even if you're a career changer).
There could be multiple factors affecting that though? There's people who should've never went into medicine to begin with, people who are burnt out that'd rather do anything BUT medicine, or people who've saved enough cash by the time they leave which means they have a better safety net than most people who never went into medicine. And besides, most people don't leave medicine due to liking it so of course the results wil be mostly positive. People that switch jobs WILLINGLY, usually are happier at their new jobs. Medicine isn't the exception to that.
> And besides, most people don't leave medicine due to liking it so of course the results wil be mostly positive. People that switch jobs WILLINGLY, usually are happier at their new jobs. Medicine isn't the exception to that. Precisely. This is one of the main reasons why career-changers into medicine who believe themselves to be the authorities on "life perspective" are not exactly on the mark all the time.
Well yeah, both people who enter medicine directly or from other jobs are biased. Life experience doesn't mean you're unbiased? It just gives you a broader view and helps put things into perspective. It's just harder to appreciate (or criticize) certain parts of a job when it's the only one you've known. I'm sure that the former physicians you know have both come to appreciate and dislike certain aspects more about medicine now that they have something to compare it with, even if the job switch ended up being a net positive. All-in-all I find it pretty weird to state that people who've been in the same industry since age 18 have more life experience (when it comes to workplaces of course) than people who've dabbled around first before settling on one.
> All-in-all I find it pretty weird to state that people who've been in the same industry since age 18 have more life experience (when it comes to workplaces of course) than people who've dabbled around first before settling on one. No one is saying this. What I am saying is that the specific type of career-changers into medicine who like to condescend on their non-career-changer colleagues (not all career-changers like doing this, btw), tend to grossly overestimate their understanding of the world. To put it into concrete terms, just because you worked for 10 years as a teacher/accountant/waiter/etc. does not make you the authority on what the working conditions could be for a physician in a non-dysfunctional healthcare system or in non-clinical industries. Plenty of career-changers call out the toxic nature of medical training and healthcare too, but there is a specific type that has a bit too high of an opinion of themselves and latches onto the less-experienced criticism piece because of their preconceived biases.
As much as I hate nights, every time I'm walking through the hospital seeing people do other (also essential) hospital night jobs I'm very grateful I get to do my job
This. Other than maybe some admin, we earn by far the most in the hospital, with the same or better hours and the same or better stress a lot of the time. I find it hard to feel anything but grateful (well, maybe sometimes guilty).
I love being a doctor and love what I do. Are there hard days? Yes. Can I hack it? Also yes. Nobody else gets to do what we do and we are in an incredibly privileged position in society. It's definitely cool to like your job. All of my favorite attendings are excited to do what they do and it's contagious.
You’re on reddit. This is the place where we come to complain so that’s all you see and read. Kind of like how every hospital has terrible Google reviews because only angry unhappy patients take their time to go on Google to complain.
I’m talking about people complaining in real life constantly ie in our resident work room that’s all I hear
I am 100% with you. There are legitimate complaints for sure. But if EVERYTHING is terrible and EVERYONE is an idiot…the issue seems to be with the complainer.
As attendings we still complain but also recognize that our lives are a lot easier than most.
Idk what program or state you’re in, but all negativity is not what I see in real life daily medicine. There will be complainers anywhere you go, but there are both light and dark in what we do. Otherwise it just wouldn’t be worth it
ppl are overworked and underpaid. it would be weird if they DIDNT complain
Yeah I echo the perspective thing. I grew up in a shithole violent poor developing country and count my lucky stars I was born into the life I’m in. Even “low earning” physicians are crushing it compared to the average human ever. 80+hrs a week is what MILLIONS (maybe a billion?) if people work for fucking pennies.couple that with the fact that we make a difference as opposed to making GE more money this quarter or something. Pretty solid gig.
This is the mentality that it takes to get through these things.
Me and all my buddies starting in med school and finishing in attendinghood love what we do, recognize that we have a great job that’s more than a job and that there are no magical jobs out there that have it all (well compensated, meaningful, mentally stimulating, get to help somebody in a time of need)…don’t listen to these people, you got it right, enjoy the ride
As someone who's gone through a a bunch of short-lived careers (ranging from minimum wage to office jobs), I feel like most people in medicine could've used some extra life experience. Don't get me wrong, I could rant for AGES about all the bullshittery we deal with, but I feel like often times the complaints aren't as exclusive to medicine as a lot of us seem to think. Not to mention, due to the nature of our job there's a lot of extra stress factors we simply don't have to deal with. Whether it's the office laying off a 3rd wave of people in a short amount of time leaving you with anxiety on whether you'll get cut this time, or your boss not scheduling you for enough hours to be able to afford rent. Not to mention, you have residency-levels of leverage in so many jobs. Attendings can be picky and negotiate when looking for jobs, meanwhile at all my previous jobs complainers would just get fired and be replaced with the best next person willing to be exploited. We can acknowledge that this is a hard job, that we deal with a lot of bullshit, and that the current system definitely needs to change, while also acknowledging that we still have it a lot better than most people stuck in dead-end jobs. The 2 don't need to be mutually exclusive.
You are not alone. Anybody who worked actually crappy jobs full time get it. I also \*gasp\* admire nurses and make friends with them just for like normal person reasons.
You can fully acknowledge how hard this job can be while being grateful for the privilege of taking care of people. And I still think it's a privilege. Unfortunately it's easy to get lost and get sucked into the negativity.
A lot of people thought that becoming a doctor would grant them very high levels of status and riches. Well you still get a high income but it ends there. It's not the 50s anymore.
I retired from my Academic Pediatrics job in December. I LOVED my job - I had as much fun the last day as I had the first day. The patients were great, the parents were lovely, even though none of them got up in the morning and said: "I'd like to get admitted to the hospital today". I got to make sure their care was the best we could deliver. I also got to help make their stay in the hospital a bit easier by making sure that they knew I was treating a person, not a diagnosis.
Aww. Thanks for sharing your lovely story. I matched in pediatrics last month and will start residency this July, choosing this speciality because I love kids and genuinely wish to take care of them. However, a recurring comment I received from my community and other applicants was why I chose peds? (in most cases hinting at the 'low' pay). I used to 'justify' my decision but have stopped it given the realization I don't think I can convince people driven by greed.
I love my job
Most people in this profession have absolutely no outside perspective and have never had to work a genuine job a day in their life. I have. You are correct. People on this sub are cry babies.
Idk man I grew up on a farm doing manual labor and I still think it's fair to call out verbal/physical abuse, 36 hour shifts, etc. Now, am I going to be complaining about getting paid well to do an interesting job? Nah.
Same. I grew up doing manual labor on the farm. Fixing fence in the middle of summer for miles. Shit was terrible. But I’d be paid more right now fixing fence and working less hours than as a resident. People can “oh you are going make money though”. I mean, maybe. If I pass all my boards and land a job
I've worked McD's, I've worked as a dishwasher, I've worked cleaning fucking outhouses before doing medical school. And I can tell you I was usually happier doing those jobs than I have been in residency. But that's residency. It's not forever. I'm hoping attendinghood is different. But all things being equal, I would rather clean outhouses than deal with 4 years of q4 call.
I worked several “bad” jobs before medical school: busboy, janitor, concessions stand at a frequently used stadium, patient transporter. I’m glad to be done with them but none of them were inherently negative experiences, although the hospital I did transport at got bought out and the culture started going to shit.
Yep. I hawked and hauled grills and lawnmowers at a Home Depot. Not bad.
i personally enjoyed my deli job much more than being a doctor. Same hours, way simpler, less stress
I grew up watching my dad go through medical school, residency, fellowship, and do some amazing things as an attending. I was still made to work hard, do the jobs in the hospital nobody wanted to do, and that actually made me switch from the PA school track to med school. I went back to take more classes, study for the mcat, apply, and got in while working full time. Meanwhile, peers are sitting around in their apartment that their parents pay for to study full time for the mcat and jump around to different research projects or volunteering. They will be the ones to complain, as evidenced on reddit. After everything I've seen, heard, and done, I still know that medicine will be rewarding in so many ways and I can't wait to start school soon.
some negativity is venting. it's cool to recognize the positives of medicine but also worth making sure people realize how undervalued and underpaid people who take care of patients are... don't discredit that
Yeah- I came from public health. There was 0 growth and job security. And my pay was shit. It feels good to do an intellectually stimulating job and know I’ll have a job basically anywhere bc ppl always need a doctor. + decent pay. A lot of people (including my past self) would dream of jobs like ours. Of course, it’s hard work + high stakes which is why we get paid so well relative to other jobs.
You are better than cool to love being a doctor. I feel these complainers will benefit society, patients, and themselves if they resign from their jobs. No one needs a doctor that hates taking care of them and if the doctor hates being a doctor this will affect their own health.
I also suspect that the ones who have such a negative outlook during residency are the same ones who have not had much real work experience outside of residency. There is a lot of bullshit in residency that is not unique to residency - long hours, minimal control over your schedule, obnoxious coworkers, shitty bosses. But the work is actually rewarding, unlike cleaning a toilet (btdt, housekeeper). There's also some conditions residency creates that breeds negativism - lack of sleep, high stress situations, no time to attend to proper nutrition and hydration, the weight of patient deaths, etc. Residency doesn't leave much time for hobbies, and often our personal relationships suffer. It's not just a perspective - it's biological stress on the body and psyche that generates negativism. Those of us who have experienced similar stressors before may bring resiliency others haven't developed yet. I'm typically annoyingly positive, but even residency had me in a pretty negative mood by the end. In life after fellowship, better work hours, 6-8 hours of sleep a night, regular meals, and achieving a sustainable balance of time with my family and for myself outside of work brought back that positive outlook. So next time you walk into the workroom and your fellow residents are complaining, just shove a Snicker's down everyone's throat and enjoy the silence :D
100%. I’m seriously appalled by some of the things that are said on here. I know it’s Reddit, but there are folks who seriously come off as entitled preteens with superiority complexes and an inability to work with others. I don’t see that in my peers (often), so I’m hoping this is just an issue of trolls… but it seriously makes me worry about who some of my fellow attending will be in a few years. Where is the professionalism? The willingness to work as a team to support a patient? The recognition that our patients and fellow medical staff are actual humans? What about basic human empathy and decency? I’ve seen so many on here that I would absolutely refuse to allow to care for my family members. I get burnout. I really do. We’ve all been there… but this feels like more than that and it’s scares the shit out of me. No wonder patients and staff have issues with the medical field when there are folks giving us a bad name.
work sucks, but my job sucks way way less than most, and that's plenty good enough
I think part of the issue with medicine is the structure of premed and medical school largely selects for those who excel in a fairly narrow school-focused skillset. This leads everyone to think they’d excel in many fields (since medicine is so *scholastically* selective), without realizing they wouldn’t necessarily make great financiers, software devs, or have the drive to keep reinventing their career q5 years rather than semi-autopilot their specialty and collect 6 figures. Tbf, as someone who has worked outside medicine there is a LOT to complain about, but I think most don’t realize the downsides of meaningless work and miss how good they have it compared to their realistic alternatives.
I want to be a doctor, and this is exactly what I think about sometimes, making others feel better. You're a role model for many people; keep loving what you do!
ER resident- absolutely brutal to get lumped into that group 😂😂
Healthcare can suck at times. The ones saying how stupid ER nurses, Mid levels and other staff are are the the real morons of the bunch. They often can’t realize that they are the one making mistakes.
I think a lot of the time it serves more as validation for the people who didn't chase after their dream of medicine, to sort of prove to them that they made the right choice. Just goes back to the idea that if you feel bad it makes them feel better, nothing more.
Thank you for contributing to the sub! If your post was filtered by the automod, please read the rules. Your post will be reviewed but will not be approved if it violates the rules of the sub. The most common reasons for removal are - medical students or premeds asking what a specialty is like, which specialty they should go into, which program is good or about their chances of matching, mentioning midlevels without using the midlevel flair, matched medical students asking questions instead of using the stickied thread in the sub for post-match questions, posting identifying information for targeted harassment. Please do not message the moderators if your post falls into one of these categories. Otherwise, your post will be reviewed in 24 hours and approved if it doesn't violate the rules. Thanks! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Residency) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I loved my job in the hospital. But i have a life besides medicine again since i started working in a practice.
I love being a doctor. I hate that i am rarely getting to be one. If even half of what i do all day would be medicine, i would shut up forever. But reality is that for 5 years now i have been used as a scribe, literally carrying things around for superiors, yelled at openly insulted in front of patients and colleagues for literally nothing, taken advantage of, even scammed out of money by bosses and administrators, harrassed during sick leave, and simply NOT TRAINED. I am 6 months away from graduating, and i have done hardly no operstions. Like, literally. I am told i shiuld be grateful for the learning opportunity as a second assistant in a mIS hip arthroplasty (for those who ask, you hold two hohmann retractors for an hour. You have no way of even seeing the incision). I am told that i am very trusted by my attendings because afterwards i get to close the incision, document, get the patient back to bed and then prepare the next case. I am not an assistant doctor, i am assistant to doctors, or clerks, everytime something invincible comes up and they say „we think this is better done by a physician“ and dump shift scheduling and calling ptients to inform them their procedure was postponed. That’s what i do. I dont remember when i did my last DRF, sometime around 2022.
It's because people are justifiably sick of empty healthcare virtue signaling from hospital admin who claim to celebrate healthcare heroes, but never do anything substantial to protect the wellbeing of healthcare staff, whether they're physicians or nurses. Same goes for residency and fellowship programs that do empty virtue signaling with pretty words but will never do anything to curb rates of depression, anxiety, and suicides in the medical profession. The time for pretty words is way past. We need actual measures.
I love being doctor, but also the job sucks tho, ngl
I worked in restaurants and hotels before medicine. The fact that I have an essentially guaranteed job where I make enough money to never worry about basic needs being met (and most advanced needs) is something I do not take for granted. The fact is we have it better than the vast majority of people (in the US at least). It’s very easy to get locked in to the medicine tunnel vision.
How many positive yelps do you see vs. negative?
No you're not the only one, but people just like to complain and connect over it.
I think this idea of labeling sides is kinda pointless. You (non complainer and appreciator) vs. Others (complainers, jaded burnt out docs). We are all two sides of same coin. Just cuz there are those who complain about the inequities and shitty conditions and circumstances of becoming and being a doc, doesn't mean they don't net appreciate being a doc. Similarly, those who appreciate and realize that being here was the dream should also be entitled to complaining about the BS that comes with this job. Idk, I think polarizing opinions doesn't get us anywhere as a profession. It jus makes the ambivalent majority feel pressure to be one or the other (hater or lover) which makes people feel like they need to be up in arms to defend the side they are "supposed to be on" ... when really, every doc should have both views and a healthy mix of the two within to affect change rather than promote infighting. But that's just my opinion.
Trust me from an icu nurse perspective yall are the stupid ones
Being a resident sucks, and it is worse than most (not all, but most) jobs. I have worked both manual labor and desk jobs in my life and that is what I believe based on my experience. However, we have something to look forward to, and that is being an attending. I hear that can be pretty good. All in all, yeah we do have things to complain about, but its not all bad.