All Current Doctors: Tell me about your motivations/have you made the right choice?

Now that you're practicing medicine in the real world, would you say that it what you expected way back when you were sending off your UCAS application? And this is in terms of contentment and job satisfaction, I presume that the latter hasn't quite met your expectation based on what you mentioned earlier?

Do remember when your generation gets old they will want medical care in their 80s and 90s! That is the substance of modern medicine and will continue to be so.

Talk to them ......they have had demanding and more interesting lives ( probably fought through WW11 or lived in a city like London when bombed in the Blitz) than you or I (age 52 doctor) are likely to have.

We owe your ''crumbling'' generation our freedom and don't forget it. Those thinking of going into medicine would be wise to make sure they like and can relate to the elderly..

Do remember when your generation gets old they will want medical care in their 80s and 90s! That is the substance of modern medicine and will continue to be so.

Talk to them ......they have had demanding and more interesting lives

We owe your ''crumbling'' generation our freedom and don't forget it.

Not really the NHS specifically. Its just that the average patient is a crumbling 84 year old mess (as in literally - the average age of patients admitted to the medical wards in Oxford is 84) with nothing to look forward to. And there are so many of them that the service is going to be in a state of emergency for about 10 years. My other options offer higher impact with less people looking over your shoulder.

I hadn't really much of a clue what medicine would be like when I went to medical school so didn't really have any expectations other than doing an interesting course, helping people and having to work long hours. The hours and stress of junior docs were in the press when i started med school although I was very vague about what a "junior doctor" was and how long the junior phase lasted before you became "senior".
I didn't do it for the money or prestige, if I had I would have been disappointed.
It's a much more varied and fascinating job than I appreciated when I entered it. For all the talk of teamwork it is a more lonely job when you are a senior doc and either doing surgeries or clinics. A lot of the time you are making decisions on your own, I didn't appreciate that bit, or how emotionally wearing it is.
I am happy being a doctor, but would have been happy doing other careers as well and don't believe that there is a "one true love job" any more than there is a "one true love person". A lot of being happy in life is more down to personality and attitude than what you are actually doing.
Most of my patients' jobs sound worse than mine.

I'm not sure what you would regard as being of "higher value" than diagnosing and treating illnesses. I'm a doctor, not a philosopher or a mystic. People live and then they die. My job is to try and extend their lives (in accordance with their wishes and the law) and try and detect disease early and help people manage their acute and chronic illnesses. I don't work miracles, I don't "save lives" as everyone dies eventually.
As a doctor I'm useful to society, but I'd also have felt useful to society working as a teacher, engineer, nurse, psychologist, care home assistant.
Being a doctor is just one of many useful jobs. We aren't special, but if you like working with people and science and making decisions it's an interesting job. It passes the time until it's my time to die as well.
That sounds more depressing than I mean it to. I'm suspicious of people who think they are special and destined to do their job, they tend to do things like lead us into a war with Iraq.

I suppose this is more prevalent amongst (a minority) GEM applicants, some of whom apply for medicine in particular because their existing professions weren't satisfying, not making them content or happy so they decided to apply for something more selfless in an effort to fill in a void they might have been feeling. I remember speaking to a financier at one of the open days, and despite the attainment of wealth in his position he wasn't impressed. There was a higher purpose to life, he concluded, were internal happiness and everlasting contentment first starts with a contribution to others' well-being. This is why he was there, and understood that becoming a doctor he will start on this path towards fulfilling this goal in his life.

That probably sounds a bit fluffy, especially if one hasn't engaged in deep thinking or introspection before, but ultimately, that what this thread is about.

I've heard a similar sort of fulfilment amongst teachers, but I think with physicians it's much more concentrated, and that's also why some people dispute that most other professions aren't as 'noble' in their causes and then ultimately opt for something in the healthcare profession. I think this is also where the aura and prestige originate.

You seem to be looking for a specific answer that you're not getting. And that's probably because once you start working the reality overtakes the romanticism.

I've wanted to be a doctor since I was 4. Never really wanted to do anything else. And yes money was a factor, but not in the way that you'd assume. I knew I wanted to help people. I wanted a stimulating job, but I also wanted enough income to have a comfortable stable life. Wasn't bothered about being rich and i'm still not, but knowing that I don't have to mentally count my pennies every time I buy a bottle of water is refreshing. I grew up poor and even as a child knew that I didn't want the same for myself. Of course medicine wasn't the only thing I could have done but I knew it was difficult and for me there was a perverse pleasure in doing what people assumed was beyond me.

I help people every day. I like my job. Do I save lives? Rarely. I may be involved in giving treatment and recognising unwell people but there is no heroism. I can't imagine doing a different job at the moment, but I only do it because I want to. And I don't love it enough to do it for free.

Explaining to my fiance that I may get moved around the country at will and that if we wanted to make the relationship work he either needed to follow me or put up with a long distance relationship was tough. Luckily he is supportive. Effectively feeling like my long term security is on hold until I become a consultant is something I hate. I can see why people do certain specialties because of life commitments. I have no qualms about considering a career as a staff grade later down the line if it gives me the work-life balance I want.

I'm glad i've done it and it's the right choice for me now, but it may not be in the future, who knows.

This thread isn't really about the money, although it seems to have taken that slant, perhaps because I mentioned something earlier.

But what is about wanting to help people? You mentioned that there aren't any lives being saved (directly), so I'm struggling to identify the source of motivation for one to graft through medical school, sit board exams then face below average working conditions for a number years. Does the initial teen-applicant enthusiasm fizzle out when reality hits? I'm trying to peel back the layers and dig a bit deeper.

If there isn't any real, substantive and lasting satisfaction in medicine, then perhaps I've misunderstood the profession all along, and could be just as happy working elsewhere?

I think most doctors, especially once you get out of the quagmire of FY1, are overall reasonably satisfied, but that doesn't mean there aren't bits about the job which we hate, or cases which are boring, or moments when we think "What the hell is the point?" Does anyone genuinely love their job 100% of the time?

This would go in hand with the latest National Training Survey but I don't know how seriously you guys/girls take the survey, and how representative it really is because of differences in job numbers per speciality.

Would any doctors be able to shed some light on the satisfaction by speciality graph? If the satisfaction rate of GPs is so high, why do we have a GP shortage and why are there so many unfilled GP ST posts? If the satisfaction rate of surgery is so comparatively low, why is it so competitive? I can appreciate that satisfaction rate isn't (and shouldn't be) the deciding factor for choosing your speciality, but surely it should be paid some heed?

Frankly it can't be any worse than a mediocre data entry job on 16k, which is what I currently get to experience. Teeny bits of research here and there but mostly just type, type, type.

If I get to so much as contribute to patient care, then I'm in love with it. Doing the odd bit of skin allergy testing -- dull as **** in theory, but because I get to see patients for a change I love it. That may be swayed by the generally nice qualities of the patients who come in, but still.

I don't think that will change when I get to medical school, or as a doctor. So long as you're not expecting romanticism, an easy or necessarily interesting job, then what's the negatives? There will be more pay than my peers, because most of them aren't in high-flying jobs as it is, more prestige, more stability in the sense that I probably won't be sacked (although less in the sense that I'd have to move around).

I get the family/social issues. Maybe that's the big swaying point for most people. But in my current life and place of work I already work 12 hours a day and barely get a chance to see anyone but my girlfriend when I get home. I'm not expecting that to change, so can I really count it as a negative?

I guess we'll see.

I think most doctors, especially once you get out of the quagmire of FY1, are overall reasonably satisfied, but that doesn't mean there aren't bits about the job which we hate, or cases which are boring, or moments when we think "What the hell is the point?" Does anyone genuinely love their job 100% of the time?

I think that a lot of the teen applicant enthusiasm is gone by the end of med school for many. That's partly because after 5-6 years of hard work and starting to learn what the reality of medicine is like, which a few weeks of work experience can never show you, people realise that it's not as glam as you think it's going to be, and partly because they are 6+ years older than when you applied, and you do mature and change in that time. Teenagers have a capacity to get obsessively passionate about things which most adults have kind of grown out of, to an extent.

I find my job now satisfying, because what I do has a direct visible effect and patients and staff (usually) have a modicum of respect for my skills. I can probably count on one hand the number of patients where I can reliably say "What I did personally, in that minute, saved that person's life," but you start to realise that most of the time that is not your primary goal. As a medical FY1, when I seemed to spend my days writing discharge summaries, doing blood forms and pleading with radiologists for scans, I didn't feel the same way. There are a lot of very jaded registrars, consultants and GPs though, so it's not like it all gets better. I enjoy what I do, and I can't see myself doing anything else, but I still have runs of crappy shifts, feel unappreciated and occasionally dread coming to work. Sometimes I see cases which are incredibly sad and there's nothing I can do - sometimes that feels ok, others it's very upsetting.

The majority of doctors have not worked in another professional job at a similar level - plenty, including myself, will have done part-time work at school or uni, but not on the same level in terms of responsibility, skill or pay. So while it's easy for you to say "If you don't like it, why not leave?" but if medicine is the only career you know, where you know what to expect and what to do, even if you don't like it, it can be hard to see the way out, especially if you have family/financial commitments.

I can't say if you'll find something else as satisfying as medicine, I don't know if I would, but I'm happy enough not to want to try anything else out.

This is a very interesting thread and one I am appreciative of as a hopeful future medic.

As a 26 year old grad 'working for the man' the lure of medicine for me is the variety, the pace, the challenges, helping people (not necessarily saving lives, but I feel I would get satisfaction from pain relief and long term help), the teamwork and working with a range of people, the face to face interaction (something I enjoyed about my part time work in retail as a student).

I am about to enter my 4th year in my Marketing position and it's incredibly boring. The same stuff year after year in the same order. The same small team with the same smalltalk year after year. Making money for an employer you don't really like and who treats you poorly whilst the morons at the end of the Marketing stick are buying into the same stupid deals and promotions you ran last year but fluffed up in a different colour.

My decision to leave this career in the dust has grown mostly out of a hate for consumerism and marketing in general. But I wanted to focus my efforts into something where I can help people, whilst staying interested with variety and challenges. Medicine seems like the most interesting and well-suited option to me in comparison to engineering, product design and other roles that benefit humanity.

Sorry for the tangent, but there's been prior discussion about Graduate's so I wanted to share my reasons. You could argue that I could try and use my design and marketing skills to help the NHS/Engineering Firm/Product Design firm but the passion is not there for me with it, whilst studying for the GAMSAT has lit a fire in me that I have not seen since primary school.

Same age, and similar intention for pursuing medicine. But it seems you want to enter a new line of work (because you dislike your current one), not necessarily medicine?