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Concerned about my suitability for medicine

The thing that really concerns me is that I feel I lack the communication and teamwork skills (or demonstration thereof) being someone who is (successfully) trying to overcome social anxiety. In addition to this, I am someone who does find comforting people difficult, I can seem very cold and unemotional although I do care.
The thing that interested me in medicine in the first place was an interest in science and disease, rather than a completely selfless desire to help everyone around me, though I do love helping people.
I'm not sure if this is the right attitude to have if I want to pursue this. What do you think?
Only you can make this decision for yourself.
The thing is, as you have probably surmised, communication and teamwork are extremely important in being a doctor. Most medicine degrees help you develop these skills, but they are probably equally as important in the actual practice of medicine as ability/interest in science/disease.

If your main interest is science and disease, have you considered careers that involve this? Most practising doctors actually don't do all that much 'science' on a day to day basis; medicine is clinical application.
Although there are some specialities that do - some doctors actually work in a lab all day such as microbiology or haematology; or doctors which are involved in medical research. However to get there you would have to spend years of training which would involve a lot of patient contact.

There are other careers (& degrees) which focus on science and disease (some of them more purely than medicine does) such as microbiology, biomedical science, etc. which may suit you better based on your interests and skills.
Original post by theresheglows
Only you can make this decision for yourself.
The thing is, as you have probably surmised, communication and teamwork are extremely important in being a doctor. Most medicine degrees help you develop these skills, but they are probably equally as important in the actual practice of medicine as ability/interest in science/disease.

If your main interest is science and disease, have you considered careers that involve this? Most practising doctors actually don't do all that much 'science' on a day to day basis; medicine is clinical application.
Although there are some specialities that do - some doctors actually work in a lab all day such as microbiology or haematology; or doctors which are involved in medical research. However to get there you would have to spend years of training which would involve a lot of patient contact.

There are other careers (& degrees) which focus on science and disease (some of them more purely than medicine does) such as microbiology, biomedical science, etc. which may suit you better based on your interests and skills.


Until this point I've only considered biomedical science with the intention of going into medicine afterwards. Do you know what you could get a job doing with a biomedical degree?
Thanks for your comment by the way! :h:
Original post by pineneedles
Until this point I've only considered biomedical science with the intention of going into medicine afterwards. Do you know what you could get a job doing with a biomedical degree?
Thanks for your comment by the way! :h:


There are a few - medical research, microbiologist or toxicologist (e.g. assay work (diagnosis or other testing of samples)), forensic scientist, healthcare scientist (doing the clinical lab work in a hospital, running the tests for doctors, there are various specialties within this), etc.
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Avatar for arabish
arabish
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I read a blog of someone who underwent similar feelings to you (unless this is really your blog lol)

Have a browse:

http://thestrokeofink.com/2015/05/03/why-i-left-medicine/
Original post by arabish
I read a blog of someone who underwent similar feelings to you (unless this is really your blog lol)

Have a browse:

http://thestrokeofink.com/2015/05/03/why-i-left-medicine/


Thanks for sharing this, it's a real relief to see someone else has experienced the same feelings.

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