efex101 gave a fabulous suggestion to one of my posts, go to the physicians website and read their posts because some of your questions will be answered there.

Well, I wish I never would have ventured because now I am totally lost and I don't know what to do. I clicked on a link that allows you to view and read posts from the last year and anyone reading this just click on the post about whether or not to sue or something about a lawsuit. It has about 24 posts on it and reading it will make you want to vomit.

It goes into more depth about the TRUE medical profession than anywhere else I have ever read. I really don't know if I want to do this now after having read these posts in the physician section.

It is not pretty and it is damn accurate and not just a bunch of bitter old yahoos that don't know what they are talking about.

I used to read responses like their's and think "Oh whatever it won't happen to me I will get threw it, I can do it, I will manage, it can't be that bad, It doesn't matter because my desire to do this is strong.......

Well, for the first time I have really begun to reconsider this as a career option. And, what sucks is they aren't talking about how they wish they hadn't gone into medicine or they wish they knew then what they knew now because they just started hated medicine and their patients. It truley bolis down to a society that has a helathcare system set up to treat it's physicians like absolute crap and it is just getting worse. Their frustrations and depression and sadness comes from the fact that they all wanted tp be doctors of some sort and that this desire is waht got them threw the prereq's, threw med school, and residency and the licensing exams to become physicians and now that they are practicing, the system we have makes it so hard for them to be the kind of doctor's and people they set out to be in the beginning. The passion and drive and motivation to reach the vision of the kind of doctor they wanted to be is tainted with not getting paid what they should, not getting reimbursed for the multitudes of extra time spent providing services outside of the office, having debt coming out of every which way, malpratice insurance, being sued, overhead costs, too many patients and only 15 minutes to tend to them, all the massive amounts of paperwork that if aren't filled out correctly and totally you will not get paid.

And this is the first time that I have actually read people talking about med school debt being a huge problem. THey were all told the same things I and I feel like the rest of us are told that oh don't worry you will have it paid off so fast after you become a physician. Well, read these posts and you will see it is a heck of a lot more complicated and it takes more than a few years to even make a dent in that debt. And, they feel like they are now stuck in a profession they hate becasue the debt is so great that can't afford to quit even if they could. These are not people who are just starting out either, we are talking 5-10-15-20 year physicians posting.

Bottom line....all of these doctor's whose posts I have been reading from just this past year for the past 2 hours have had their profession stolen from them. All they want is to serve enough patients in order to make enough money to pay back huge loans, provide the kind of humanistic and wholistic care they went into medicine to provide in the first place, make those human connections, and still be home in enought time to spend time with their families and loved one's like anyone else. Yet, they themselves feel helpless and powerless to change it. They laugh at premeds talking about autonomy and being the boss when stating reasons why they want to be a doctor, because they have no autonomy. They are at the whim of all hospital administrations full of non-medical people and insurance companies and HMO"s telling them what to do. They are whores of the system to put it bluntly and these are examples they use themselves in their posts.

This is very depressing and I really don't know what to do at this point with this info.
But, thank you to efex101 for suggesting it because another issue they talked about was suing med schools for painting this completely false picture of what medicine is truly like to premeds and suckering us all in to an idealistic world.
In this journey I feel like I have been searching for the reasons why medicine? and had yet to really have it painted clear for me what the true disadvantages are to becoming a doctor. All I ever read and here are such positives. So much of me wishes this was not the case and I could go on and continue to ignore what I have just become privy to like most premeds that it will somehow be different for me.

But I guess the take home message is that it won't be different for any of us, maybe only worse and now that we at MOMMD have this kind of info available to us, deciding whether or not this is the path we want to take.

You are welcome! I think that as long as you are informed and go in "knowing" what might lay ahead is a MUST for any pre-med. I do love what I am doing *but* it is coming at a high cost for not only myself but for my family. Would I do it again? probably but not 200% sure. Sometimes I say sure I would do it over, others not. The bottom line is that medicine is a highly demanding career although there are others like that as well...AND it seems that everything about your life revolves around it. Because the training is so long it seems that there is no end to it and the training is no joke. My family misses me although I am *there* at home with them all the time studying but I am not "mentally" there most of the time and have my head stuck in books. Of course mileage may vary depending on how fast you absorb material some of us take longer to get stuff while others breeze through it. The problem is that you will not know what category you fall into until you start medical school regardless of how brilliant you were in undergrad. Medical school is a whole 'nother ball of wax ladies. I hope that you guys read and become informed and then think about your choice. If you want to have it ALL then medicine might not be for you...meaning a great family life, plenty of rest time, time to go do hobbies, meet with friends, and have a successful career. Medicine is just to time consuming for the most part to let you do ALL the things you love on a regular basis. There are some specialties that ARE more conducive to a good life BUT these are the highest paid specialties and very competitive. Dermatology is a great specialty for those that want a "normal" life but to get into it you have to be the woman! it is very difficult to know or plan BEFORE you get into medical school what you will be doing. You can kind of think of some likes or dislikes but there are never any guarantees that you will match into that dream residency. Also a lot of the discontent is from those that have young families and want a family life. So if you are willing to wait it out for some time...and enjoy your kids while they are young and spend time with them, then medicine is not a bad option AFTER the kids are older. Mine are older (teens) and I still miss a lot of their stuff due to medical school BUT it is not as difficult as if they were younger and more needy of my time.