Why not medicine? (1 Viewer)

[Epiphany]

What are the drawbacks to being a med student/intern/doctor?

 

[inasero]

med student:
-study hard
-.'.limited social life
-hecs debt
-parental/societal expectations of success

intern:
-long working hours
-.'.limited social life
-hecs debt
-parental/societal expectations of success

doctor:
-long working hours
-.'.limited social life
-hecs debt
-parental/societal expectations of success








































well thats it in a nutshell! a few more I can think of for a doctor-
-high insurance premiums
-australia is one of the most litigious socieities in the world (which ties in with my previous point)
-the spectre of gloom continually hanging over your head that you might kill a patient
-highest suicide rate of any profession
-highest alcoholism rate of any profession
-narky patients with unrealistic expectations

 

[+Po1ntDeXt3r+]

i thought dent had the highest suicide rate ... but we had the highest suicide numbers.. ?

as a med student..
i hav long hours.. and they are lik 28 hrs but its dependent on uni.... and most are tutorial (70%)... so i cant jig them..
its stressful.. cos if u fail.. generalli its repeat the whole yr.. not just a semester..

 

[inasero]

you don't go into med for 'social standing'...

 

[Bob.J]

doctors are 3rd on the list of suicide
Dentists are #1
then prison guards
I can understand the docs and prison guards bit but I'm not so sure why dentists would be on the top. But these are statistics from USA
Someone once suggested dentists jobs can get immensly boring. My dentist also bitched about retiring, how his eyesight was getting worse and was getting backstrain (but suicide is just crazy)

 

[Bob.J]

oh yeh thats right.
Most patients aren't very comfortable with a dentist, and thus many wouldn't appreciate the job their dentist does for them, which probably causes depression in some

but these are the negatives, theres plenty of upsides of the profession

 

[theone123]

well on the bright side, you all will be six digit earning gods.

 

[Bob.J]

well on the bright side, you all will be six digit earning gods.

that's if you want to spend the first 10 years of your life working 6 days a week to generate the $$ to start your own business. Then you have to work even more to keep the business going financially as well as satisfying the community (ie. not everyone can make it on weekdays, hence lots of dentists open up on weekends).
Then you got those dentists who work from 9-5pm at a dental hospital earning a decent salary of about 75-80k before tax.

 

[+Po1ntDeXt3r+]

i think its osteo-arthritis that most dentist get..

yes id agree.. fuck social standing.. med shouldnt be about the money or social standing.. and if u go in with a perception that it is.. ull be dissappointed..

 

[Li0n]

i like to take the old school approach
help cure people.

 

[Bob.J]

well when you look back on your life, you'll always have regrets. It's good to look back and know that the you made the important decisions for the right reasons

nobody wants to die the richest one in the grave

 

[Lexicographer]

1. Boredom
2. No one likes dentists, not even their patients
3. No conversation except to yourself.

Hmm, that's not true.

1) Yes the work can get repetitive, but dentists who enjoy their work rarely get bored.

2) Rubbish. How do you think dentists get married? Granted many patients are scared of their dentists, but they tend to be grateful when the pain is relieved - that's where the satisfaction in health care comes from.

3) I just came from the dentist, and we had a perfectly good conversation. It continued seamlessly beyond the bit where he had tools in my mouth, limiting my responses to "urnh". Also, he had two very pleasant assistants. So, unless you have patients who don't like conversation, and prefer to work alone...

 

[Slidey]

I agree with Lexico: My dentist is a lovely woman, though half the time the conversation is her asking questions and me responding in what I would think is a montone grunt, but funnily enough the conversation goes quite well, with her correctly evaluating each grunt as either a yes or a no.

I guess that's another reason to be a dentist: You'd learn the language of grunting.

 

[69^boi]

dentist are kids worst nightware or is this just on their first visit?

 

[Lexicographer]

dentist are kids worst nightware or is this just on their first visit?

My dentist told me that the only kids who are actually scared of the dentist are the ones who should be (ie their teeth are essentially sugar constructs) and the ones who watch too much American TV.

 

[+Po1ntDeXt3r+]

no.. the whole aust health system is in the state of the shits..
just NSW looks the worse relatively..

like also.. make sure like u hav good reactions.. or u will lose alot of shoes and cloths... to vomit and other bodily fluids... worse part is.. that ure sober.. and the shoes were $120 and nothin hides the odour of vomit..

 

[White Rabbit]

When you say most Med students end up as GP's, as that as in GPs at a Medical Centre/own business, or GP's in general, including hospitals.

I'm doing Nursing this year but am hoping for Grad Med, but I don't want to work in a Medical Centre or have my own office, I want to work in rural hospitals - Base, and District - and eventually the Flying Doctors perhaps. Is it that hard, once you have finished your internship to get jobs at public hospitals. I always assumed getting a job at a Base hospital in rural NSW would be relativly easy given the shortage, but any advice would be great too. Of the med students here, has anyone done any placments at a Rural Hospital? Which one?

 

[+Po1ntDeXt3r+]

umm i did a short one in whyalla.. but lik if u want to work in hospital.. u are pretti much done after ure MBBS or Bmed.. cos then u just become a resident..

the rest of us usualli want to specialise.. so thats anohter 5 yrs to become consultants or to start our own practice.

GP's in the rural town i was at.. hav their own practice and do rotations at the hospital lik timetabled with the other GP's in town.. and lik most are double specialised.. lik they are surgeons as well as GP's

 

[inasero]

that is not true...the only people who you will find in a rural setting are those who are forced to on the government rural bonded scholarship scheme, or truly have a passion for rural health (or both).

 

[inasero]

The problem is that you rapidly get deskilled, and then nobody in the
city will hire you. And you can forget about specialising in anything if you go to
the country as a resident.

Wrong again. Because of the shortage of physicians, doctors find they have to take on more of a 'jack of all trades' approach. In one recent incident, a GP performed a minor surgical procedure via teleconferencing on a patient who presented with a subdural haematoma. You won't find GPs performing that in the city.
There are many common misconceptions about rural practice so you need to explore these more fully before making such rash generalisations.