Why hello there! Socrates once said, "An unexamined life is not worth living." I am 22. I am young although some days I feel in my joints the rain coming. I am a medical student currently finishing up the 1st year. I have somewhat of a busy "life" consisting of mainly studying, watching Top Gear, and taking long walks on the beach.
This blog used to be about sharing my experiences during med school and reviews about relatively inexpensive diverse wines that fit into a med student's budget. However, having experienced nearly a year in med school, I felt that "life" is kind of passing me by. I'm not talking about missing out on parties and shananigans that 20-something year olds would and could do. I'm talking about putting myself out there to be exposed to and learn from different people and cultures. When you're med student, time is quite limited (trust me, you'll hear more about this later), but I have this wish to travel, meet people, and hear what they have to say.
Thus, my intention with this blog is to describe situations I'm going through, feelings that I feel, and musings that pop into my wandering thoughts as I sit through a lecture about Waardenberg Syndrome (usually autosomal dominant, but some types are autosomal recessive). I don't want to feel confined to my dark dungeon wallowing in the miseries of incessant higher education. I want to learn from what people have to say or at least be aware of different perspectives. I want to have "life", my life specifically to be "examined." I just don't have time to meet "everyone." This is where the interweb comes into play.
This is how it's going to be:
a) I set the scene with my reactions and thoughts based on one of my meandering experiences Look, they're reactions and thoughts, NOT necessarily what I believe in. A lot of stuff will be trivial, but I believe these trivial matters are important to savor when I'm young and don't have mortgages, kids, and adult shtuff to deal with. A good number of topics will be medically related because I'm a med student if haven't noticed.
b) You, in a civilized manner, share your take on things. NO three or FOUR or five letter words (you know what those words are). NO statements that are derogatory, bigoted, racially offensive, sexist in intent. Look, the important word is intent. Some topics may be a bit on the edge, but we're all adults on the internets, so play nice. Understand that different people have different points of views because of their different experiences. I will do the same. If something horrible is said, go sit in the corner and then apologize sincerely. No, but really, apologize and learn from the mistake. Just respect people and their points of view, ok? Please, don't post "First." I ask you nicely not to do that. (Not nice way: That's dumb. Don't do that.)
That's it. I share things with you and you share things with me. I'm young and I want to grow and learn from this. So, teach me and share. Have fun. Shoot the breeze.
Read on for the first topic.
Scene
I was driving my 3rd year med student roommate last night in the drizzling rain to the train station. We got on to the topic of how much work it takes to become a doctor, not just to be a doctor. The discussion quickly turned to if, based on merit and responsibilities, doctors should be paid more?
I think that doctors should definitely be paid more. Look, I don't know exact salary numbers or financial figures about insurance or malpractice, but I would venture to say most physicians make in the range of hundreds of thousands. However, I feel that doctors have a huge encompassing responsibility: caring for an individual's health and well-being, whether it be physical or mental health. That's a tremendously huge responsibility on their shoulders because if they don't, people can die. Like, poof, dead, gone, no more. Gone gone.
On top of having a lives in their hands, doctors accumulate tens or hundreds of thousands in debt for medical education (excluding the possibility of undergrad loans), just so that they can become qualified to do their job. That's a huge commitment to begin with and will eventually be offset...in years later on when more personal adult responsibilities kick in.
Then, I compared salaries to, for example, athletes, entertainers, and even bankers/financial folks. In these fields, when you make it big, you make it big. Millions. Tens of millions. Hundreds of millions. To compare responsibilities, shooting a ball into a hoop, autotuning your voice for a Platinum record, and taking bailout money for bonuses. These responsibilities just seem, to me, of much smaller merit to that of handling the tangible lives of people (hey, I didn't say no merit, just much smaller).
Question
Am I nuts? Is my view skewed because there is so much more exposure to a few successful not-doctor millionaires? Do doctors actually make millions? Should doctors be paid more based on merit and value of their service to society? Which other jobs/careers should be paid more? Explain. If not, explain why not. No character limit, but you're not going to write War and Peace or Don Quixote. (Looks like an essay prompt back in high school).
There probably are doctors who are multimillionaires - most likely plastic surgeons living in Hollywood, lol. But in general, from what I have seen - doctors can be treated horribly by, not necessarily the patients, but the patients' family members (some of whom have medical knowledge that cannot go beyond a mere few pages found on wikipedia). Then there are malpractice suits left and right because, at the end of the day, no family member wants to accept that their 88 y/o grandparent with metastasizing cancer was going to die regardless of getting the best help possible. Things happen. From personal experience with my own loved ones, it sucks, but it's also life. At the same time, there are medical screw ups and doctors need to be able to own up to their faults - if they do so and help get things taken care of, leave it. If they don't admit to their faults and just make things worse, then sue them (please note: lawyers have a JD, not an MD or DO, so despite how knowledgeable they may seem, when it comes to medicine, unless they were medically trained, they don't know nearly as much about medicine as a doctor who has gone through 4 years of medical school AND at least 3 -7 years of training in the field).
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I will say teachers are severely underpaid. They (at least the well-qualified ones) do guide the future and help shape the minds of their students who will grow up to become the next Nobel Peace Prize winner, President, highly rated Physician, etc. Not to mention, they also put up with a lot of **** from parents in addition to the hormonal students. Teachers should really be paid in a manner that better reflects the significant role they play in the lives and futures of students.
One more thing, Don Quixote - great book! Fun/crazy to read.