Medicine with a Family - Questions from a potential medical student

[diggitydot]

Having a family is not an excuse to slack. DH was a gunner in med school while tutoring AND TAing in the anatomy lab.

[Vanquisher]

Depends on the type of residency? He needs to do the best he can. Derm is a tough match as are ortho, neuro, and top programs in many specialties. It sounds like this dude should walk away.

[ides]

Sounds like he wants to know how little he can do & still suceed. You need to be all in it 100%. It's competitive & ruthless. You can't slack in medicine, ever. Not sure this is the right career for him.

[peggyfromwastate]

I was just talking to a MS2 who is trying to select a specialty. He doesn't want to work 80 hour weeks, really wants to be available for his family. He was looking at ortho but decided against it bc of the family issues. I cautioned him that even a family friendly residency is still brutal at times. You won't get away from senior residents who want to make your life difficult, attendings in love with assigning random presentations, pressure to do research and conferences... The actual hours you spend with patients is only a part of the gig...

As all starry eyed med students, he missed the point. There is no magic residency that will be family friendly... And I'm pretty convinced that even the sweetest lifestyle positions come with stress...

But this guy will find the magical residency!!! He's leaning towards derm, bless his little heart. Just like my dear dh was back in the day. Before he was bitten by the surgery bug.

[niener]

It sounds like he may not be getting into medicine for the right reasons. Even in the most family friendly residency programs, he will have to pick his job over his family many, many, many times. He will still have to rotate on every type of service as a MS3 and MS4 so those two years will be very hit or miss. There are no hour rules for med students. Plus the amount of debt he's likely to accumulate over those four years, unless his wife has an extremely well paying job he will almost have to go into derm or something similar to get the lifestyle he wants and not be swimming in debt for the next 30 years, but those specialties are so competitive that to even have a chance at getting into them he'll have to work his ass off in med school and won't have the lifestyle he wants for those 4 years. Medicine really needs to be his calling. If he can picture anything else he would be just as happy doing for the rest of his life, I'd say go do that. If he wants to get into medicine to be a provider for his family, go do something else.

[Pollyanna]

I almost never discourage someone from medicine but this guy just doesn't seem like a good fit. Honestly he comes across as a whiney slacker and he's not even in medical school yet. He wants to get everything but only put in minimal effort. Sounds more like a teenager than a man with a family. Like DD said, "having a family is not an excuse to slack", if anything it means you better be a gunner to give your family more and better choices. I wouldn't even stear him towards PA or NP because he just doesn't seem commited enough for those careers.

[SoonerTexan]

What is his career now? That would tell a lot. Medicine is def at the top of the sucky list, but it certainly isn't the only life sucking career out there.

[SuzySunshine]

I don't think he sounds like a slacker, I think he sounds like someone who wants to be a doc but also wants his family life to stay largely unchanged. It may be that he doesn't understand that really isn't possible hence the questions.

DH and I didn't know what we were getting into, does anyone really? DH has an uncle that is a physician but neither of us TRULY understood the time and sacrifices until we were in it. I would just have him honest answers and let him make his choice.

[GrayMatterWife]

What Peggy said! This guy misses the broader point.

Yes, there are some extremes: for example, Vanquisher's DH's experience was unspeakably bad. I've never heard of even a NSG having gone through what they went through. Also, I had a friend who did a pediatrics residency at Hopkins that was so abusive and malignant that she nearly left medicine, and was seriously depressed for several years afterward.

While on the fringe, these experiences have to be prepared for, in a worst-case-scenario situation. Are you willing to be an MD if you end up in this type of situation, or are you willing to start over in a new residency if this happens to you? I cannot imagine being in that situation--pushed to the breaking point by medicine. But you have to know how you'd handle it. I'd like to think we'd walk away, into a new specialty. I'm almost glad I was ignorant of the true possibility of hell before we started NSG.

But, more broadly, the issue is NOT "how can I structure my education and training around my family life, so I do not have to sacrifice anything for that family life (or as little as possible, anyway)?" Medicine--no matter what speciality--is a life of sacrifice. For you and for your family. I know ORTHOpods would work a hell of a lot less than PATH and I know FMs who have no personal life because of their dedication to the job.

The issue is: "Am I the type of person who can lead my family through this sacrifice so that it is a worthy, appropriate and worthwhile effort for my family?". Going into a ROADs speciality definitely does not mean that you would be able to "handle" the medical life better. Business demands, academic rigors, and patient needs will undermine that, regardless of the speciality.

I agree with the others. Steer this guy away from med school; it sounds like he'd be much happier as a midlevel than a physician, and there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with that.

He has... 4 (was it?) kids and is considering medicine as a second career. I missed it if his age was posted, but I'm assuming he's not your typical 20-something going into med school. If he chooses medicine, all else aside, he could be digging his family into some serious debt, and he simply might not have enough working years to pay back loans, continue saving for retirement, contributing to his kids' college funds, etc, etc. Plus, as the others said, he sounds seriously naive about the commitment medicine requires. I think almost all med students are naive and starry-eyed when they start out (otherwise the doctor shortage would be much, much worse! LOL), but prospective students who already have families and careers really need to go into this as fully prepared as possible.

Regardless of what specialty he eventually chose, he'd still have to put in 4 years of med school crap, and how old would his kids be at that point? Does he really want to miss out on the next 4 years+ of his kids' childhoods? There's just so much he needs to consider, and I'll bet he (and his family!) would be very unhappy if he chose to go the doc route.

[diggitydot]

Regardless of what specialty he eventually chose, he'd still have to put in 4 years of med school crap, and how old would his kids be at that point? Does he really want to miss out on the next 4 years+ of his kids' childhoods? There's just so much he needs to consider, and I'll bet he (and his family!) would be very unhappy if he chose to go the doc route.

Med school can be done with kiddos without missing out on everything in their lives. It just takes the ability to balance well.

Med school can be done with kiddos without missing out on everything in their lives. It just takes the ability to balance well.

To be fair, I didn't say he would miss out on *everything*. But if he's currently used to typical 9-5 type hours, he would be missing out on a whole lot more than he probably is at the moment.

This guy sounds like he has some serious, justified concerns and that he's trying to figure out how to do it all, when the fact is that you can't do *it all*. Something has to give, somewhere, and I think that most of us here have seen first hand that when one parent/spouse is in medicine, more often than not the entire family sacrifices.

[moonlight]

I agree. I know we have members on here with large families but a family with four kids is going to a big big burden for the wife unless he has lots of family support.

[MissCrabette]

I agree with everyone saying that medicine might not be the best field for this guy. I think I'd be pissed if I were his wife if he put me and the family through all that is medical school and residency only to aim to be average. Obviously someone has to be average and below average, but I don't think anyone aims for that. While family time is important, making the best of something that your family has sacrificed for is also important. If he doesn't want this badly enough to be willing to do just about anything for it, he shouldn't drag his family through this.

[GrayMatterWife]

I think I'd be pissed if I were his wife if he put me and the family through all that is medical school and residency only to aim to be average.

Ok--THAT'S what I meant to say! MissCrabette captured it very well. It sounds like he wants to be a mediocre doctor so that he can have the exact kind of family life he wants. This is not a guy I'd want to take my kids to see as their physician. The guy who did as little as possible in terms of commitment.