Speaking From Experience . . .

A couple of posts back, I had shared the article, "Reasons Not to Become a Doctor" along with my personal response to it. (Click here for the original post.) Since then, I have heard a multitude of opinions, including the response copied below that was emailed to me by one of my readers. All identifying information has been removed, but her full perspective and points remain. I specifically asked her permission to reproduce this information, so that I can share it with all of you. Obviously, she has agreed! Thank you Anonymous! I think that your perspective is very important and I really appreciate you allowing me to share it with so many others that are just beginning this journey as well as others who are in the midst of it!

Just a quick background, Anonymous and her husband were married before the medical journey began. The husband started the journey approximately 30 years ago with the beginning of the application process and the matriculation of med school approximately one year later.

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One day a gal who had taught at the school where I taught came back for a visit (her husband was in FP residency). I told her that my husband had been accepted into med school. Her reply was, "Medical school ought to be grounds for divorce." (an exact quotation.) We have made it 32.5 years tomorrow. I will not guarantee that we will make 33 years, even at this point.

My husband does regret his decision to become a doctor. I do not regret being married to him. I told him before we were married that I did not want to be a doctor's wife. He said he didn't want to be a doctor. He changed his tune 3 years later and told me that he had always wanted to but didn't think it was remotely possible because of his family's financial and educational status. I married the man, not the doctor. It is still difficult.

From my husband's perspective, most everything in the article is true.

1. Loans, most of ours were forgiven for practicing 5+ years in a rural county. It was still a drain to pay the remaining thousands to the federal loan program. We were student and residency loan free by the time we left our home state. We have never had the kind of income that people think doctors have. Family practice is not lucrative. We are comfortable this month (year) for the first time. We have begun to travel and can buy most of the small things that we used to have to consider very carefully. We still have to think about how much a new roof and new windows for our aging house will cost, and how to pay for them. We bought a new riding lawn mower a couple of weeks ago. This was possible because John Deere offered 12 months interest free. We will be able to pay it off in that time span. We do not eat expensive foods, go to expensive restaurants, dress in high dollar duds, get new cars every year. My husband does have some expensive hobbies, but his boat was used, and he got it for basically the price of a new boat motor. He has had a lot of work to do to get it usable.
2. From reading the article and comments, I think respect is one of the key reasons that there is so much dissatisfaction or the lack of respect.Yes, the comments about having to wait, the criticism of treatment, the arguments against paying, and the general attitude of many of the patients really make it hard to go on. Another problem for my husband are the patients who come back for chronic problems (depression, etc) and whine. He likes helping the patients who need the help and who he can help. It is depressing to treat people who will never get well. The best that the doctor can do is make them comfortable for their remaining years. Some are really quite young, but have chronic illnesses that will not be cured. And then their is the liability/malpractice situation to consider. I think that many of these cases are really a lack of respect for the doctor. Without the legal liabilty, the doctor can still be adversely affected by a bad outcome to his treatment. Doctors frequently have a lot of emotional investment in their patients. They genuinely like the people/patients and care about them as individuals.
3. Lifestyle--always being on call. Well, not really, but everywhere we go people ask for medical advice or tell their horror story. He is never just a person in a social setting. He is always a doctor. The limits on family time were hard on all of us. Our son hardly knew his father until he was 5 years old. Many activities were interrupted by phone calls from the answering service or the hospital. Even family meals out at a restaurant were interrupted by patients stopping by the table to ask about their meds or something. The boys' perception (as well as mine) was that the patient comes first. This is fine for the truly ill patient. But sometimes the interruption made us feel truly second class, unimportant. My husband regrets this and he cannot change what happened in our private lives for the last 21 years. He has made some changes, but that doesn't change the past.

So if the motivation to be a doctor is really to help people selflessly, then all of this should be unimportant. Well, doctors are human and need some kind of reward for their work. If respect is lacking (malpractice suits included here), then there should be ample financial compensation. Asking a person to give up a personal life for a job with little respect and having to live hand to mouth gives no incentive to do the job. I think that we were very naive. The bankers in the town where we did residency kept letting us borrow because after all, my husband would be able to pay back everything when he began making the big bucks. We thought he would have respect in the community because of his job. We didn't realize that for the first 7 years (while he did OB) that he wouldn't have proper call coverage. We didn't realize that patients have no respect for the doctor's personal time. (He once got a phone call at about 4:00 am from a patient who wanted a medication refill called in!)

So if he knew then what he knows now, would he have gone to med school? I really don't know. For him it was also an intellectual challenge, and I know that the challenge of diagnosis and treatment as well as business management is what keeps him in the profession. We are looking forward to some change in the fairly near future that will bring us closer to retirement. We are just not sure what it is.

Making Some Changes!

I just wanted to let everyone know that I am making some changes to this site over the next couple of weeks! I have decided to start yet another blog where I can share news about my family. Therefore, I will be putting my craft projects on that site from now on. I will be keeping this site active to keep talking about our med school experiences and beyond, even just commenting on things that are happening within the field periodically. I hope that you still will visit this site and continue to share your thoughts and even your own experiences with me along the way! And, my dream of hopes . . . maybe my experiences (and those shared by you!) can help those that come after us!!

In the meantime, as for my personal site . . . it will be private! If you want an invite, be sure to post here so that I know that I'm not missing you!! When the site is ready, I will send you an invite (as long as I know you!)! Hopefully, I can get it ready before this baby girl decides to make her appearance in the world!! :)

Reasons Not to Become a Doctor

My husband was browsing his usual news sites last night and came across this article. I have been reading through it this morning and thought that I would share with all of you to see what you thought. Here are some of my thoughts (I also posted this on the SAA website, but wanted to copy it here for those that do not have access to that site) . . .

First of all, many of the statistics coming out of the surveys mentioned appear to be coming from the allopathic route. I am very curious to know how these statistics compare to our field of osteopathy.

Secondly, I have already begun to witness first-hand the views of the public or as the article states . . . "There's a perception among patients that, 'I went to a doctor's appointment and he was 45 minutes late. He's probably on the golf course or driving his Mercedes.' The truth is, they're probably busy with patients." I personally get very frustrated because some of this even comes from my own families! Why is it that people have the image that doctors are out playing golf and making tons of money for it?

Thirdly, I highly recommend that you read some of the comments pages at the end of the article. I read thru the majority of them and was surprised at how few were actually defending the medical field! I was shocked that even those who are practicing, are residents, or even students are recommending people to stay away. My husband even says that he hears often from others he works with, that if they had the chance to do it again, they wouldn't do it! Yikes! How sad to see bitterness from those in the field, much of it stemming from such things as litigation, government restrictions, insurance, etc.! My thoughts . . . let's create our own list . . . "Reasons to Become a D.O.ctor!" My husband has recently decided to go into anesthesiology (according to the article, one of the more "lucrative" fields). He did not choose to go into the field because of the pay, but because of his fascination with the field. I get excited to see him come home excited about what he is doing! Will this wear off? Who knows, but I like to think not!

Lastly, I like to say that we had "life before med school", meaning that coming back to school to become a doctor is my husband's second career. He worked in healthcare in a different field and truly felt that there was a better way for him to help others than what he was currently doing. He wanted to work with patients! He wanted to do more! I was so proud of him that he was accepted and now that we are close to graduation, I am even more proud of him as I see the work that he has done so far. We consciously made that decision to start med school as a family, knowing that there would be sacrifices we would have to make. There are times that we even talk about what it would have been like if we hadn't made this decision. However, we always come back to the fact that we are happy with our decision and that it will all be worth it in the end. Knowing that we pursued our dreams to the fullest extent and did not "settle" is VERY important to us! On the other hand, I am becoming more and more frustrated and feel that the public has a stereotype of the field that we are already living with, even as students. When I tell people that my husband is a med student, they automatically assume that we are making big bucks and have a wonderful lifestyle. In short, that our lives are easy and full of luxury!! As you all know, that is wrong!! The general public does not know how much work and money and sweat goes into this process (and that it is not just the student that is experiencing this!). With articles like this out there, it is not helping the field . . . only hindering it!! I want to know how we can help combat this stereotype!

I have a lot more thoughts on different things mentioned in the article and the comments, but will quit my ranting now!! Anyone else have some thoughts on this? If so, I would love to hear them!

Seriously . . .

I know, I know . . . I have been horrible about updating my blogs these days!! To be honest with you . . . it's not because I have been busy . . . more like extremely lazy!! :) I have been working on many projects lately, but have just not had the time to blog about them or completely finish them either. I'm getting there!! And, as I finish more of them, I will be sure to share photos and even the news on the latest rotations as well!!

But, to my current little post . . . I have recently been cleaning up and making room for another baby in our household!! We have decided to turn our little office into a nursery for the little one, or at least part of it since our space is limited these days. As I was going through and cleaning things out, this is what I came across . . .

Ahhhh . . . the perks of being a student doctor and future physician!! The drug reps love to give away free stuff!! We have too many fancy pens and notepads than I think we will ever use. And, the sad part . . . this is only a portion of them!!! And, it is never-ending, so our pile will continue to grow and grow and grow!!

My only question . . . SERIOUSLY, how many pens and notepads does one need? Will we ever be able to use all of these in our lifetime? Does anyone else have piles like these? What do you do with all of them? I hate to put any of these to waste, so will not throw any of them out. What else am I to do with them? I am in need of some very creative ideas!! :)

Anesthesia Top Ten!

I got this little top ten from my friend Laci's blog! Since my hubby has officially decided to go the anesthesia route, I thought that I would post it on here as well. Though I don't think I completely understood everything, the ones I did understand were pretty funny! :)

Ten Reasons to Become an Anesthesiologist

1. You can intubate your friends at parties.
2. Have you ever met a happy internist?
3. You don't have enough ego hypertrophy to be a surgeon.
4. You can comfort anxious patients with, "I know just how you feel. It's my first anesthetic, too."
5. Any job where you can drive to work in green pajamas is a cool job.
6. You can park next to rich doctors like ophthalmologists.
7. You can cover your mistakes with Versed.
8. After spending the night with surgeons, they still won't respect you in the morning.
9. If you get bored on the weekends, you can give yourself a spinal.
10. No office, no overhead, no rectal exams!

Rotation #6: Internal Medicine

During the month of February, my husband did his second rotation in Internal Medicine. In fact, he was originally scheduled to do this rotation with someone completely different, but he had heard really good things about one service in particular. Since he has been contemplating between Anesthesiology and Internal Medicine, he talked to his rotation coordinator and had her switch his schedule to accomodate this particular rotation. It took a few pulling of strings, but he was able to make the switch and I believe that he was very glad that he did! We knew that this rotation would be more difficult in regards to hours and energy and we were definitely right!!

From the spouse perspective, this was a VERY difficult rotation for me!! The hours were long and my husband oftentimes worked longer than some of the residents. In fact, he was actually on for 19 days straight with NO break!! This included on-call time as well!! However, I really think that this rotation was very valuable to my husband for a multitude of reasons and in the whole scheme of things, do not feel negative in any way for not being able to see my husband! First of all, he learned a TON of information (which he will explain in further detail below) and came home very excited about the things that he learned. Secondly, he did AMAZING on his shelf exam, which would have helped him in either specialty that he was interested in. And, lastly, and in my opinion the most important, this rotation was able to help him to officially decide what he wants to do with his life!!! He was able to more fully discover his strengths and weaknesses and even his desires, and has made the decision that has been plaguing us for months about what he wants to do for the rest of his life . . . he has decided to go with Anesthesiology!! From my perspective, I am very excited about this change!! At first, I was a little worried because he has always talked about doing a specialty within Internal Medicine, but the more and more we discuss it, Anesthesiology is a much better fit for him!! Now, we just have to apply to out rotations and residencies, but we will get to that later!!!

Here's my hubby's thoughts and opinions . . .

I will start out by saying that this rotation was just a difficult, if not more so, than my surgery rotation (and those were some long days). However, I can honestly say that I learned more on this rotation than I did on any two of my previous rotations combined. That’s not to say that I didn’t learn a lot on my other rotations (I learned a ton on most of them); it’s just that I learned a lot on this one. Internal medicine is the base of all other rotations and it never hurts to have a good foundation before going into whatever specialty interests you.

During this rotation you are working directly with the residents of the internal medicine program at the hospital. You work with them all day and take call with them. The attending physicians will round with you during the day and they are fantastic. They all teach and they are very patient. However, the majority of your teaching comes from the residents. It makes sense since they are with you all day and with you during your call nights.

The typical day begins at 6:30 a.m. (now it’s 6:15 a.m. I think). You meet with the residents for sign-out from the on-call resident (the resident that was on the night before). You print out your list of patients and divvy up the new ones among the students and residents. We then have morning report at 7:15 a.m. (which we are required to go to) and at around 8:00 a.m. we start seeing our patients. When you begin rounding is dependent on the attending you're with. The first two weeks of my rotation we were with an attending that liked to start rounding at around 10:00 a.m. which was plenty of time to see your patients and sometimes discuss them with the residents before rounds. As a side note, we would usually have around 3 patients as a third year medical student. This was enough, and by the end of the rotation you were able to handle the patients fairly easily. Rounds would take anywhere from 4-6 hours with this attending making for a fairly long day. After rounds you would either get a small presentation that you, a fellow medical student, or resident put together. We would then do H & P’s on any new patients in the ER or go home between 5 and 6 p.m., if there was nothing left to do. During the second two weeks of my rotation the attendings were switched and my new one liked to round at 8:30 a.m. I would have to come in around 5:00 a.m. and see my patients just to be ready in time. However, we were done rounding early, leaving more time for teaching. We still wouldn’t leave until 5 or 6 p.m., but it seemed like a more educational day.

In addition, you did have call responsibilities. It was usually one night a week and two weekends over the four week period. When all was said and done, I had worked 19 days straight at the hospital making it very exhausting. Like I said though, I learned a lot.

At one point I thought I wanted to do internal medicine but have since switched to anesthesiology. However, this rotation makes me see the draw to internal medicine and its benefits. You work hard during the rotation but you learn a lot. I would recommend it to anyone.

Rotation #5: Psychiatry

I have been horrible about posting about the different rotations lately!! Things have been a little hectic around here and they are now starting to calm down (sort of). With making the big decisions that come at this point in time, such as out rotations and ultimately, where we will want to go for residency, there is never a moment of silence when my hubby is around. We are always talking about our options and choices. However, that's not really the point of this post, so I will save that for another time . . .

I actually started righting about my hubby's fifth rotation in Psychiatry quite a while ago (so the timeline is wrong in what is written below!). In fact, it was more than a month ago!! However, I did not want to post until you could also get a student perspective as well which my husband finally got a chance to write. So now, I am finally posting it!! Enjoy!!

Well, as of last Friday, my hubby finished his Psych rotation. Let me tell you . . . I didn't even realize that he was rotating in Psych!! Okay, okay, it really wasn't that bad!! But, to be blunt . . . I personally think that he got the shaft on this rotation!! Coming from a pretty extensive background in psychology (only about 7 years in higher education in it!), I was shocked at what he learned or rather, the lack thereof, especially on the first-hand experience side. There is more to treatment options than just the drugs! And, when it comes to those treatment options, there are so many schools of thought that play such a significant role in the history and healing, that I was just plain bummed that my hubby did not get to see more of it in action. Of course, then again, I may be biased since I come from a talk therapy background! All I really have to say is . . . Good thing he was not thinking of Psych for his career! However, to give a little benefit of the doubt to those in charge . . . mental health issues can be tough to talk about. Many individuals that see a Psychiatrist will have to do so for very long periods of time. They tend to be more private or not as willing to share their experiences with your primary care provider, nonetheless some strange student that they have never seen before. And, considering that mental health issues are talked about more in today's society, whether they are truly more prevalent or not, they do play a huge role in the medical side of treatment, whether you are a Psychiatrist, Surgeon, or Family Practice Physician. Afterall, the D.O. philosophy is Mind, Body, & Spirit. It's just too bad that there was not more of a focus on the mind and spirit this month!

Now, as for my hubby's perspective . . .

I felt that the psychiatry rotation is the one true weakness that my particular clinical site has to offer at this time. During our year, half of the students went to one northern location about 1 hour away and the other half went to a more urban site south about 45 minutes. I was in the group that went south for my rotation. My typical week involved going to the physician’s outpatient clinic on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (he had Thursday’s off and we had didactics on Tuesday afternoon making it pointless to go down there). On a typical day, I would arrive around 10:00 a.m. and leave by 3:00 p.m.. The day usually involved the student observing him interviewing the patient. On certain days of the week (I can’t remember which ones) his days were dedicated to medication review visits. Basically, this involved the patient coming in, telling him how the treatment was going, any side-effects from the medications, etc. The physician would then adjust the medication, take away or add another medication, and send the patient on their way. This would take about 15 minutes total. He would have a couple of new patients mixed in during these days, but not many.

The new patients were the interesting ones. These would be individuals new to the practice and the interview would take close to an hour. It was very in-depth and he would eventually quiz you a little on what you felt the patient had by making you leave the room and discuss the diagnosis with him later.

The major downside to this rotation was that there was no inpatient care. It was all outpatient, making it difficult to learn a lot. This may change in the future, but I am unsure of that at this time. The northern rotation did have inpatient psychiatric medicine however and those individuals had only a slightly better experience (but still not that great from what they tell me).

Overall, I didn’t feel this was a great rotation. I did most of my learning from a book and felt it was almost a waste of time and money being on the road for 2 hours for only 2-4 hours of limited exposure.