Reply To: Should I Go To Medical School?

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#958307
lopman24
Participant

From someone who is a recent graduate you have to keep a couple of things in mind. Medical School is a full time job.

1. Unless ( no even if} your a genius you will have to study/be involved in med school education on average > 12 hours/day you will flunk out otherwise.

2. From a financial point unless you get into a hotsy totsy specialty the money isnt close to what it used to be (and even then…)

3. From a frum point of view from day 1 you will involve yourself in tons of shailos. (anatomy dissections, practicing on opposite gender …)

4. On that note3 if you do get past med school you will most likely want a shomer shabbos residency. Well they are far and few in between in the Hotsy Totsy specialties (virtually unheard of in the surgical specialties} and I have no shailah you will many times come to the border of being michallel shabbos and unfortunately will be michallel shabbos (for non pekuach nefesh issues} for ex: its pretty hard to tell your senior to ” no I’ll do the documentation after shabbos” especially if it will slow the transfer or discharge of a pt only from a bureaucratic point of view .

5. Most shomer shabbos residencies are in the primary care fields (lower compensation fields some pediatricians are being offered only 90,000) Located in community/public hospitals mainly in minority and diversified communities in an overtaxed work environment. where thats the only way they can attract English speaking american grads the rest of your colleagues will be from a third wold country (resenting the fact that they always have to cover your shabbos/holiday). Well renown training hospitals have no reason to offer shabbos residency as the residents consider themselves lucky that they got chosen to work there in the first places.

6.You really have to ask yourself is it really worth the (i’ll be generous) 150K debt (most likely way more than that There are usually no scholarships no matter how low your income is) and the loss of potential income during those years ( It is impossible to work on the side). The inevitible shalom bayis issues, missing minyanim… all for what will most like be a low six figure (i’m hoping)salary. My answer in short is probably no. If your really bent on wearing the white coat go to dental school, you avoid the whole Avdus residency altogether.