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

I haven't exactly heard anyone raving about how "Excellence" is the standard for Libyan medicine, to be honest.
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Well, looks like you just learned something new. By the way, doctors over in Iraq were actually trained by top-tier professors from the USA and England—real heavyweights. They were especially incredible when it came to surgical work, which was a godsend for the soldiers who were captured or wounded during the 1991 conflict in Iraq.

brightmarlin44, you can never go wrong with picking up some new info 👍

brightmarlin44 said:Justin Fox, I honestly had no clue that Libyan doctors were involved in😕 👎 or whatever else was going on😕. I do know that back in the 80s, those students were definitely more prepared than our lot here; the curriculum back then was incredibly rigorous.

There was this massive scandal where a handful of Bulgarian nurses and one doctor administered a vaccine to children that turned out to be contaminated with HIV. It resulted in a huge number of kids testing positive—I think over a hundred. At first, they actually sentenced the medical staff to death before commuting it to prison time. There’s still this endless debate about who was truly responsible for the tainted batch. If I recall correctly, they might still be behind bars in Libya.

Like Susan Martin24 says, you can never really go wrong with picking up something new along the way 😉

What’s driving this lack of interest?
-Maybe it’s because anyone who is actually serious about this finds the whole thing repulsive, given how much it's been overhyped and dramatized lately.
Nothing bothers me more than seeing someone acting all "soooo excited" and constantly pestering people during lectures with those endless examples pulled straight from some trashy reality TV show (as our commentator puts it).

Justin Fox said:There was once a scandal where several Buggar nurses and a doctor administered some kind of vaccine to children, which was later discovered to be contaminated with HIV. Because of this, many children tested positive for HIV—I believe it was over 100. Initially, the nurses and the doctor were sentenced to death, though that was later commuted to prison sentences; there was quite a debate regarding who was ultimately responsible for the vaccine. If I recall correctly, they are still imprisoned in Libya.

A vaccine itself cannot be "infected" with AIDS. 😬 (It can be contaminated with HIV, certainly, but not with AIDS)
AIDS stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. Most people living with HIV carry the virus for years until it causes enough damage to the immune system to create the conditions necessary for AIDS to develop. By definition, the term AIDS refers to the late stage of an HIV infection.

Regarding those Buggar nurses, they were accused of intentionally infecting children alongside a Palestinian doctor, with the number of infected children reported to be upwards of 400.

You're right, Harold Mendoza3, it was something like that with the Buggar folks. To be fair, I misspoke—HIV is the virus itself, while AIDS is the advanced stage of the infection—but I think we all get the gist of what I was getting at.

Harold Mendoza3 is a student who really prides herself on being precise, okay, just sit tight for five😬 😈

Justin Fox said:I suppose people eventually look at the market reality and realize a few things:
- Medical school is brutal. It involves massive amounts of rote memorization; it isn't for everyone, and you have to grind incredibly hard.
- Medicine is an exceptionally long road. Between the schooling and the lengthy residencies or unpaid internships, you're looking at roughly twice the time of a "standard" degree.
- The job market is tough: there are far too many doctors and especially dentists. If you don't have powerful connections, you're likely stuck working in some remote, obscure town—if you can even find a spot.
- Working conditions in healthcare are often subpar: outdated facilities, old equipment, lack of resources, and limited opportunities for continuing education.
- Medical professions are deeply hierarchical. There’s always a director, a chief, or a manager breathing down your neck.
- The market is disorganized, so you can't just assume you'll earn a decent living and eventually open your own practice.
- The best opportunities go to the "nepo babies" with the right connections. Being talented doesn't help much, and even if your patients love you, it rarely moves the needle.
- Many private practitioners are caught in an absurd squeeze between rigid Medicare regulations and demanding patients.
- These professions are extremely restrictive regarding mobility: if you graduate in Country A, you can't just move to Country B. You have to pass language exams and face massive testing fees (like spending years preparing for the USMLE in the US) just to prove you actually know what you're doing.
- The public image of the medical system in America is pretty grim: underfunded, indifferent, corrupt, and plagued by arrogance. That reputation alone scares off potential students.

You put that perfectly.

brightmarlin44 said:Lawrence Wells, look—I didn't study engineering at MIT or anything, but I spent enough time hanging out with those guys to know one thing: I'm definitely not hardworking, driven, or precise enough to pull that off. Let me tell you once more—EVERY SINGLE DOCTOR WORKING TODAY KNOWS THAT MEDICAL SCHOOL ISN'T THE IMPOSSIBLE MOUNTAIN PEOPLE MAKE IT OUT TO BE!! There are plenty of majors out there that are way tougher than this.

Well, obviously! When you and people like you just coast through life living in total ignorance... ha! It’s not my fault you’re a failed OB-GYN!

To be honest, those physical features on a woman's body have never actually interested me from a professional standpoint—not even the ones on her back.😬 Wouldn't it be much nicer to be a psychiatrist, for instance?😎 Maybe I’ve just got some untapped psychic potential lying around somewhere.🙂 Anyway, like I was saying, my own complexes have settled down a bit since I started going by Dr.—even if the title is supposed to go after the name, I always stick it in front; it just feels right to me.😍

I mean, if you're stuck in a correctional facility in Pittsburgh, things are looking pretty rough, aren't they, Lawrence Wells?

brightmarlin44 The user said:Dr.—though I suppose the title really belongs after the name. I always insist on putting it before; there’s just something about the way it feels right to me.😍

If you’ve earned a PhD, you put "Dr." right before your name. If you’re an MD, though, the standard convention is to put "dr. med." after your surname. It’s one of those little nuances that matters more than people realize.
So, where exactly are you putting all those "Dr." titles? It feels like you're just talking about yourself at this point. I remember back in high school, we had this guy come in for some sort of internship program—I think his name was Drago Peric or something similar. He was running a metalworking workshop, which was mandatory for everyone in our vocational track. He always wore these blue overalls and was incredibly insistent on signing everything as Dr. Peric. Quite the character.🤣

Once again, I find myself agreeing with Justin Fox. That’s twice in a single week. 😲 😁

Saw this on TV the other day:

xxx yyy, MD
neurosurgeon

If that guy doesn't feel the need to overcompensate, then I don't see why anyone else should bother... sure, he's a neurosurgeon, but since he clearly hasn't earned a PhD or a research doctorate, there is absolutely no reason to tack that "Dr." title in front of his
name.

Just a quick correction here:

Justin Fox said:You only put "Dr." before your name if you have a PhD; otherwise, if you're a medical doctor, you write "dr. med." after your name (with a lowercase "d").

The capitalization doesn't really matter 😬, because if you hold a doctorate, it's listed as Ph.D.
[similarly, a Master of Science is M.S.] before the name.

So, for example, it would look like [ah, one day 😬]

Ph.D. Megan Reed, M.D.
specializing in psychiatry

heheeh 😬

Look, I’ve got some serious ego issues, so I’m slapping "Dr." in front of my name even though I don't have a PhD. If Ivić Pašalić can pull it off, why shouldn't I?😛

Hey Justin Fox, where on earth did the doctor go when he visited that lawyer who passed the bar back in the mid-1900s? :-)?

Are you talking about a J.D.? 🤔

A Juris Doctor and a Medical Doctor are fundamentally different beasts compared to

a Doctor of Science. 🥳

I mean, if you don't get that...

... she really ought to go take a look at the Higher Education Act for once. 😉

brightmarlin44 said:If Ivić Pašalić could pull it off, why shouldn't I?😛

Well, you certainly picked quite the role model... 🙏 😬