The Top 10 Reasons You Should Go To Medical School... And The Single Best Reason Not To

Whether you're a first year medical student or a practicing physican, there's a good chance you've asked yourself the quesion, "WHY the @#$% DID I GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL?" Here are a few EXCELLENT reasons... and one bad one.

Just as the blisses of Christmas break was ending for most of us tortured souls who fly the banner of "medical student," and sail these uncertain scholarly seas, Uncommon Student MD got some serious traction with medical students around the world. I believe timing had a large part to do with the explosion in its popularity. Simply put, after christmas break a lot of medical people were thinking, “what am I doing here?!” - A case of mass buyers remorse.

It is an understandable and laudable question to be sure. If we spent half the time wrestling with the question of what to do with our lives that we spend OMGing and LOLing on Facebook, we would probably all be Nobel laureates (at the very least we wouldn’t use retarded abbreviations as much). There are a lot of bad reasons to go into medicine and there are a lot of good reasons not too… Conversely there are also many great reasons TO pursue medicine as well as a lot of bad reasons not too. Confused? Me too, but I do know that there are two sides to every pancake (perhaps three if you screwed the recipe up).

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” So, even though I happened to agree with a few salient points made in the aforementioned article, I am trying to follow the advice of good old F. Scott and entertain the flip side of the coin. Maybe incite some wrath while I’m at it… one can only hope.

I am not sure, but I am of the opinion that there are as many good reasons TO go to med school as there are NOT to go (we should do a prospective cohort study to find out). At the very least I know there ARE more reasons than the sole example our friend Dr. Ali Binazir espoused. And so without further hemming and hawing… The top 10 reasons you SHOULD go to medical and 1 reason you should RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN… in no particular order.

1. You will have a HUGE range of options at the end of your medical education.

To me flexibility and possibility in a career are of FAR greater importance than money, girls, fame, cars, illicit drugs, horses, blue suede shoes, kittens, my high score on angry birds, tickle-me-Elmos, or just any other temptation under the sun. Medicine opens up a WORLD of possibility and opportunity. It gives you access to a community of highly successful, highly educated, and highly motivated individuals and just for that reason alone it’s worth considering at least getting the Ol’ MD.

And I’m sure some old folksy physician has undoubtedly shared with you one of the most cliché medical career quotes. “There’s something for everyone in medicine (said in a tone of mock sincerity)” We roll our eyes at such clichés, but the truth behind them remains. There really is. It is a ridiculously broad field that is only getting broader and every personality type can find a suitable niche.

2. You will be headed in a definite direction toward a STABLE career choice.

“WOAH WOAH WOAH!” You say. “You just talked about how you’d sell your second appendix for the freedom to choose your destiny (also said in mock sincerity). Now normally, you’d be right. I wouldn’t include this in the pros section of a list about a career. The one augmenting factor that gives credence to this argument in my mind is the fact that it is one of the few careers that gives you a measure of stability WHILE giving you options… AT THE SAME TIME. It’s like having your lasagna and eating it too, or something like that.

It’s remarkable really. It’s kinda like waiting in this huge long line with a bunch of checkpoints. The line isn’t excruciating for the most part, but it’s also not what you’d hoped it would be (med school). At each checkpoint you are expected to perform a certain task that you’re not sure will have much bearing on what you’ll eventually be doing after the line ends, but the challenge is somewhat fun in and of itself. All in all it’s not a bad line, except for the fact that’s it’s so darn expensive. While in the line you might even think about robbing banks to pay for the opportunity to stand in this line.

At the end of the line (med school graduation), and provided you have performed satisfactorily at the checkpoints, there are about 100 new lines to choose from (residencies). The checkpoints in these lines seem much more fun and lines are much shorter. So you choose one. As you proceed in this line you start feeling better about all this line standing (or, if you haven’t started robbing banks, you have rationalized that you have no other option but to finish this line standing so you can pay for the line standing).

Then the line ends (Docta time!) and you realize that all these checkpoints have given you a highly marketable skill set that people who opted out of the line don’t have… and since you’ve most likely been robbing banks on nights and weekends while line standing, you’ve paid off all your line standing time already. (I jest… sorta)

3. You have the opportunity to help people and that WILL make you happy, unless you’re heartless.

This one needs little explanation. As a Christian who attempts to practice my faith, it is near the top of my list of “pro” reasons. Most Doctors agree, with little exception, that they enjoy the helping people aspect of their career. I have seen several lists that rank pediatricians at the top in terms of career satisfaction and this list actually puts them at 4th among all career choices. This has got to be directly correlated with the human service aspect of being a physician. Since it’s pediatricians, we should be able to infer conclusively that it’s definitely not the money aspect. (I don’t jest)

4. You will be part of a noble profession

Always will be. No matter what physicians say about how “patients these days don’t treat me with the respect my spiffy white coat and expensive stethoscope deserve,” it is and always will be among the most respected professions. People aren’t bigger boneheads to their physicians these days… people are just bigger boneheads in general.

5. You will never starve as a physician.

Granted, starving isn’t a huge problem for most of us here in the good ol’ USA, but you get my point. Even though the remuneration may indeed be more dubious (as was pointed out by Dr. Ali Binazir) than it has been in the past for physicians, we are still in the top .0002437 whatever percent of earners in the world and the job security that a medical career affords makes the remuneration seem a little less dubious in times like these.

6. Your market base is everyone… eventually.

Everyone (especially people in the good ol’ USA) eventually gets sick and needs a doctor. It’s a fact of life that is not likely to change soon, unless we all start putting a lot more wheatgrass on our big macs. A good entrepreneur friend of mine said that a business venture is only worth undertaking if your market base is large enough AND the need you’re fulfilling for your market is an “arterial bleed.” I don’t think I need to explain the joke here… or the truth.

7. You will have a globally relevant skill set.

If you’re like me, and traveling is one of the overriding passions of your life, I can think of few other careers that have as much demand as many places in the world as being a physician. There’s also a remarkable amount of geographical technical overlap. An appendectomy is an appendectomy, whether it’s in Athens Greece or Athens Georgia. If you do something like locum tenens here in the USA, you can set yourself up for a truly nomadic lifestyle AND support yourself while you’re at it. You would then also be able to take off months at a time to travel internationally or start your own business on the side.

8. You will have myriad business opportunities in medicine.

Victor Perlroth M.D., M.B.A. is a good example of what I’m talking about. He said that the one of the pivotal lessons he learned from his mentor Paul Cook was that, “there is money to be made at the intersection of disciplines.” - That’s brilliant. Think about it for a second…. Okay now continue reading. - Medical entrepreneurship and technology is a huge industry with a lot of money behind it and the opportunities are truly endless for enterprising souls. Just the fact that HAVING your MD gives you access to a huge network of people who have residual income for investing is a huge business asset.

My Dad is an oral surgeon that started his own practice and he recently pointed out to me (and I suppose it’s a given) that the process of starting his own practice was a HUGE business venture and has been very fulfilling for him from a business perspective. There are many physicians who have made careers out of helping other physicians start their own successful practices in a specific niche (consults). The opportunities are legion.

It’s also a sadly funny, but universally true fact that having that MD behind your name makes people THINK you know what you're talking about, even in completely unmedical situations. This can be very useful in just about ANY undertaking.

9. You get to wear pajamas to work.

Everyone holds up the “wearing pajamas to work” thing as the gold standard for having arrived at job nirvana, and let’s be honest… scrubs ARE pajamas.

10. Medicine gives you perhaps the most unique set of professional privileges of any profession… ever.

This hit me full force while I was busily cutting a cadaver’s heart out one day during anatomy lab. I thought, “This kind of stuff is normally reserved for serial killers and Germanic barbarians and under any other circumstance I would go to prison for doing what I am doing.” While I have no ambitions to be a Germanic barbarian, serial killer, OR to go to prison, it is truly amazing that physicians and medical students have the privilege of doing stuff like that.

People invite physicians into the most forbidden places humanly conceivable (elbow deep in their small bowels for one), and no other line of work I can think of throws one into such truly interesting (borderline mental) circumstances. The depth of sincerity and vulnerability that people show their doc is remarkable. This is another aspect of being a doctor that I have heard many long-time docs hold up as one of the most treasured aspects of their careers. Human beings are amazing.

And now…. (drum roll).... THE SINGLE BEST REASON YOU SHOULD NOT GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL.

Ready for it?

Okay.

Here goes.

You want to make barrels of money with a modest amount of work.

If this is your goal, you are barking up the wrong tree my friend. You might very well make a ton of money… but the margins are becoming slimmer and the people who are doing it are becoming the exception rather than the rule. If you ARE making a ton of money in medicine (derm, radiology, optho, some surgical subspecialties) you more than likely will have worked VERY hard during medical school to position yourself for that specialty and many of these “rich” docs work 60+ hours a week to be “rich.” If you are a clinical primary care physician that works sane hours you will not be seeing the “big bucks” that many people associate with physician-hood.

Also the compensation relative to the amount of hours worked, opportunity cost loss, etc. is deceptively “low”, especially in a primary care setting. Ben Brown MD has a very interesting, well-researched and enlightening article on the subject. Er physician, author, and blogger Kevin Pezzi MD also has a great example of what I'm talking about on his blog. He compares the actual lifetime income of a UPS driver to the typical earnings of a primary care doctor. It's an interesting read to be sure.

If you are in it for the love of it, or for a mixture of the reasons above, all this will be fine with you. As I stated above, you’re not gonna be hurting for coin. You just need to have your eyes wide open about the fiscal realities before you go into it. Money is a terrible reason to get into any venture if it is the soul motivator, but this advice doubles or triples in pertinence when you’re talking about something that involves as much startup investment in terms of both time AND money as the infamous MD degree does.

So there it is. Get your guns out and fire back. I’d love to here your thoughts… on my thoughts. Also, check out the lively discussion that is going on in the comments section of The Top 10 Reasons You Should Not Go To Medical School... And The Single Reason You Should.

The Passion Manifesto: Why Every Medical Student Should Rethink "Traditional" Medicine. (Part 1)

A personal yet rational case for the pursuit of the moon, and stars... and throw the asteroids in while we're at it. Heck, wrap it all up for a "to go" order. 

I can’t push these questions out of my mind.

They seem to invade my skull with a fervor that can only be explained by the fact that the answers will determine what my future life will hold.

Will it be a life defined by passionless work, constantly feeling out of kilter in an environment that just wasn’t quite made for me? Will it be the romantic visions I indulge in of a man on a mission in the heart of a wild land, with an invaluable skill and zeal to match, righting the wrongs in a forgotten corner of the world? Will it be relegation to a large grey building filled with sick and dying people who in many cases won’t lift a finger to help themselves, but frustratingly expect to be cured by modern wizardry and a pill? Will it be the life of a nomad, drifting from here to there; in and out of towns and countless lives, cursed with an incurable nomadic soul? Perhaps the life of a key-clicking storyteller will be mine. Writing the stories that deserve to be told of the unsung hero, the underground hero that deserves recognition and a face.

These are the questions that have been floating through my cerebral cortex of late. They will not go away, they will not improve, I cannot banish them from my thoughts.

Some people seem at ease living a life unexamined. I cannot indulge thusly. I need my existence to mean something. I need my action to be meaningful and deliberate. I need the possibilities to be endless. I need to believe that I can be passionate about how I am living NOW and not just scraping for a grade, which will POSSIBLY eventually lead to a small measure of meaning. I need to be on top of my game and in the moment and full of the rapturous joy of living. Pain? I can handle it if an end is in sight. Disappointment, I can weather it if I am convicted of my cause. Grief, I can bear it if I see the purpose in it. What I cannot abide is an endless number of days filled with a transient existence… mere platitudes in exchange for a real life of weight and substance.

Money is fun, yes, but past what is needed to maintain some semblance of comfort it matters little me. I hold this view principally because I have little of it, if I possessed a fortune my tune would doubtless change. That very fact is a good reason to steer clear of fortunes. Money. That pitiless taskmaster under whose whip so many voluntarily bows their heads. That alter upon which so many sacrifice their souls and lives.

Embrace the gambler?

Some would call me a gambler. Willing to risk the safety and certainty of a “stable” and “responsible” choice in lieu of the moon. “The paradigm you seek is unattainable,” they say. “The reality you pursue is not measurable or concrete in a way that we agree with, and it makes us uncomfortable,” more accurately reflects the sentiment.

I am not lauding the senseless disposal of resources into that most heinous of bandits in need of a prosthesis, but at the gamblers heart is not evil. That misguided soul has hope, albeit of a gnarled and mangled fashion. They would turn nothing into something, if they had their wishes. All the gambler’s underpinnings are not sordid and ominous. They possess the ability to lay things of importance down, to detach themselves from the sure thing in pursuit of the dangling possibility. A gambler is really an entrepreneur, gone wrong.

To harness that talent means to be a successful investor, to over-indulge and misalign that same gift means to fall into that certain and stealthy abyss. Addiction or passion? The wafer thin wall that separates the two is often nearly translucent. That may be why so many won’t allow themselves near it, for fear of breaking through.

Passion is a strangely amorphous, yet universally desired, commodity. It as been directed at nearly every conceivable endeavor from the seemingly mundane act of button collecting to such adrenaline-drenched pursuits as hurling one’s body from a ledge wearing naught but a glorified sheet stuffed haphazardly into a backpack. The domicile of this enigmatic feeling is often hard to predict. It can spring up and take root in nearly any soil; no matter how seemingly desolate or blank the slate appears. Passion is also desired by nearly all humans, but in spite of all these favorable characteristics, this most sacred of grails is a painfully scarce commodity.

I am going to hazard a wager. My wager is this: that nearly every singular activity at which a passion has been directed throughout the whole of history could/ has/ or will be molded into a monetarily feasible proposition. Creativity and ingenuity will be required, more in some cases than others, but the POSSIBILITY is there to turn nearly every activity or passion into a business model.

Now I will take that last paragraph, blind fold it, and turn it loose in a different direction. Can a person find something they are passionate about doing, an activity that drives them to pursue perfection unharried, in virtually any existent professional circle? It is an interesting question to be sure.

Is passion even possible in medicine?

Sadly, medicine has one of the greatest potentials of any professional to be a soul sucking passion-sink. I have been a first hand observer of this throughout my life. My family is somewhat of a medical mafia family. The strange customs and rituals, the secretive and enigmatic lingo, the bleeding together of home and work, the all consuming nature of the "family business," and even the fact that a lot of blood flows in the course of doing business... all similarities between my medical family and the mob. 

I HAVE seen many family members use the profession as a means to do great good, while preserving and USING their external passions to do so and I laud them for this ability. I have also seen people in my family loose themselves, their spark, their drive and passion, because they pursued medicine instead rolling the dice on a dream. 

If one is going to "do medicine," without losing their soul... it is going to be a no-holds-barred royal rumble. It is not a profession that generally rewards the balanced individual. The individual that seeks a medical career, but also desires a sane lifestyle. People that work a normal amount of hours or try to work more efficiently are often viewed as being a slacker (I am experiencing this first hand as I try to keep balanced during first year).

In the established medical system, the gambler is wholly vilinized. Keep your head down and follow the protocal. Don't make waves. Don't suggest a good idea to an attending or you'll be singled out for a good old fashioned pimping. Work harder. Whether you are working smarter or not is of lesser importance. Give up your hobbies. Be consumed by the profession. Cover your ass in lieu of making the objectively correct decision.

These are generalizations sure, but too often accurate ones. The really sad thing is that many times the aforementioned traits are touted as preferable or morally superior in some skewed sense.  It isn't explicilty verbalized this way, but the predominent currents flow from these icy tenents. Going down this rabbit hole is supposed to somehow makes you a better doctor. 

This is NOT the case.

The new generation of doctors are beginning to realize this. As compensation decreases and information load increases, young would-be doctors are forced to take a hard look at medicine for it's face value. The days when benjamins could universally override doubt are slowly coming to a close. This article has some salient points and perspective on why this is the case. Suffice it to say that the ROI is often not good enough anymore to make people part with their less secure dreams and a "balanced life."

The status quo is being challenged. The "medical establishment" is realizing that it is having a harder time recruiting the top tier of innovators and free thinkers that will push medicine forward. 

Passion and innovation must be rewarded or this will continue to happen. The gambler must be embraced and utilized. Balance must be encouraged. A more human person will also be a more humane person.

Can a medical student (as I find myself) find passion in medical school by starting a medical school blog, even if they currently find their situation passionless? Can a previously stolid accountant breathe passion into his professional world by changing a venue, entering a niche, or altering a mental paradigm? Can a barista gain a passion for their work by starting their own mobile coffee cart instead of working at a major coffee chain that shall remain nameless (it rhymes with car-ducks). I posit that in many or most cases this is possible.

Not ALWAYS possible though... If medicine is not your passion GET OUT MAN! Make a responsible exit strategy and EXIT. If you can be passionate in a different part of medicine, CHANGE your course. Get into something that you think is FULLY great.

The tortuous road to the moon.

When a person sees that it is not a feasible proposition to turn their current pursuit into a passion... why then do they persist? There is no excuse for this! There are more niche market opportunities now than there has ever been in the history of the earth! That statement should be self evident in describing the possibilities. Allow me to provide examples.

There is a guy who’s living, his calling, his passion is to read the mail of complete strangers and expose their secrets to the world… His name is Frank Warren and he is the founder of Postsecret.com

There is a man named Jerry Greenfield who thought he wanted to be a doctor. He, in fact, applied on three separate occasions to medical school and was denied each time. He thought he wanted to be a doctor, but it didn’t seem to be working for him. He decided to take stock of his passions. He loved ice cream. He wanted to start a small business. He took a $5 correspondence course on ice cream making and promptly opened a small ice cream shop in Burlington Vermont with his long time friend Ben Cohen. You may have heard of his shop. It’s grown a little since then. It’s called Ben and Jerry’s.

There is an individual who was in medical school at Harvard University. During his time there, he found that he was spending much of his time writing instead of studying as religiously as many of his classmates. Realizing that art of the pen was his passion, he decided not to discard it and continued writing feverishly throughout his four years of medical school. When he graduated, instead of stuffing his aspirations on the back shelf and entering a full time clinical career, he began the risky proposition of writing full time. It turned out to be a good move for him, because in 1994 he became the only creative artist ever to have works charting at #1 in film, TV, and book sales simultaneously. If you have ever seen the film Jurassic Park, watched the television series ER, or read one of his numerous best-selling books, you have appreciated Michael Crichton’s decision to follow his passion.

Engaging in passionless work is one of the greatest crimes that can be committed against oneself and society as a collective entity. Creating a passionate place where one can use their natural gifts for betterment of humanity and fulfillment of self, conversely, is one of the greatest goods.

These thoughts continue to consume my mind. They will leave me no peace until I have donned the unitard of action and wrestled with my doubts. Will it require a roll of the dice or a calculated reshuffling of the cards I have been dealt? Likely Both. The platitudes must stop. My life can have passionate direction. It will. It must. This is my manifesto.

Through the slightly course language, this guy makes a great point. 

The Healthcare Future We Have To Look Forward Too. Unless...

BE INFORMED: Health care reform does not have to be as scary as it sounds. Ron Paul, laying down the truf!

It is my humble and correct opinion that every person interested in any way in being involved in a medical profession should have at least a general understanding of the politics behind the healthcare system. I know there are alot of persons out there that "don't like to get involved in politics," or are of the opinion that they "are going to be a doctor not a politician" or are just apathetic about such issues as the broken healthcare system and what is being done about it. The truth is that all these excuses are sheer and utter crap, because the fact remains that if you are earning a living in medicine, or ever plan to, this will be THE central issue influencing your future career for the worse... or hopefully the better.

It will influence how much you work, what you get paid, what sort of torture you will need to put yourself through to get certified and how much that will cost, what sorts of treatments you will be reembursed for, and LITERALLY every aspect of your career the super healthcare person you plan to be. Heck, I think that any person planning on getting sick EVER should know where this country is headed in terms of who runs what in medicine and why. So at the very least if you don't watch this video: either because you hate Ron Paul's guts (can't imagine why any rational or informed person would), or you are too busy watching people slip and fall on youtube, do me a favor and inform yourself someway... somehow.

There is alot of political arm waving about how this big behemouth called corporate healthcare got derailed and advice about what needs to be done to forklift it back on said tracks. Most of this arm waving is being done by career politicians who know very little about actually providing healthcare to people. An odd and sad paradox indeed. This puts presidential candidate Ron Paul in a unique position. In case you didn't know, Ron Paul had a private practice in the 60s and 70s as an OB/Gyn that walked his talk. He didn't accept medicare of medicade and instead would provide medical care at little or no cost to those who needed it but couldn't pay. After which he has served as a member of Congress and written several books. He has a unique perspective on the history and future of healthcare in this nation and is probably one of the few politicians truley qualified to speak with authority on the issue.

Regardless of your political persuation... bes listen up... this guy KNOWS the profession of which he speaks. Viva La revolucion!

I'm Traveling During My Med School Breaks... What About You?

Doing what you love during a Medical School break can be a lot more productive than you realize. 

So if your medical school is anything like mine, there will be a constant buzz in the air about what to do during the summers and breaks. Who's researching what? and when? and where?! What paper have you gotten published?!!! HAVE YOU SHADOWED DR. AWESOME?! LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION! AHHH! It's like the big, hairy, scary behemoth in the room. Everyone is trying to figure out what everyone else is doing so they can properly gauge just how much overacheivment is necessary during their time off. Well, I've got an idea that I probably shouldn't share because then my secret will be out. DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

The concept is pretty straightforward. If everyone in the room is wearing a red sweater because they think that's what you have to do to get into the party, how much do you think you will stand out if you don the red sweater as well? Now let's say that your favorite color is blue and you decide that you don't care that everyone says you're supposed to wear the red sweater, you're jolly well gonna wear the blue one and show up to the party anyway. Do you think you'll stand out?

Sometimes it seems like medical students want so badly to stand out, but at the same time they have this crazy (and somewhat legitimate) fear they won't check all the right boxes.

Cut to my life. Travel is my passion. I never feel more focused, fulfilled, or alive than when I am boarding a train or listening to the pilot welcome me aboard. Travel feels like home to me. Because of this passion I have, I travel every chance I get.

When it came to the end of college I had received my acceptance to medical school, but I was planning on deferring for a year. All the options for deferment I had considered weren't quite what I was looking for, and then a friend casually mentioned a trip he was planning... and what a trip it was. Take a world map and make the center of it the pacific ocean. Then draw a point at the southernmost tip of South America and another at the southwesternmost point in Africa. Then connect them using the longest overland route possible. This gives you some idea of the scope of this trip.

This idea lit me on fire and I could think of little else. I finally knew what it was like to be passionate about what I was doing and it was glorious. I was researching, building a website, looking at the possible routes and where the difficulties would lie. Hours would fly by researching this or that detail of travel and I would barely notice. This was far from my mindset throughout most of my college experience. I was fully engaged in what I was doing and loving every minute of it.

Then came the day to shove off into the grey mist of the unknown and board that plane bound for Patagonia. My friend and I had a rudimentary route worked out and enough money saved to last for a year of ultra-bootstrapped travel (we hoped). Then we started traveling and I realized that I wish I was doing research... just kidding. The year was, I can say without hesitation or reservation, the most interesting and mind expanding year of my life.

I visited 42 countries on 5 continents. I had the opportunity to meet some of the most intensly interesting people on this planet and make friendships with people the world over. I was honored to be able to take in the sites, sounds, smells, and cultures of a great many places, if even for only a few fleeting days. I rode on trains, buses, cars, motorcycles, planes, goat trucks, subways, scooters, bicycles, and just about every other mode of transportation you could envision, in pretty much every condition imaginable. I even had the good fortune to volunteer my time and work with some amazing Doctors at some amazing mission hospitals. It was not always easy or comfortable, but it was an education like no classroom, laboratory, or online course could have given me. And we made it. We traveled from Cape Horn to the Cape of Good hope the long way around. If you care to read about the trip our blog is www.thewholeworldround.com.

I say all that not to brag or gloat, but mearly to point out that you CAN leverage your passion to your benefit and to the amazement of others... DURING MED SCHOOL. I'm trying to be real here. How many conversations do you think I've had about my trip since I got back? Do you think many medical students did a trip like that last year? Do you think this sets me apart and allows me to have conversations with people I would not normally be able to engage? Innovative people, passionate people and leaders are drawn to other people who have those same qualities.

Okay that's great, so what's the point?

When you are thinking about what to do with your upcoming break, don't just think about which box you can check off on the list of things to do in medical school. Draw your own box, man! Find a way to leverage your passion into a life experience that you can grow from. If that's travel, GO TRAVEL. If you're a passionate knitter of hats, DO THAT (then give them away to kids who are bald from chemo). If it's research, by all means research till your blue in the face! Volunteer in a hospital or research WHILE you travel (abroad programs). Be innovative with it, be creative, but most importantly... do it. If you are in love with what you are doing, it will show through to the people that matter. Cliche yes, but no less true. Remember... the blue sweater. Wear it! Love it! Stand out.

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.