I am a medical doctor but I chose not to do residency because I was not in a good place mentally. I got my ass kicked so badly in third and fourth year. I never failed an exam and honored most of my rotations but the culture was baseline harsh and at its worst outright abusive. I don’t think any of this had to do with my capacity to learn facts or to empathize with patients. I just didn’t like the people I worked under. I was so miserable. Fourth year was better than third but overall I learned the hospital wasn’t a place where I wanted to be.
I am still in contact with my school and they are being nice but since they are all academic physicians they don’t know about what my path could look like without residency. I have been looking up what my alternatives are, but I don’t have a mentor who would be able to guide me about this specifically and I feel so lost. My family don’t know anything about it and can’t give any advice. I just want to talk to someone who can show me a light because right now it seems like I did all this to go nowhere, and I’m not suicidal but life does not feel exciting or hopeful right now.
have you looked into the peace corps? they pay for living expenses + stipend during service and $10k afterward, plus you’ll be doing work that matters surrounded by people who care. i know some former members who felt very fulfilled by their service and to a one mentioned the immense networking benefits after service.
doctors without borders may be worth looking into as well if you’re looking for fulfilment over the standard US medical route.
I’ve looked at MSF but it doesn’t seem like they want MDs without residency. They’re all about fundraising (for what, I wonder, since they won’t let people volunteer?) and when you click on online application forms for a bunch of them you get “this form is currently not accepting responses.” I think an audit would be fascinating
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Tgatv must be frustrating. I mentioned the Peace Corps first and in more detail because according to the service members I know, their program is a lot more active in recruiting and active service than doctors without borders(US), especially these days.
there’s also americorps, and international hospitals are always looking for american doctors to do their residencies there, so if the main reason is just the people at your current residency program, maybe you should try looking at other states or countries to complete your residency or begin practicing is your goal. There seem to be at least a few ways forward without taking residency in one particular program.
On the other hand, are you sure you want to be in the medical field? You’ve stated you believe you’re capable, but are you invested in practicing medicine?
Your medical education didn’t bring you nowhere; it brought you here, to this moment and apparently a decision. That education and years of your life are always going to be important and will continue to be a part of you and inform your life as you go forward. You should try to clarify for yourself if you are pursuing what you want to pursue.
I’m not in residency, I just graduated without applying for it. Currently I’m helping out at one of the top US cancer research centers because I have contacts there but it’s barely a job and I’m starting to stress about money.
This was a really thoughtful response. My issue is that the US doesn’t accept most international residencies outside of Canada AFAIK, so if I wanted to move back and practice in the US I’d have to repeat residency.
I do believe I should be a doctor and give at least 20 years of my life to the practice of medicine. I had a long path toward this conclusion, and did philosophy in undergrad, amd came to the conclusion that the best way I can help the world is through medicine. I thought about being a politician but ultimately concluded I didn’t have the temperament. I love medicine because it marries the scientific aspect with the human considerations. I never really saw a place for myself in this world before I did great work on a few rotations. I just hate the culture. Getting pimped all the time wears on you.
For instance, I got bad evals on family medicine for not being punctual. I was late one time, and that was because someone hit my car and we had to call the cops, and I called to let them know, so I was surprised to see a mention of me being late on my evaluation at the end. On that same rotation, which was an hour away by car, they failed to tell me that they didn’t open until 11 on Thursdays. I didn’t know to ask because who would even think to do that? I showed up at what I thought was on time and the support staff asked why I was there and then I went and napped in my car. Another time on OBGYN, my worst rotation, I was told by my resident to see a patient, and when I went I got screamed at by the nurse for not checking with her first. I mean genuinely screamed at, not just scolded. The same nurse also yelled at me for being on my phone but it was 1 in the morning, nobody was giving birth, all the computers were taken, none of the residents were talking to me, and I was doing flashcards on my phone in a work area. And on surgery I asked to leave at 5 pm since I’d been there since 5 AM and had been doing 12 hour days for a week straight because I was the president of a club and we were having a budget meeting. The consequence was having to meet with the course director. It’s hard to explain why I found it so upsetting. This guy wanted me to stay until 7:30 to barely participate in a minor surgery (chemo port) and show up at 5 am again the next day and he fckin tattled on me for asking to not go to that one so I could attend my club’s budget meeting. I got so upset and talked to my dean, who was an angel, and he told me if someone gave me a hard time like that again I could tell them I was meeting with him.I know a lot of this sounds minor but when you’re in the hospital 60-80 hours a week, and you have the commute, and have to study for each exam for every rotation plus your board exams…it made me suicidal.
I love medicine and I enjoy keeping up with the latest science, but I can’t stand how I’ve been treated. It would probably feel a lot different if I were making money but doctors barely make money these days and of course as a student you make negative money.
In a perfect world, I would like to be a doctor. In the world as it exists, I don’t think I can. I would have been great.
A lot of that abuse you’ve undergone sounds pretty major to me and it’s very clear to me why you find that abuse so upsetting. That is the nature of medicine and professional culture in general, in the US, I have US doctor friends and they report a lot of the same things, although you seem to be standing right in front of the barrel more than your fair share.
If you step outside of the US, it seems very feasible for you to continue practicing medicine the way you want to. Help people while feeling valued yourself. I left the US largely because of US work culture, which is literally insane and demands complete devotion and excessive tribute, usually in irreplaceable years of your only life, just to maintain, let alone progress through the ranks. It sounds like you’re describing the same issue, maybe a beneficial disillusionment of what you thought the US medical field was is catching up to you, that it doesn’t value and seems to disdain its critical caregivers. From outside the US, that’s what the US-citizen relationship looks like. An abusive caretaker. No vacation time, no work-life balance, no personal time, no sick leave.
You’d definitely have to repeat residency in the US if you later choose to return and practice in the US, but there are countless people in any number of countries who could use a doctor who prefers the dignity any professional deserves and often receives in most other countries outside of the US. Yes, if you did a residency in Canada you’d have to redo it when you returned to the US, but you can have a fulfilling, rewarding international medical career, in Canada or in many other countries. People need help out there, you can help them the same way you would help a US American and receive the same rewarding professional, compassionate satisfaction, and a lot of medical infrastructure abroad is patient-focused rather than profit-focused, as in the US. Makes a huuuge difference in the nature of care administered and the international healthcare cultures I’ve observed directly and are reported on.
If practicing medicine specifically in the US is your primary priority, then you’ll have to participate in the US system, which means being exploited and likely exploiting others for the sake of profiting those above you. If practicing medicine is the priority but you still want to stay in the US and perhaps be treated better, you could take a step down and work as a caregiver in elderly homes, which I cannot imagine would not hire a young MD regardless of your residency status, since they would hire me tomorrow, and I don’t have any degree of professional medical expertise. There are less responsible caregiver roles in the US that need bodies.
If practicing medicine at the level your educated for is what you’re devoted to in equal measure with respecting yourself and being treated with respect, an international medical career is a viable option. Do your residency in Canada, practice medicine there. Do your residency in a country you think is interesting, practice medicine there. Living outside of the US sounds unrealistic to a lot of US Americans, but I’ve been traveling 15 years and the world out here is a lot more real than the professional and cultural contrivances the US yokes its citizens to.
It’s good you’re thinking about this, don’t worry too much about making the perfect choice, but it does sound like it’s time to move forward and leave something behind, in whichever way serves your aims best.
This comment was so thoughtful it’s taken some time for me to formulate a response, but I do need to push back a bit. You can do residency in Canada and not have the repeat it in the US actually, which is great, and something I’m considering. My old mentor did residency at McGill and didn’t have to repeat it when he moved to NY. If I do residency in Canada I can always come to the US and practice here without repeating residency. If I do it in any other country, I won’t be able to, and that’s another 3 years off my life.
“An abusive caretaker” is sadly apt. Thanks for taking the time to type that all out.
sure thing, that’s good news about Canada. I hope your future career works out the way you want it to.
