kells wrote:
solitude wrote:
The silver lining is that she won't be sitting around the hospital on Thanksgiving twiddling her thumbs like me :).
You're not alone...the hospital cafeteria is a sad and lonely place today...
I know one person that dropped out of residency to become a professional runner (or something like that), but she was independently wealthy. In fact, everyone I know who dropped out of residency came from a lot of money.
I can't imagine not doing a residency with all those loans hanging over me. That's the problem with medicine, really. Once you're on that train, you can't get off...
At least I picked a lifestyle-friendly specialty where I intend to work three days a week for the rest of my career.
Been there. Having a bail-out option would have been tempting on many occasions. Residency was most intense and prolonged ultra-endurance event I've done yet, with the possible exception of parenting. The psychological aspect of IM was never in question for me. Between the hours and the virtually absolute power the academic attending physicians wield over the resident's future career (through the ability to write positive or negative evaluations and recommendations), medical residency training is--at best--indentured servitude. Worse at times. But as you note, once you get through, the options are more or less unlimited based on your choices. Assuming of course that you didn't do a neurosurgery residency or its equivalent. But then you're not likely on this forum.
The great news about the $40,000-ish/year that residents make is that there isn't a whole lot of spare time to spend it. And if you do the math, BTW, it's hamburger wages. Or less, given the push for higher minimum wages. But I digress...
I'm guessing you're in Emergency Medicine--the #1 choice for lifestyle flexibility. Good on you. But even as a more 9-5 (7-5, realistically) anesthesiologist, I find that family time can be every bit if not more the limiter on training time. I'm definitely not complaining here--parsing out time between awesome things is hardly a burden.
Re Amanda Stevens, her use of the "Dr." thing strikes me as pretentious, as it does for licensed physicians that feel the need to continually advertise their educational/occupational accomplishments outside of the context of medicine. Or even PhDs in underwater basketweaving, for that matter, since she apparently isn't yet a licensed physician. What exactly does it have to do with triathlon?
If I'd had the "skills to pay the bills," I'd probably have taken a few years off before residency, too. All that graduate medical education will still be there for Dr. Amanda Stevens when she's done as a pro triathlete.
Then people will call her Dr. Amanda Stevens even when she doesn't want them to.
Like, all f***ing night, every 15 minutes.
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Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.