Since I was a kid I always thought I would be a doctor. It seemed like the thing to grow up to be. You help people, you make the big bucks, you get a certain level of respect. You could be proud saying “I’m going to be a doctor”. And you know what? I could’ve. Not to toot my own drum snare or anything, but I had the grades, did the goods in school. My local university is one of the top medical schools in the nation. I even had a jumpstart by taking a dual credit emergency medicine course. It was all lined up for me. But, somewhere along the way I started opening up some new doors and closing others. And coming out of high school I took the engineering route.

Turns out? Good frickin’ call.

The medical field is a mess. Insurance is dystopian. COVID hoopla. Lack of nationalized healthcare. How could you willingly walk into that situation? What a trick. You work your ass off in high school, go through a difficult hell of a college, and then you still got 4+ years of school, plus certifications/tests, residency (wth that even is), and THEN you get to work ridiculous hours, in a shitty environment, around sick people all day? The pay is not that good. Especially the loans that would probably be necessary to support yourself as they beat you down.

Maybe I’m just not cut out for that. I don’t have the commitment I guess. Just thinking as a time and effort to pay out ratio, I think it no longer makes sense to go into that field. If you can make it, I bet you have a fine retirement. Enjoy it. But I can’t imagine what it costs you to get there.

Instead of pride and admiration when I hear some scrub wearing a student say “I’m going to be a doctor”. I just kind of feel sorry for them. And maybe they are happy, when you talk to some nurse or something they have this attitude that their world may be on fire, but they’re happy. But if you listen to just the words they said, without the inflection of the brainwashed medical student, you’d be horrified.

I know some people personally who are in the medical field, and they have their own horror stories to tell. What comes to mind as example in my mind is the time I was eavesdropping on this woman at a favored breakfast joint. Tia Betty Blues in Albuquerque rocks. Anyway this woman was speaking with a friend she must not have seen in some time as they were catching up multiple years of life story. As I listened my countenance literally fell. More than once my fork would drop to my plate in shock, as this lady so casually detailed the most horrible life experience I’d ever heard.

She had two children. The daycare expenses, the coordinating with the baby daddy for school/sport events, the weekends dropping them off early to grandparents house. This woman said she got to really spend time with her two young kids maybe once or twice a month. She was nine years into her schooling, NINE years and still had some to go. I didn’t catch her age but she was what, mid thirties at best, and still had to go to school, work twelve “but more like fourteen” shifts, with NO full weekends? She was planning a vacation out TWO YEARS in advance to make the time.

I mean, I’m routing for her. I just can’t see how it’s a favorable choice of a job. It cannot be worth it. I suppose some people’s lives are just their career. God help them.

**keep in mind I’m just a moron. I don’t know what residency is really. I don’t really know what I’m talking about but heres how I feel