Options: The Light At The End Of The Medical School Tunnel

Knowing what's possible after medschool makes all the difference.

Thoughts are swirling around my head at a centrifugal pace that would dizzy even Oksana Baiul. So many new ideas and options to consider. Options, that’s what I’m excited by the most. I now feel I have the ability to plot my own course through this perilous and stormy sea of arduous and often aggravating academic acrobatics known to the lay person as “medical school.” That ability is priceless to me.

I am someone that will happily wade through any amount of crap, provided : 1) I have some degree of control over what particular flavor of crap it is and 2) That I see some higher purpose to the wading… the proverbial “light at the end of the crap”. Med School isn’t crap per se, but if we’re being honest with one another… it seems suspiciously similar to it at times. This is especially true when the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be flickering and desirable options seem scarce.

That flickering light strengthened a little when I ran across the freelance MD website. I had been scouring the internet looking for ideas on innovative and interesting outlets for someone with an MD degree. In short I was looking for options. It’s not that I absolutely abhor the thought of a traditional clinical practice, but I wasn’t all too excited by it either. What gets ME pumped is the the world of ideas, possibilities, and innovations. How can I improve the process? Are there better ways of being an MD?

These are the questions for which I was seeking answers. There were scattered accounts of doctors working on their own terms; perhaps on as an expedition doc to the jungles of Africa, or making a career of disaster relief consultancy, or gallivanting off to Alaska for 6 months as a locum tienens doctor. These ideas excited me, but I had no mentors to council me on how to steer myself toward this type of career or whether it was possible at all. If I told someone about these ideas, I often got a “Yeah, go for it man (eye roll)” or “Don’t mind Jeremy, he’s a little crazy” response.

Then one friday afternoon after slogging through some scintillating biochem, I stumbled in through the front door of freelanceMD.com. Five hours of reading later, I realized that this was the group of people I had been looking for. People that are innovating and LEADING in their non-traditional medical fields. Wilderness medicine, International Medicine, Concierge Medicine, Disaster relief and humanitarian medicine, Medical Entrepreneurship, Internet Medicine, Medical Writing, and on and on. The possibilities astound. It didn’t take me long to realize that medical students need access to minds like these.

My internet search had taken me to a thousand different sites with a juicy tidbit here or there, but I was always left wanting more. I hadn’t found the consolidated source of information on non-traditional medical routes I was looking for until I ran across Freelance MD. And so… we’ve decided that medical students need exposure to these ideas, they need options. They need mentoring from inquisitive and innovative minds in medicine. They need to network and dialogue with like-minded students DURING medical school and they need to see the light at the end of the crap and put themselves in a position to effect change in the medical status quo. Hopefully this site can do that for you. Here, we’re about doing things a little differently. If any of this resonates, then you’ve come to the right place. Welcome.