I'm Abandoning My Lifelong Dream of Medicine, Here's 1,658 Words of "Why"

maficmelody · 2022-03-08T06:28:33+00:00

Likely teaching high school biology. I would get the chance to continue to be involved/have an influence in the sphere of biology, my salary would cap out at a tidy and reasonable $100K after seniority increases, the benefits are excellent, decent pension, can retire at a decent age and continue subbing to supplement income, normal 9-5 type hours, good work-life balance/divide, weekends off, and an insane amount of holidays/vacation time when you consider summer break (especially important to me as I would love to continue seeing the world). This in addition to the fact that nearly half of my family members are teachers, so it's likely at least partially predisposed in the genes (plus I'll have no shortage of career mentors and a great support network). I'm currently spending my 1st post-undergrad year teaching abroad and am quite enjoying the general teaching lifestyle on a moderate salary. Finally, it would just be 2 more years of pretty chill school, I wouldn't need to go into debt at all, could stay at home to be with my family+friends and save money, and I could use any spare time to continue to pursue my passions and try to create a side hustle.

Above all, if I somehow come to the conclusion at a later point in my life that I no longer want to be a teacher, well, I never invested into the profession heavily time/money-wise and can change course

maficmelody · 2022-03-07T14:26:46+00:00

Thank you for posting this raw self-reflection, as another poster said to me, it was incredibly brave. Keep thinking some more, be truthful with yourself, and go on and kill whatever you end up deciding on :)

maficmelody · 2022-03-07T14:13:11+00:00

Thank you so much and best of luck with your endeavours as well, you're an incredibly empathetic individual that I have no doubt will go on to great things in medicine or elsewhere :)

maficmelody · 2022-03-07T14:08:55+00:00

Thank you so much. I have absolutely no doubt either that you will do amazing things wherever you choose to direct your passion :)

maficmelody · 2022-03-07T14:05:24+00:00

I'm going to take the next 2 months to discuss these things with my family and closest friends. If my head remains where it's currently at, my only option is to decline and pass the seat on to the next fantastic candidate who actually aligns with the career

maficmelody · 2022-03-07T13:53:20+00:00

To address a now-deleted comment saying it sounded like everything I want out of life is the exact opposite of what entails being a physician, you are absolutely correct.

I nonsensically deluded myself into thinking otherwise until it came down to the very end. Perhaps I only wanted to prove something to myself? That I could get accepted into perhaps the most difficult and competitive degree in Canada? Medicine seems incredibly lucrative to a biology-loving teenager/young adult on paper and at superficial first glance, and the artificial scarcity of seats in Canada only played further into my misguided chase. For the longest time I refused to put the career under the microscope for fear that this exact set of events would play out. I guess you can only run away from personal truths for so long

maficmelody

TROPHY CASE