residents, can I get some advice

[Myxomatosis]

whats up guys. I feel like im having a frickin quarter-life crisis. Here is the deal. Im applying for a couple of caribbean med school for may 06. Ive recently been on student doctor and talked with a couple of residents who HATE medicine. They say it was the biggest mistake of their life. And thats there no way out because of the debt from school. They tell me about how the "golden age" of medicine has passed. How residency and medicine is not what they thought. How they hate walking up every morning at 5:00a.m to do 12 hour shifts everyday, no respect, etc....It seems like a bad nightmare. THEN I have my best friends since high school, well three of them, who went into the bar business. Now im not exaggerating but two of them make around $250,000/year. These guys are very business smart and I have no doubt they will succeed. There next step up is making around $500,000 then the next step would be to venture off and start up their own bars. Its rediculous! These guys work wed,thurs,frid from 9:00p.m to 3:00a.m then go in for about an hour or two on mondays and tuesdays afternoons to count stock and crap. They maybe work about 30 hr/week. When I ask them what they do during work...."umm, get in at 9:00, have a beer, go to the office and pick the music for the night, then just WALK AROUND AND FLIRT WITH GIRLS AND MAKE SURE THE CUSTOMERS ARE HAPPY. what??????????????? Thier job is to basically socialize! flirt with the beautiful women and make sure they dont run out of vodka!!!!! while pulling in GREAT money. These guys are BEGGING me to get in the business with them. All they tell me is how they are expanding and they are opening up more bars than they have trusting people to help run them. Im clueless on *** to do! I made up my mind to apply for maybe jan06 class for the caribbean and maybe try the bar business out for a year. At the same time I'll take some upper division science courses to keep fresh...what the heck, can't hurt me. Sorry for the LONG post, but what do you guys think? Anyone regret going into medicne? Any advice would be great. Im afraid that I'll jump into med school, work my *** of while my friends are making three times as much money and going to vegas every three months! Im afraid I'll regret going into medicne! I just dont want to have any regrets. Was anyone in a similar situation? Thanks guys!

[Myxomatosis]

8 views, no replies! C'mon guys, throw me a bone!

[SKL]

There are many other ways that you can make more money and put in less number of work hours than being a doctor. The four years in med school is tough, not much time for family and entertainiment, the residency years are demanding as well. Plus the pressure from national board exams, etc. My guess is only go into medicine because you want to be a doctor for the reasons such as you like medicine or helping people etc, but definitely not because of the money.

[Nimmuk]

I second SKL-

Though it is imporant to have both, money and time...Medicine is beyond that. I dont care what specialty you look at, they all work very hard...50+ hrs a week, minimum, unless you work part time. If you are just here for the money, I reccomend you to go to law school, only three yrs and less debt money, though you will indebt your life to satan....there are many professions that work less and pay well....do a soul search....perhaps, you belong in the bar industry

[Myxomatosis]

I dont know man. If I truly wanted to really help people and thats it, well Id go join the red cross! I decided I wanted to study medicine because of the prestige, giving my future kids someone to look up to, set an example for my younger brothers, job stability, money, and last....having the chance to stick both of my hands into someones stomach so that I can help fix them, getting my hands bloody! Priceless! But then I think well thats all great and its seems so cool, but what about when Im 35 or 38 and Im tired and drained from waking up EVERYDAY at 5:00a.m and having these long days. And my friends are living the life, making tons of money, spending time with family and friends and just enjoying the smaller things in life....All the things you miss in life. Im afraid Ill regret it when Im older! Right now, I want to be a doctor! But what about when im older and tired and friends around me are retiring early! Thats when Im afraid Ill have regrets.

[Myxomatosis]

thanks for the replies guys! Keep um comin'

[miasma]

you want medicine for the "prestige"? are you serious? i'm not sure what to say....that's just lame dude.

[neilc]

if you are worried about this already, i doubt medicine is for you. the prestige, power (ha!) aspect of it is short lived. the money is not great (very comfortable, sure. but you can make more in less time doing something else).

i think general good advice: if you think you can be happy doing anything else, do it.

[Capri]

doing business is not easy, its not just talking to people and floating around laughing and watching the money poor in. Business is risky, your friends are lucky thier bar is doing well, now i dunno what city, but business takes work, and those owners that go around talkign to customers are not doing it for fun, they are doing it to establish a relationship that will keep thier cusomers coming back and hopefully propigating business. soon people will get bored with their bar and hang out and hottest newest bar in town. business is a gamble, you never know what cards you are gonna be dealt next, yeah they are on top now, but you never know what is gonna happen tomorrow, it could go down just as fast as it went up, and when you have kids and crap, think about the stress of having to keep the business up. you will be up earlier than anyone and go to sleep later than anyone and time..haha you may have to put in every minute of your time to fight competition or at least keeping a good staff together (that doesn't come easy and it is really petty problems to deal with, that crap annoys the hell out of me).oh and then you will not have the luxury of taking vacation when you want, when its new years and everyone is partying you may end up at the bar cleaning up the mess afterwards.

as a doc, business comes to you, and you get to deal with more challenging crap then 'why do i always have to work the friday shift.' you will be associating with more interesting people and you will be out there enjoying being served by those owners of a bar.
owning a business is great, compared to a lot of things out there, but given the choice between being a physician or being a business owner, physician wins no competition, cuz your business can fall apart and you will be left with nothing, as a physician no matter what happens you will always have the majic MD behind your name which will allow you to rebuild with assurance.

[nrai2001]

I m an undergrad, but i kinda know what your talking about. A lot of my friends either didn't go to college and opened up their own businesses (restaurants, bars, fast food, gas stations, real estate co.....etc) or did go to college but didn't persue grad school. Many of them are older and some quite a bit older. I ll tell you what i have observed. They all had a blast for the first 3-5 years, partied a lot, hung out, relaxed, went to vegas quite a bit, made pretty good amounts of money ($150k to 600k) and then after some time they were just bored out of their minds. You can't party forever.

They really respect me and a few of my other friends who decided to go into medicine. I kinda get the feeling that they wish that they had done the same as I. They may get easy money, but they don't get any satisfaction. They go to their restaurants and do the same thing ever single day. Some times i think that they party now just to do something. They dont' even enjoy partying of going out anymore. They all are trying to find different ways to spend their time, to save themselves from boredom. Some have taken up watching sports, workout fanatically...etc.

While prestige isn't the main reason that i choose this path, the friends that i have that are in med school or have finished med school get tons of it. They also really do enjoy their jobs. They get respect from everyone bc of their education. They seem fairly happy in general because they actually get some amount of intellectual stimulation at work. They have sorta become community leaders in their own communities and circles.