Is MBBS Really Worth It?
The truth about Medicine as a career path.
It was 1:30 pm. I was in a lecture. As usual, I found zero value in listening to lectures and taking notes. So, I was on my phone reading Wait But Why.
Suddenly, I had another random episode of terrible meaning crisis.
- What am I doing with my time?
- Is it worth the hype it gets?
- Am I satisfied?
- Do I like memorizing an insane number of concepts?
- Is it a willingness or just momentum?
- Do I like it or am I just going through internals after internals?
Medical students are overly critical about the career path among their peers while showing nothing but pride to outsiders.
I am aware of that while writing this.
Please note:
I am just in my final year of MBBS. I have never taken another course.
So, my opinions are fairly personal, biased, and may be inaccurate for others. Also, I change my opinions and beliefs often.
It is just my attempt to set the expectations straight.
It's time to pull out the rug.
- Most of the school students are now being pushed into preparing for NEET. Everybody is competing for the sake of a false image.
- People are paying ridiculous amounts of money to grab a seat.
- Students are ending their lives over a bad score in NEET and everyone finds a way to make it sensational.
- Crazy competition. Insane level of information to consume.
All for what?
Backstory:
Being a doctor was never appealing to me. Even in 12th grade.
NEET was appealing. It was a new trend. Solving MCQs was fun. I didn't have to memorize a bunch of stuff and replicate them exactly. Nice.
Also,
I never got along well with my teachers as far as I remember. I was always a low-grade deviant. Same case with my 12th board teachers. They were mean and not worth listening to. I switched my focus from my board prep to NEET because of this.
It was an escape.
But this was a mistake. I never thought about why I was doing what I was doing. Just like most people.
College Culture:
College should be 10% education and 90% socialization.
It should be a place for developing networks. To explore a bunch of things. To gain life experiences. But it is skewed in most medical colleges. People just nerd out and are just not fun to talk to.
Lectures. Attendance. Postings. Internals. Perpetual fear of professors not letting you write the exams.
I am now almost convinced that college was a pure waste of my time.
Day in and day out.
Lectures are for the lazy.
I listened to less than 10 lectures in all these 4 years. The point of sitting through a lecture and taking notes is bullshit. It gives an illusion of productivity. It is chokingly boring and useless. What someone lectures me for an hour can be learned by myself in 10 minutes. When I understand the concept myself through all the sweet struggles, I retain 100x better.
As a whole, college is inefficient. Pointless. Makes you a compliant little kid.
#2 Medicine And Entitlement:
This is the pitfall for most.
With medicine as a career path, there comes social prestige, and significant respect from society. You frequently find 80-year-olds calling you “sir”. You get extra biriyani in your family function. Your relatives abuse their kids by constantly comparing them with you. You become their kids’ checkpoint.
Your ego is constantly fed. It is addictive.
Everything happens without you realizing that society is a hoe.
There is a constant social reinforcement in play.
After all this attention, respect, and prestige in return for your youth and hairline, you think you are doing great in life. This loop keeps you stuck without ever letting you stop for a second and think if you really want this.
You think you are important.
No. You are replaceable.
How different am I from the other medical students who read the same books, attend the same lectures and write the same exams? There is effectively just only one differentiator.
- How long can you sit your ass and study?
Of course. Not an interesting and worthwhile differentiator.
It is not about the ‘brains’.
It is about the ‘hours’.
#1 Medicine And Money:
Medicine is not going to make you rich. Period.
Money is the qualifier. It is what makes your point of view matter. It is how you can make a positive impact at scale.
You start earning way late which implies there is a lot of opportunity cost.
Both in terms of time and money.
Your work hours and position on the ladder are tightly linked with your income. Fell sick for a month? Boom. You will have to live off your savings.
And as I already mentioned, you are also easily replaceable. You will never be in a unique position to help someone to be scarce and thus valuable. Individuality is out of the equation.
Also, remember the inflation.
You are welcome.
There is a ladder game of hierarchy.
When you are at the bottom of the ladder, work is exhaustive to the point where you won’t have any routine.
You get to sleep and eat when you get time.
By the time you reach your desired lifestyle and income, you are already a bald, lazy senior citizen who has no energy to enjoy the income. It becomes pointless. The sacrifices are not worth it.
You may buy a semi-fancy car.
Your two kids will be studying in an exotic ‘international’ school.
You may work in a medical college as a professor. You use the presentations from slideshare.com and mumble at the screen with your mask half-mouthed. You go sit in the OP and see a few patients. You leave the college by 2 pm. You go home and take a nice nap. You go to your clinic by 6 pm and see patients till 9 pm. Come home and repeat.
Do you think that's gonna make you rich? Or even happy?
You get the point.
Nothing you can do to make your work scalable. You just turn the same old screws to get the same old results.
What I Would Have Done Differently?
Life asks you to make critical decisions even though you don’t have enough knowledge or experience that is required to make them. That's the game.
I wish I had chosen anything that uses physics. I was so passionate about it.
I have never listened to any of the classes in school except physics.
I love the hard, abstract, and complex challenges—that which require a person to think critically and creatively.
Ok so am I not satisfied with MBBS?
It's not about satisfaction. It’s the broken expectation. This career path is hyped. It is mixed up with prestige and amped up to armageddon.
It is just following a set of treatment algorithms. It is intellectually numbing and boring to the point it makes me sick. It also has downsides. No one is willing to talk about them because of the fear of judgment from the society that constantly praises them.
Still,
I love its cool and straightforward biology. Analogous to being a detective and thinking differentially. Also, the human element.
I love the element of interacting with people and fixing their issues. The trust people place on you at their weakest moment. It’s appealing and still keeping me sane and my hope alive.
Yet, I am skeptical about the fact that it will be emotionally rewarding in the long run. The human element and the rewards that come with treating patients will plateau at some point in time. It is my guess.
I am experimenting with different things. And this degree will be my parachute if things go wrong.
Medicine In Nutshell:
So who will be the perfect fit for Medicine? If…..
- You love working your ass off.
- You want to settle in with your college sweetheart.
- You value comfort and job security (ever-present demands).
- You are risk-averse.
- You value the basic degree of autonomy.
- You love seeing your efforts pay off in real-time without any delay.
Finally, it comes down to your personality and priorities.
Remember.
There is nothing noble about sacrificing anything against your own will.
Stop and reassess where you are heading. Not doing otherwise is lazy.
Aspiring drug dealer,
Subash.
