ICOT,
You mentioned both my career (medical researcher — trained as a biostaistician) and my wife’s (physician). I can say with confidence that we both love what we do and that we are well compensated for our hard work.
And you can do it with a late start. I started graduate school at 32 and finished at 37; my wife started medical school at age 36 and finished her residency at 43. And just because you might have gone to a charedi school does not mean that those kinds of career options are perpetually closed off to you; I know several people who went to Bais Yaakov schools and later graduated from medical school, and my wife had taken no science courses in college. The training will take longer, but if you have the ability and trust in HaShem, absolutely anything is possible.