Friday, November 05, 2004

Vietnamese inquisition...aka Med vs Law part CLXXIV 

Wow. I just interviewed this haemotology professor, one of my grandma's doctors, about a career in medicine. For a whole hour. That's longer than I've ever talked to my own professors. Poor man, I really grilled him. From "what are the worst and best things about medicine" to "is being a woman a hinderance in medicine" (his wife's a GP) to "what are the personal emotional effects of being around dying people all the time" (he hedged this one- talked about using psychologists and counsellors to treat the patient's symptoms - I pressed on then realised I was intruding a BIT too far, heh). I ran out of questions at the end cos I wasn't prepared for a whole hour (!!) of interrogating him. It was fun though- stuff law and med, I wanna be a journo! Pity I can't string a sentence together.

The prof is a very nice bloke, kind of shy and unassuming, but quite passionate about blood (heh, can't wait for the google searches on that). Here are the main points I got from him:

> There's a career for just about any type of person in med: from admin to technical lab stuff to normal clinical work.
> Thus, you needn't like people OR science and still can be a doctor. All you really need is intelligence. Don't even need to be a good decision-maker.
> The thing that distinguishes med from paramed professions is intellectual stimulation
> Good stuff about med: constantly changing, every day is different, stimulating, decent pay
> Bad stuff about med: litigation (hahahaha), long hours, eats up your life, not fantastic pay, huge committment, may compromise your family life
> Full-on clinical work is too intense, half-clinical half-research is more manageable
> The teamwork aspect is not just bullshit they make you lie about for interviews, it's actually necessary. Even for GPs.
> You shouldn't choose med just because you want to help people

And other interesting things I learned:
> Only about 25% of people pass the Physician's Exam thingy, and if you fail more than three times, you are doomed to admin
> None of his 3 kids wanted to do med although one girl got in and TURNED IT DOWN. The same girl is working in the INTERNATIONAL LAW division at one of the MOST PRESTIGIOUS firms in LONDON. And she's only 26, omfg. Maybe I should interview her.
> The good doc would probably not choose med if he had another chance (oh great)
> Problem Based Learning sucks
> Ethical dilemmas don't really come up in haemotology, the main prob is risk/quality of life/probability of success
> Being on call in haemotology is sweet; most of the time you don't even have to go to hospital

and...

> The one thing that can get ANY doctor riled up is torts! heh.

Seriously though, why are law and med the only two careers I'm considering? They BOTH suck. Damn it, I want to be a translator or a journalist or a astronaut or a cook or an anthropologist. Something that a) doesn't eat your soul b) involves human interaction c) is interesting and satisfying d) can feed a family e) won't make my family disown me f) is attainable, not too niche-y or academic g) isn't cutthroatedly competitive. Not asking for much.

Teaching?

Banish the thought.

Though...I like correcting, feeling smarter than everyone in the room (ok, only true in primary, heh), giving stickers...But what would I teach? French? Hah. I know the scorn that is heaped upon non-France-French teachers. I've done some heaping myself. English? Maybe ESL.
They say that those who can, do, and those who can't, teach. I'm starting to think I fall into the latter category there. Newsflash: being a good high school student ? being actually smart.

Gah, I'm sick of having the same broken-record internal conversation. Maybe I should take a year off and grow the fuck up before I decide.

*Lightbulb! If I do get into med, I could defer AND if possible, stay enrolled in law but suspend my candidature for a year.

# posted at 1:54 pm

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