Enjoyment & Interest

Are you fascinated by the human body, diseases, injuries, treatments etc? Does learning about them bring you joy? If the answer is no then you will be bored to death in medical school.

More importantly, can you picture yourself still enjoying a life in medicine in 5 years, 20 years, until you’re retired? Of course, it’s never too late to change career. However, training to become a doctor is a long and challenging journey, one you’d rather not take if you can’t see yourself enjoying it in the long run.

Do you get excited by the thought of performing medical or surgical procedures? Do you want to make important decisions? Can you picture yourself explaining conditions and treatment options to patients?

If the reality of medicine (not the TV show version) makes you light up inside then medicine is a good choice for you!

Fulfilment

Your career is a huge part of your life that will take up a large portion of your time and energy. Studying and working in medicine should feel like a valuable use of your time and give you a sense of fulfilment. If you don’t think you can get this sense of satisfaction and purpose from medicine then find something else that will fulfil you.

You’re Willing to Make Sacrifices for Medicine

I’m not saying you should sell your soul to medicine but you will inevitably have to make sacrifices for medicine. Your time, sleep, extra-activities, social life – everything will take a hit at one point or another. Don’t panic, you can still make time for yourself and your life outside of medicine. However, no-one can deny that it is a very demanding career path with lots of work and responsibility. You need to love medicine enough to give some things up for it.

You Enjoy Helping & Communicating with Other People

A major aspect of a career in medicine is communicating with patients. The reason we are here is to help patients and we can’t do that if we’re not able to empathise and communicate with them. Being a good listener and communicator is essential for medicine. Even in the specialties that rarely deal directly with patients (such as radiology and lab medicine) you will still need to communicate effectively with members of your team and other hospital staff. Teamwork is a crucial part of medicine. Lone wolfs don’t fit this career. Being able to work together with both patients and colleagues is a must.

You Feel a Calling Towards Medicine

Some describe medicine as less of a career and more of a vocation. You need an inner drive to keep going when the workload becomes overwhelming, when you’re on a night shift instead of out with friends, when things go wrong and mistakes are made. Your instinctive pull towards medicine will reassure you and prevent you from giving up.

For Others

• Parents. A lot of parents have a vision for their children to study medicine. They’re under the false impression that medicine is the height of success. Medicine is a valuable and wonderful career but there are so many other worthwhile careers out there. It’s really difficult going against what your parents want for you but if you go into medicine only to please your family then you will end up miserable and resentful towards them. If you need help please speak to your school counsellor, family doctor or another trusted adult.
• Patients. A lot of people feel strongly compelled to ease the suffering of others. However, you can’t help patients if you’re utterly miserable because you have zero interest in medicine beyond helping others and the lifestyle doesn’t suit you. There are plenty other ways to reduce suffering and help others that don’t involve scrubs. Don’t choose medicine because you think it’s ‘the right thing to do.’ Choose medicine because you want to.
• Society. Maybe you were born into a family of medics, maybe your school is dead set on churning out future doctors. Whatever it is don’t feel pressured by other people’s choices and expectations of you. You should only choose to study medicine if it will make you truly happy.

Status & Money

When you imagine yourself in medicine do you picture yourself at patients’ bedsides, breaking bad news, discussing a complicated case with your colleagues. Or can you not get past the dazzling image of you telling everyone ‘yes, yes, I really am in medicine.’ If it’s the latter then I’m sorry to say that moment of glory will only last a few seconds, whereas the reality of being a doctor will be with you constantly. Hate to break it to all the Meredith Grey and Dr Shepherd wannabes but medicine is not a glamorous career.

As for the money, yes a career in medicine will give you a decent stable income but for the price of serious hard work and responsibility. Money alone is not enough motivation to stay in medicine. There are plenty of other ways to make money, pick something that you’ll enjoy.

Validation & Purpose

Maybe you’re using medicine as a way to feel better about yourself? Do you feel you don’t deserve to be happy when others are suffering? Do you feel you’re not worthy of love unless you’re serving others?

You are deserving of love, respect and happiness regardless of what you choose to do with your life.

There are plenty of other ways to help people and make a difference that aren’t medicine. In fact, I’d say you have the potential to have a positive impact on the world in any career. It all depends on how you treat others and whether you stay true to yourself and your values.

You Like Science

This is a completely fine reason to study medicine when combined with some of the other more important ones as mentioned above. However, it’s not enough on its own. There’s a lot more to medicine than science. It involves understanding and communicating with others, making judgement calls based on limited information, being observant. If the only aspect of medicine you find interesting is science then why not be a scientist?

You Can Get the Points

Just because you’re able to get high points it doesn’t mean you have to do a high point course. You have the opportunity to choose any course you want, why choose something you’re not passionate about? You should reward yourself for doing well not sentence yourself to a lifelong punishment.