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Pre-Clinical Medicine...the right career for me?

Sabrina

Member
Why, may I ask..? It's not a race. And in a career like medicine, a bit of extra maturity and life experience is always a good thing. If you want to take a gap year, take one. An extra year before you can call yourself a doctor is going to make no difference.

As lalalarry said, when would I travel or raise a family? I want to work around the world and I guess i just feel like I'd be kinda missing out when I'm in medical school. So by getting that out of the way I'll have more years to be free before other things tie my down.
 

lalalarry

Regular Member
As lalalarry said, when would I travel or raise a family? I want to work around the world and I guess i just feel like I'd be kinda missing out when I'm in medical school. So by getting that out of the way I'll have more years to be free before other things tie my down.

You'll have to do it while studying. That's how it works for a lot of people. Not to mention, after med school, your student loan is going to be insane. After getting med school "out of the way" you'll be working to pay off your debt while also, specialising. (Just talking from an NZ perspective, not entirely sure how it works across the ditch so feel free to correct me if i'm wrong :) )
 

Sabrina

Member
You'll have to do it while studying. That's how it works for a lot of people. Not to mention, after med school, your student loan is going to be insane. After getting med school "out of the way" you'll be working to pay off your debt while also, specialising. (Just talking from an NZ perspective, not entirely sure how it works across the ditch so feel free to correct me if i'm wrong :) )

It has something to do with HECS i think

I don't mean to sound unkind, but you (like many high schoolers) really should do some homework about a career pathway before you commit to study. Otherwise, how do you know what you're signing up for?

Yeah I understand, thats why I'm here.
 
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chinaski

Regular Member
As lalalarry said, when would I travel or raise a family? I want to work around the world and I guess i just feel like I'd be kinda missing out when I'm in medical school. So by getting that out of the way I'll have more years to be free before other things tie my down.

"Being free" is something to do if you have a really big trust fund and no responsibilities. Problem with jumping straight into a vocational degree as a school leaver is that it tethers you to the rat race - you fast track through the degree, then you are out, working, and after you gain a fellowship, the onus is then on to build a career - opportunities don't fall out of the sky and it's actually reasonably challenging and not a gimme that you'll just waltz into a great situation which is financially assured. Taking a leave of absence at that stage in your career "to be free" is often inadvisable, lest you compromise your long term security. This is not to mention other responsibilities that crop up later in life: ageing family, partner, children of your own, mortgage, etc etc.

Nutshell: the time to be young and carefree is when you are young and carefree. Think about it.
 

Cathay

🚂Train Driver🚆
Emeritus Staff
after med school, your student loan is going to be insane. After getting med school "out of the way" you'll be working to pay off your debt
Hmm, this is something I was hoping someone who has gone out the other end could shed some light on - from what I understand, the NZ deal is an interest-free student loan that you pay back when you're working (it's automatically deducted like income tax), and takes away 12% of your income above 19k (repayment threshold); and I just had a brief glance at the Australian equivalent's website, and it looks similar - "interest free" (but adjusted for inflation), and has a threshold above which you pay proportional to your income.

My question then, is whether you actually actively worry about your student loan while working - from what I gather:
1) it's interest free (or "no real interest applied" for Aus),
2) you pay it as you earn money, so people don't harass you if you're not (at least in NZ),
3) it gets deducted automatically (at least in NZ), so it's not a bill you have to remember to pay and
4) once you graduate you have other things to worry about (career and otherwise).
So I would've thought that it just becomes an item on your payslip saying how much was deducted for student loan, rather than something you worry about as this "insane debt" that you "work to pay off". Thoughts [MENTION=113]chinaski[/MENTION] ? (and for a NZ perspective, [MENTION=3119]skyglow1[/MENTION] )
 

chinaski

Regular Member
I guess you need to distinguish between a student loan for a domestic full-fee paying place, or a HECS type place, which is paid back automatically and indexed to CPI. Obviously the former is more onerous than the latter. It took me best part of a decade to pay off my HECS debt.
 

JeremiahGreenspoon

Regular Member
Travel, live and have a family first.
Med isn't that full on. It's annoying at the worst of times...

For what it's worth, our RMO is taking time off between residency and specialty training. Just to freshen up, get re-enthused and take a fresher look at the life he wants to live (and appropriate specialty pathway). Seems like an option
 

lumos

Regular Member
As lalalarry said, when would I travel or raise a family? I want to work around the world and I guess i just feel like I'd be kinda missing out when I'm in medical school. So by getting that out of the way I'll have more years to be free before other things tie my down.

This is kind of an odd philosophy to be honest... Even once you graduate you're still going to have many many years of study and training, and then many, many more years of working long hours in your chosen field, so I wouldn't say you'd ever necessarily be 'free', per se... Don't think of it like a race, or like something you have to 'get out of the way'. You can travel, work, go out, enjoy life now if you want; you don't have to wait until you've settled in to a job. Heaps of med students take years off, either before their course or during it, for precisely the reasons you've mentioned: that they want to travel and live their lives.

I think you're assuming that med school is something you have to get through before you can start living your life; that all you'll do is study like mad and have no life outside medicine. Which is just completely untrue. You don't have to wait before you can do fun things and enjoy your life. Thinking about your med studies as something you have to get out of the way as quickly as possible is not really the right philosophy to have.
 

Jordan

Regular Member
I think you're assuming that med school is something you have to get through before you can start living your life; that all you'll do is study like mad and have no life outside medicine. Which is just completely untrue. You don't have to wait before you can do fun things and enjoy your life. Thinking about your med studies as something you have to get out of the way as quickly as possible is not really the right philosophy to have.

I'd take this sentiment one more step and suggest that if you DON'T make an effort to have a life outside of medicine you're going to end up a very miserable and ineffective med student/doctor. Paradoxically, sometimes it's the med students who study the hardest and live their lives in the library who fail. Balance is vitally important.

There are plenty of opportunities while in med school to do all sorts of interesting things and I would highly encourage any first year student to get neck deep in extracurricular stuff. Developing time management habits which allow you to do things like play in a sports team or be involved with an environmental group or just have a regular coffee catch up with some friends etc. will serve you well throughout your career.
 

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Cathay

🚂Train Driver🚆
Emeritus Staff
As lalalarry said, when would I travel or raise a family? I want to work around the world and I guess i just feel like I'd be kinda missing out when I'm in medical school. So by getting that out of the way I'll have more years to be free before other things tie my down.
As others have mentioned, when you graduate, you're basically tied down to the medical career race, so med school is more like the start of being tied down, rather than a hurdle between you and freedom. You mentioned before that you want to "be as young as possible when you become a doctor", but all that'll happen if you decide to fast-track it is that you'll be tied down sooner.

Raising a family is probably something for later - and most specialty training pathways are flexible enough to give you that option (it just means your training will take longer); but other than that, the best time to be young and free is probably before or during med school, when taking a year or two out doesn't really have long-term impacts.

Also note that med school probably isn't as intense as you picture it - depending on where you go, and how much time you want to spend studying, you can fit a lot of other things into your life, including starting your own software development company (I did :p). And don't forget the summer holidays - for most universities the summer holidays are longer than at high school (early November to mid February), so you can fit in a decent amount of "being free" into it, that is until you get to a stage where summer holidays no longer exist (when you graduate, and possibly the year before as well depending on where you are), which is yet another reason not to rush into "becoming a doctor as young as possible".


I guess you need to distinguish between a student loan for a domestic full-fee paying place, or a HECS type place, which is paid back automatically and indexed to CPI. Obviously the former is more onerous than the latter. It took me best part of a decade to pay off my HECS debt.
Just in terms of the HECS loan (which I gather is similar enough to the NZ loan), was it actively on your mind? As in, did you spend much time consciously thinking/worrying about working to pay off the debt, or was it just a part of the invisible machinery that spits out the pay slip? Because the student loan debt gets mentioned a lot but I'm just not sure we'd actually worry about it once we're working.
 

lumos

Regular Member
I'd take this sentiment one more step and suggest that if you DON'T make an effort to have a life outside of medicine you're going to end up a very miserable and ineffective med student/doctor. Paradoxically, sometimes it's the med students who study the hardest and live their lives in the library who fail. Balance is vitally important.

There are plenty of opportunities while in med school to do all sorts of interesting things and I would highly encourage any first year student to get neck deep in extracurricular stuff. Developing time management habits which allow you to do things like play in a sports team or be involved with an environmental group or just have a regular coffee catch up with some friends etc. will serve you well throughout your career.

^ So, so, so true. A healthy balance is extremely important, and the ones that fail in this regard are only going to end up stressed, isolated and miserable.
 

Sabrina

Member
Travel, live and have a family first.
Med isn't that full on. It's annoying at the worst of times...

For what it's worth, our RMO is taking time off between residency and specialty training. Just to freshen up, get re-enthused and take a fresher look at the life he wants to live (and appropriate specialty pathway). Seems like an option

Med isn't full on?? I read on some other forum that they studied 10h a day!



....or are you guys all a bunch of geniuses lol
 
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lumos

Regular Member
Med isn't full on?? I read on some other forum that they studied 10h a day!

....or are you guys all a bunch of geniuses lol

10 hours...? Are there even enough hours in the day to study for 10 hours?

Med is really not as full-on as people expect. The workload is big, there's no denying it, and the hours are long, but it is seriously not that bad. There's easily enough time for sport, music, drama, drinking or whatever other activities float your boat.

It's not about being a 'genius', it's about knowing how to study right. 3 hours of solid, uninterrupted study is just as good as 10 hours of on-and-off work, and leaves enough time to do other things. As long as you have a plan and stick to it, you're fine.

Anyone who tells you that you can't do anything but study is either lying or an idiot who hasn't worked out how to study properly.
 

Cathay

🚂Train Driver🚆
Emeritus Staff
Med isn't full on?? I read on some other forum that they studied 10h a day!
....or are you guys all a bunch of geniuses lol
Med is full on, in the sense that it's more demanding than your average university degree, and exactly how full-on depends on which university you go to, but studying 10 hours a day is definitely doing it wrong, assuming they didn't count class time (it's a bit cheap to say I studied 10 hours today, when 8 of those hours were spent in class). Either they're spending way too much time studying, or if they're studying 10 hours a day to cram for an exam, they should've planned their studying better.

How efficient you study has nothing to do with whether you're a genius or not - a genius that doesn't know how to study properly won't get very far in medicine; and how many hours you spend studying has nothing to do with how much you're actually understanding/remembering. It's very important to work smart - work out your own learning style and use study methods which cater to it, and use common sense - if you're having a bad day and can't focus on the material at hand, then take a break and come back later.

Speaking of learning styles, I've got a couple of links where you can take some questionnaires to start working out your learning style. (Yes, I used to work at the Student Learning Centre at Otago, it's a bit of a habit to give out these links.)
http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire
Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire
 

chinaski

Regular Member
10 hours...? Are there even enough hours in the day to study for 10 hours?

Uh, yes.

Med is really not as full-on as people expect. The workload is big, there's no denying it, and the hours are long, but it is seriously not that bad. There's easily enough time for sport, music, drama, drinking or whatever other activities float your boat. *snip*
Anyone who tells you that you can't do anything but study is either lying or an idiot who hasn't worked out how to study properly.

Agree. The OP, however, has made the fatal mistake in assuming the most demanding part of the bargain is med school. Reality is that it's a comparative holiday (with a lot of freedom and flexibility) when it's stacked up against actually working and getting on with one's career. And to pre-empt another common misconception, internship is the least demanding year after graduation, not the hardest and most busy, as many assume.
 

Sabrina

Member
Med is full on, in the sense that it's more demanding than your average university degree, and exactly how full-on depends on which university you go to, but studying 10 hours a day is definitely doing it wrong, assuming they didn't count class time (it's a bit cheap to say I studied 10 hours today, when 8 of those hours were spent in class). Either they're spending way too much time studying, or if they're studying 10 hours a day to cram for an exam, they should've planned their studying better.

How efficient you study has nothing to do with whether you're a genius or not - a genius that doesn't know how to study properly won't get very far in medicine; and how many hours you spend studying has nothing to do with how much you're actually understanding/remembering. It's very important to work smart - work out your own learning style and use study methods which cater to it, and use common sense - if you're having a bad day and can't focus on the material at hand, then take a break and come back later.

Speaking of learning styles, I've got a couple of links where you can take some questionnaires to start working out your learning style. (Yes, I used to work at the Student Learning Centre at Otago, it's a bit of a habit to give out these links.)
http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire
Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire

I always thought I was most visual.

The VARK Questionnaire Results

Your scores were:

  • Visual: 10
  • Aural: 7
  • Read/Write: 11
  • Kinesthetic: 3

Thanks for the insight guys! Really opened up my mind on what medschool is all about.
 
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lalalarry

Regular Member
Just in terms of the HECS loan (which I gather is similar enough to the NZ loan), was it actively on your mind? As in, did you spend much time consciously thinking/worrying about working to pay off the debt, or was it just a part of the invisible machinery that spits out the pay slip? Because the student loan debt gets mentioned a lot but I'm just not sure we'd actually worry about it once we're working.


When I mentioned the loan, I mean, of course paying it off is important, but what I was trying to get through is that in NZ, if you want the loan repayments to be interest free, you have to have been in NZ for the past 6 months or something like that. So if you want to do a big travel experience for a year or more, then your student loan wouldn't be interest free anymore
 

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Season

Emeritus Staff
Emeritus Staff
While I adored my course, and made some wonderful, amazing, beautiful people through it who I wouldn't exchange for the world. I could see myself have been very happy to do another undergraduate degree - spend a year on exchange in Europe somewhere, travel during my weekends during that year, then doing postgrad medicine.

As it was, I still travelled every summer in medical school, and spend 3.5 months overseas when I was doing my elective.

I guess I am a young doctor. I am a 24 yo intern, you can get younger I guess. I haven't exactly gone around asking my fellow interns their age. It strikes me as a silly question. I can see only 2 benefits to being young

1. I was finding it very difficult to pay rent, and afford to catch up with friends towards the end of my degree. This was largely influenced by the fact that most of my friends by that point were working full time. As people got older, the fun of staying at someone's house and drinking cheap wine lost its charm. Going out was a double edged sword, on one hand I wanted to see my friends, on the other, I knew I had 30$ to get through the week.

2. As a woman who has her heart set on a moderate length training program. I think I am lucky that I have the chance of completing a training program while not compromising my fertility too much. (Ask me this one in a few years though !!! :p )
 

Cathay

🚂Train Driver🚆
Emeritus Staff
When I mentioned the loan, I mean, of course paying it off is important, but what I was trying to get through is that in NZ, if you want the loan repayments to be interest free, you have to have been in NZ for the past 6 months or something like that. So if you want to do a big travel experience for a year or more, then your student loan wouldn't be interest free anymore
Ah, this I didn't think of, yes that would be a problem. Yet another reason to do the big travel experience before you graduate I guess.
 

Sabrina

Member
I guess I am a young doctor. I am a 24 yo intern, you can get younger I guess. I haven't exactly gone around asking my fellow interns their age. It strikes me as a silly question. I can see only 2 benefits to being young
wow thats awesome. I'll be a 23 yo intern if I peruse medicine so ha! Beat ya
 
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