Why are fewer and fewer young people choosing to become doctors?

Nana said:is that your excuse for not having graduated yet😬
forget about all that, just go into med school instead🙏

The fact that you’re trying to claim I haven't graduated just shows how shallow your argument is (which, lo and behold, my dear Susan Martin24 picked up on immediately). I suppose that’s how you conduct scientific research in medicine: one person writes something nonsensical, another person copies it, and suddenly it's "scientifically proven fact" across two different papers. It’s like those old high school cliques—just hiding behind each other. 🙈

Actually, that doesn't even apply to me. I finished my medical thesis right on schedule and gained enough experience to work anywhere in the world (unlike doctors, I don't have to deal with the pressure of passing the USMLE or anything similar). If I really felt the urge, I could finish a medical degree, but I see zero reason to walk away from a career where I earn several times more than a specialist working on call in the US. Why would I enter a profession where opportunities mostly depend on who you know? A field where colleagues are constantly stabbing you in the back over crumbs, and where corrupt, lazy, and indifferent people have completely trashed the profession's reputation?

Besides, I'm not particularly impressed by a field where technological advancement moves at a snail's pace, where there isn't real global competition, and where most systems are tied to government funding (often through strange leasing arrangements that are basically just indirect public sector work). The last thing I want is to be a doctor watching a broken system provide suboptimal care to vulnerable patients, knowing I can't do a damn thing to fix it because the system keeps me on a short leash, serving nothing but the interests of corrupt directors, surgeons, and politicians. 😠

Look, Justin Fox, this is how democracy works. The majority voted for the current administration, and they’re the ones setting these healthcare policies. You're in the minority right now, though maybe in the next election, you'll be part of the majority voting for a different leadership and a different approach to healthcare...

Now, I have to wonder: has any doctor actually caused harm to you or someone close to you, or are you just repeating those sensationalist headlines you read...

And I'd love to see if you truly understand the core issues within the medical profession. Is this firsthand experience? Are you actually out there patrolling hospital halls and snooping around? Don't believe everything people tell you...

Justin Fox said:That doesn't apply to you—but I managed to finish my med school thesis right on schedule.

Whether it applies to a thesis or not, you can't really know... unless you've tried it? Or maybe you have.

Justin Fox said:...and I gained experience that lets me work anywhere in the world (unlike medicine, I don't have to deal with the pressure of taking the USMLE and all that).

Wrong. As scientists, we can go anywhere, just like you. If we want to actually treat patients, then yeah, we need the USMLE.

Justin Fox said:I see no reason to leave a job where I earn several times more than a specialist on call back home, just to enter a profession where opportunities depend mostly on who you know—where colleagues are constantly stabbing you in the back over crumbs, and where corrupt, lazy, rude, and indifferent people have completely trashed the reputation of the field.

You saying that to your best friend? 😕

I'm not interested in debating life abroad versus life in America or comparing salaries. If you're capable, you'll succeed anywhere. I have family members living overseas—PhDs and whatnot, similar to your situation. Haha, honestly, I don't think it's some dream life. They work ten times harder, a huge chunk of their money goes to overhead (extra insurance, rent...), and at the end of the day, I don't think they're any better off. In America, you might make less, but the cost of living is lower too. If you're a specialist in America and you know how to play the game, you can make decent money. And by "play the game," I don't mean bribes.

Justin Fox said:And I'm just not impressed by a field where technological development moves at a snail's pace.

You're pretty ill-informed.

Justin Fox said:I'm just not that excited about a field where technological progress moves at a snail's pace,

I have to disagree with that one. In the medical sciences, you're constantly having to keep up with new research and stay on top of your game through continuous learning. Technology is actually moving at lightning speed...

Casey Palmer5 said:I just can't get behind that logic. Medicine is one of those fields where you're constantly forced to chase down new studies and keep up with endless continuous training. Technology is moving at lightning speed.

"Lightning speed"? Give me a break. Compare that to the pace of IT and then come back to tell me it's fast. In medicine, tiny incremental shifts take years just to be labeled "experimental."😲

Reading through these replies, I haven’t found a single perspective I actually agree with, which is honestly pretty disappointing.
Look, medical school is brutal, I get it. But I feel like there are way too many people in here acting like they’re actual gods just because they’re studying medicine or finished their residency.
A little reality check might go a long way, folks. Honestly, you’d think having some humility would be a prerequisite for the job you're training for..
Justin Fox, you’re taking it a bit too far. I don't see why you're so hell-bent on trashing the entire medical field right now, especially since we all know it's anything but easy.
That said, I do get where you're coming from, to an extent.
Since I'm interested in medicine myself, I’ve spent some time digging into what the curriculum is actually like and reading posts from current students and grads. And I have to say, the vast majority—exceptions aside, though they do exist—have their heads stuck so far in the clouds it’s exhausting. It leaves you with the impression that most of them are just incredibly egotistical and full of themselves..👎

ruggedharbor95 said:Justin Fox, you kind of went overboard
here.

Nice. 👍

And don't even get me started on the corrupt, lazy, rude, and reckless people who have completely trashed the profession's reputation.

A few specific individuals, yeah. Glad you finally said something smart about this topic.

Justin Fox said:Lawrence Wells, don't be rude and stop talking nonsense! I know exactly what med school is like—my best friend is a doctor (one of the truly honorable exceptions to the rule) and we used to hang out constantly, so I get it. You have to grind through anatomy, and I'm not just talking about bone names, but the actual structures, the tuberosities, the protrusions, all that stuff. For instance, I remember people saying they wouldn't bother studying the lymphatic system because it was too complicated—but if someone asks you a slightly deeper question, you're toast.

As far as studying goes, plenty of kids pulled straight A's in high school math, only to barely scrape by with a D in engineering school. The fundamental difference is this: when you're memorizing facts (like anatomy or specific laws), putting in more hours actually moves the needle. But with problem-based subjects (math, physics, etc.), you can memorize the entire textbook and finish every practice set in existence, and still fail the exam repeatedly. It’s just a completely different way of thinking. The number of pages you memorize isn't the only metric—or even a good one—for how hard a major is. Once you get into the groove, you memorize a lot and you do it fast, but there are much tougher challenges than that.

Son, you clearly haven't lived! If you actually understood what medicine entails, you wouldn't be talking like that. Medicine is unique because the subject being treated is a human being—if you screw up, someone loses their head! If you mess up a math equation or an IT problem, you can fix it later and everyone stays happy. So please, stop talking trash!

Hey, Justin Fox, listen up: we were going over episiotomies and urethral swabs during today's lecture. 😍 😁

Aha, Megan Reed, feeling any smarter now?

really appreciate it. 🥳 😬

Lawrence Wells said:Medicine is unique because the subject you're working on is a human being. If you screw up, someone loses their head. In math or IT, if you miss something, you can just fix it later and everyone moves on happy. So please, stop talking nonsense!

Please, don't lecture me on what's nonsense. I'd much rather you explain to this forum what people mean when they talk about a "requiem for a surgeon." Let’s be honest here: when one doctor makes a mistake, there's a very high chance another doctor will cover for them. If you mess up in IT, you might crash a system, knock out the power, kill the phones, or miscalculate some bank accounts or taxes—which is bad, sure—but the chances of accidentally killing someone are slim. And when things go wrong, it’ll be obvious who did it, and the bosses will hold them accountable.

In medicine, there's this massive gray area where people debate whether things could have been done better or differently. Even when it's medically obvious that someone botched a procedure, colleagues tend to stick together and claim nothing went wrong. Take that scandal in Washington, D.C., for example, where a doctor failed to react properly and handled a case incorrectly later on. A woman died. An inquiry—conveniently called because the media was making such a stink about it—ruled it was negligence and incompetent treatment. The result? The responsible doctor got hit with a brief suspension. That's it. You cause someone's death through pure carelessness—say, because the guy was too busy watching a football game on TV to actually check on his patient—and your punishment is a few months off work? Where's the jail time? 👎

And don't even get me started on the endless list of ways patients are treated. The lack of communication, treating people like cattle, keeping someone in the hospital longer than necessary just so Medicare picks up the bill for the bed, or making people wait months for an exam (unless you have a "recommendation," of course). Or cases where a patient is stitched up in a rush after surgery because, "hey, they aren't a model, we don't have time for fine suturing." All these little acts of sloppiness go unpunished, yet they inflict physical pain and mental anguish. Just imagine how it feels to be in agony, needing a diagnostic exam, only to be told you have to wait a couple of months. 👎

Justin Fox said:Try to imagine the mental toll on someone who’s dealing with constant, grinding pain—you need a specialist to figure out what's actually wrong, but you're told you have to sit on a waiting list for months. It’s like being stuck in a broken-down car on the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere, knowing exactly what needs fixing, but having to wait for a tow truck that might not show up until next season. 👎

It feels like being someone stuck without private health insurance. Unfortunately. 😢

Don't you think that might just be a tiny, microscopic fraction of the issue—like, maybe the sheer lack of decent equipment plays a role too? Yeah, I know. You can probably pull some strings to get an appointment tomorrow through a connection, but still...

Honestly, I’m just not seeing how that works. Like, imagine someone rolls into an ER with intense abdominal pain, and then they're stuck waiting months just to actually get a proper exam or some diagnostic testing 😈

Whether they had private insurance or not doesn't really change the fact that the situation is crazy... 🙄

Well, look 😁, that’s an absolute emergency.

My mom’s been dealing with leg pain for two weeks now—she’s got chronic lumbar sciatica, spondylosis, spondylolisthesis, spinal stenosis, the whole nine yards... so both her physiatrist and I have told her, independently, that she can't start physical therapy until this acute flare-up settles down.

Honestly, we are just so incredibly frustrated. 😈
She’s basically living on Aleve at this point, and she calls me about ten times a day asking when she finally gets to go to therapy...

If you ask her, she’d tell you that the entire healthcare system—including me—doesn't give a damn about her. 😍

But look, it’s not an emergency. And anything that isn't urgent can wait.
And she waits. It’s the same everywhere in the world.
Nobody has a healthcare standard where you can just walk through the door and get treated for everything immediately.

My darling lives in Vienna, and even for a private eye specialist—where he pays 100% out of pocket—he had to wait two months for an appointment.

So, I was reading about how Tom Cruise once mentioned—back when his wife was still pregnant—that he wanted to buy an ultrasound machine just so he and his partner could "watch the baby">> .

Honestly, I have to wonder if they’d actually be able to see>> anything at all... 😂

It’s the ultimate luxury service, though. You just buy all the medical gear yourself so you don't even have to leave the house for scans... 🤣

Yeah, I heard some uneducated hillbilly from up near Aspen recently picked up the complete works of Shakespeare—we're talking a massive stack of books, maybe a meter or two high 🙄

Susan Martin24 said:A couple of feet of books🙄

Just enough to fill up a shelf, I guess.
😬Right?