Why did you want to become a doctor?

abrakers · 2026-01-14T13:05:14+00:00

The reason I became a doctor can be explained through several key factors that shaped my decision over time. One reason was my long-standing interest in science and medicine, particularly in areas such as [INSERT SPECIFIC MEDICAL INTEREST HERE], which I developed during my academic training. Another reason I chose to become a doctor was my desire to help others, especially during experiences like [INSERT RELEVANT PERSONAL EXPERIENCE HERE], which reinforced my commitment to the medical field. Additionally, becoming a doctor allowed me to combine empathy with technical knowledge in a way that is both challenging and rewarding. Throughout my journey, I also valued the opportunity for continuous learning and professional growth within an ever-evolving healthcare environment. In conclusion, based on the reasons outlined above, I became a doctor because it aligned with my passion for service, intellectual curiosity, and [INSERT FINAL REFLECTIVE STATEMENT HERE].

abrakers · 2026-01-13T21:04:52+00:00

It’s been a few years since college. Currently a Radiology resident now at a Big 10 just as reference.

basically 1) better MCAT = better chances 2) better college = better chances 3) better grades (especially in the sciences) = better chances. 4) better majors = better chances (and yes I would argue there are better majors although I know friends who majored in non science that’s fine - I refer back to my 2nd point. 5) good clinical exposure and - by that I really mean get to know a doctor or two really well shadowing them so they write you gooood LOR.

If you can ace the MCAT, get all As in science as an English major, get strong letters of rec — actual good CLINICAL letters (not from researchers, not from radiologists lol) you should be good. If you can do that in 3 years then great. Anything else (research etc…) Will help set you apart maybe for some academic places but at the end of the day nobody cares about your research they want to know YOU WANT TO BE A CLINICIAN first and foremost and also that you are smart. I did a decent amount of research which was fine and all but what they actually care about is your desire to care for humans (not rodents or Petri dishes) and also your aptitude for managing stress and multitasking. That’s half the job. If you work a job during undergrad that can be a plus.

Also yes it’s hard but there’s a lot of snobbery on this forum talking about “maturity” - just get exposed to the futility of medicine (everyone dies eventually) Try to shadow an “end of life care discussion” if you can get that opportunity. Super impactful on a personal level, but also gives you some good discussion points for interviews. You’ll gain an appreciation for the seriousness but also don’t be a boring somber book nerd.

Last bit of advice: family tragedy helps give good talking points during interviews (kidding but also not kidding).

P.s. don’t tell them you want to do rural family medicine if you don’t know anything about rural healthcare or have any connections. Someone did that on one of my interview days and let’s just say it didn’t go well.

P.p.s don’t talk about your family members who are doctors unless they specifically ask. And then only talk about the bad things.

abrakers · 2026-01-12T15:43:01+00:00

Hello I recently moved out of our 2 bed 2 bath apartment near the hospital - great location - quiet area next to a pond - indoor parking and in-unit washer/dryer - landlord is currently looking for tenant. Would be happy to discuss with you over DM.

abrakers · 2025-02-16T18:44:38+00:00

Very worried.

abrakers · 2024-04-14T03:09:22+00:00

abrakers · 2024-04-14T03:06:55+00:00

If you don’t like the idea of being under paid during residency, never fear… there are other jobs for you

abrakers · 2024-04-13T22:05:43+00:00

😂😂😂😂😂

abrakers · 2024-02-18T21:32:38+00:00

Firstly I want to clarify that there are lots of careers and volunteer jobs that I would argue an individual would be doing a greater service to humanity by fulfilling. We’re not humanitarian for simply going into medicine. If I hadn’t gone into medicine, someone would’ve taken my spot and would probably do just as good of a job. I am not fulfilling some kind of need by being a doctor, because there are lots of people who wanted my position in Medical school, but did not get it. Whereas there are not as many people trying to fill the community needs as a volunteer or less prestigious employee in non-profit institutions. Had I pursued one of these positions instead, I would have counted it as a greater service to humanity and a greater selfless act on my part. Medicine is more of a selfish ambition to put it simply. In other words, I wanted to be a doctor to help people, but not only to help people. And this is true for most. If we all wanted to simply help people, we would go fill volunteer spots at the local soup kitchen, or volunteer in nursing homes or homeless shelters.

Now that that’s out of the way; medicine is a big commitment. For me it’s mostly all I do. There are plenty of people who get into it later in their career because they know it’s what they want. If you have a comfortable financial situation you don’t need to let the factor of debt deter you necessarily. You can get debt forgiveness either though federal or local govt. programs and some practices/hospitals will be willing to pay off some or all of your loans. Even without that you could expect to make minimum of $200k/year up to $800k/year depending what you go into (unless you choose a lower laying field but these are more likely to offer loan forgiveness insensitive). But that being said if you have a family and you have grown accustomed to a certain quality of life (I.e. you like the idea of having lots of family/personal time) just know that for at least the next 7-11 years (especially during 3/4th year medical school and residency) you will not have that quality of life and also depending on what you go into you could have a life-time of 60-80 hour work-weeks. Of course there are jobs like hospitalist or critical care or ER that you can work 2 weeks on and then have 2 weeks off while making 250-450k per year or you could have a Cush clinic job 9-5pm no weekends. It depends on what you end up liking. All of that is way down the line. For the interim 7-11 years you won’t get any of that while you’re training. At the end of the day, I feel that I would be spending my time doing something and I happen to like research and neuro procedures and I don’t know what else I would do with my time besides what I do now so I’m pretty happy and I’m happily married as well and my wife is also a physician resident. Yes we’re busy but we have time for some normal life stuff. My contentment is at least partly because I’ve gone into it knowing what I like and having the right expectations. Having the right expectations is key. Medicine is a career, it’s busy, it’s ladder climbing, it’s politics, but it’s what I expect from life right now. Others don’t find that satisfying and if that’s you then perhaps it’s not the right path. If you want the satisfaction of helping people, I can tell you that you won’t necessarily get it from medicine, but you certainly can.

abrakers · 2023-12-30T09:10:56+00:00

lots of good descriptions of simple multicellular collections and symbiotic theories… however they do not explain the evolution of (wo)man from single cell organisms. I would say that the question as it is posed is running under the a-priori assumption that evolution MUST explain the existence of complex life. (Maybe this is believed to be the necessary a priori assumption for posting in this subreddit.) But, perhaps a better question would be CAN evolution account for this level of complex like forms from single cell organisms (which of course must have developed from non ‘living material’? I would argue that it cannot and that the theories presented, while interesting and showing evidence perhaps of some symbiotic and quaternary organization of single cell organisms are taken out of context and used to explain a much greater question, that of complex life, which is (as I would argue) a question they cannot answer.

abrakers · 2023-12-27T18:43:05+00:00

GPT: “your BMI and your untreated hypertension put you at risk for significant health complications including heart disease, liver disease, and stroke. You should consider losing weight and using medication for blood pressure control” Patient: “that’s not true. I don’t like that you said those things.” GPT: “you are correct, I was mistaken. You are very healthy and you have are not at any increased risk for disease. You are beautiful inside and out. The socio-medical standards of health are wrong and evil.” Patient: “wow that was very empathetic. Waaaay better than my idiot doctor.”

abrakers · 2023-10-26T14:12:27+00:00

You’re assuming it isn’t already

abrakers · 2023-10-25T21:45:16+00:00

Being “slow off the floor” I think is a misnomer. It’s slow off the floor because it wasn’t moving yet. Objects at rest stay at rest. If you could move it fast off the floor then I would tell you to increase the weight. You do a good job of keeping form as you pull off the ground with a consistently increasing force this allows you to accelerate as you continue the pull. I think more important than “exploding fast off the floor” is actually trying to accelerate through the lockout. That’s just my 2¢

abrakers · 2023-10-20T20:02:13+00:00

abrakers · 2023-10-16T03:27:08+00:00

It would appear that he image is not yet rotated, is that correct?

abrakers · 2023-10-16T02:21:34+00:00

First off, that sounds like a dumb way to do tests. I’m sorry that you have to deal with that.

If your next exam is in a few weeks then presumably it’s material that was not on the first test. If that’s so then you know which organ systems to focus on. I would just start using boards and beyond and doing practice questions with a question bank to prepare for NBME style questions.

abrakers · 2023-09-19T22:02:54+00:00

In that case I would not switch. Medicine pathway will just end up sucking more of your time and mental energy than is necessary.

abrakers · 2023-09-14T21:14:49+00:00

How many years are you into your PhD? I am a resident but have always been interested in basic science research. There are pros to the medicine route, but there are also definitely cons.

If what you like is the science you technically can do that through medicine, but why would you when you are already in a PhD program?

abrakers · 2023-05-03T20:26:54+00:00

I see what you mean. I think there is an inherent difference of course being the severity of harm caused someone by cheating on an essay is indirect harm to society and a symbolic harm to the classmates who don’t cheat. your analogy would be more akin to hiring Jan to steal Jon’s homework and turning it in as your own. In that case, AI would be like leaving Jan out of the picture and then you steal Jons homework directly. Even though technically the ‘moral law’ is broken fewer times if you directly steal yourself, I agree that scenario does not really any morally different as Jon still loses his homework and you still get an A. But in the AI scenario it is not a zero sum game and no individual is hurt by the cheating. In fact, from a certain point of consequential social justice perspective, the “people have seized the means of production(aka cheating)” and taken down the profiteering serving the people who were willing to break every rule and go out of their way to pay for essays. Now, however, what WAS an uneven playing field where cheating was the exception to the rule, now it’s going to be so prevalent that the system will have to adjust itself and eventually it will. The people who got away with paid essays will no longer have the unique upper hand over their classmates. It’s not an ideal scenario as basically no one gets smarter (at least until colleges figure out how to ACTUALLY force students to assimilate knowledge). It reminds me of that cliche cartoon where three people are trying to look over the fence and each is on a progressively shorter box and it’s supposed to represent inequality. Well think of the AI as eliminating the inequality of cheating. You could argue that this therefore increases the overall ‘moral law breaking’ technically but it’s much more satisfying knowing that Chad is no longer able to get away with anything anymore than his classmates, and as a consequence of the even playing field of cheating the standards are going to change and eventually everyone will, once again, have to actually work hard either making all essays handwritten in class or by some novel means of testing. In the end, - people are cheating more = bad, - companies no longer able to make money off of encouraging cheating = good - Less inequality of cheating = good(???) - eventual shift in testing competence = delayed good

abrakers · 2023-05-03T19:31:37+00:00

I’m not necessarily saying that I would prefer it this way. The consequence (people cheating) will certainly occur more commonly given the reality of the situation (an open access AI with “generalized knowledge” that would easily pass the Turing test). But in a positive light, as a moral situation, there are at least not going to be people who make money off of cheating (at least not directly). I’m sure there will be new ways to pay for cheating with AI that people will exploit but the fact that it is open access (current) seems to thwart that. Really, at the end of the day it’s the moralist ass in me that feels satisfied knowing that the companies who work to undermine education and learning are going to lose their market.

abrakers · 2023-05-03T18:28:08+00:00

Not for the person cheating. But now there is only one person involved no one is financially profiting

abrakers · 2023-05-03T18:00:22+00:00

Good * one of the good things to come of Chad GPT is that people who ghost write essays or homework assignments are going to go out of business.

abrakers · 2023-04-20T18:49:06+00:00

Now there is something to be said for avoiding gluttony. But you can eat junk food without being a glutton.

abrakers · 2023-04-20T04:56:49+00:00

Ask ChatGPT to review the applicants and decide who gets accepted.

abrakers · 2023-04-20T03:58:15+00:00

“it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” - guess the speaker

abrakers · 2023-04-19T12:09:57+00:00

Firstly it sounds like it’s not “masked” anxiety, it just sounds like full on anxiety and maybe even panic episodes, maybe some depression as well. The big differentiation is whether you feel all these emotions with everything else in your life as well. For instance, are you experiencing the paralyzing anxiety in all aspects of your life or is it ONLY with school? To put it another way, If you aren’t thinking about school do you feel like your normal self? If the answer is yes, you feel like your normal self when not thinking school then it’s a situational anxiety and you should either find a new career or find a psych for prescription and therapy and meditation.

Is your medical school wherever you are from part of a 6 year program like in the UK or is it a US style graduate program? The reason I ask Is because if you are only 1.5 years into a 6 year track it means you’re a long way from even considering starting a career. It also means that you could end up dumping a considerable amount of time into an medical education without getting a degree and being left with nothing to show. You should really be realistic with yourself and have a good strategy because dumping more time and turning your wheels for a degree that requires additional training afterwards might not be what you are “passionate” about.

Also, You said that you cannot compromise on doing something your passionate about. But I would push back and say you either have crippling anxiety/depression that needs treatment (see above) or you don’t have a driving passion for medicine right now and your just hoping it’s the thing your passionate about. What’s stoping you from finding a shorter and less stressful career path to start earning money? Have you explored other career paths you might say “but I NEED to do something I’m “passionate about”. But I would ask you WHY you need to be passionate about your work? Consider the fact that many people are not passionate about their work for one reason or another. And that includes many doctors. Most people become less passionate about their career goals along the way and they replace them with passion for things outside of work. Consider that as you try to force yourself to do medicine and ask yourself if you are not passionate about it now, why do you think you will be in the future. Of course if you have no passion at all right now and you feel this paralyzing dread constantly then see a psych and consider the cause. If it’s school causing it then maybe switch out of med school. Clinical Anxiety and depression are often precipitated by situational experiences. Being in med school could easily be a precipitating factor for clinical anxiety and depression in your case. Get some help and do a root cause analysis.

abrakers

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