Crucial time in career choice

[Athalas]

Hi, I'm a first timer here. Watched a few threads and noticed this is indeed a forum with some genuine intelligent INTP people here. And I'm basicly looking for other peoples point of view. Not that I don't consult my peers, but an unbiased fellow INTP view might be useful.

Long story short: I'm 24 years old, final year of medicine in a European country. This (final) year I get to be in an internship of my preference and during this academical year I will be evaluated if I fit the bill so to speak. I went and picked general surgery. And it was going quite alright for a few months. But now I had 2 months of regular classes and a normal life for once. I got out of the rhythm and got me thinking.

I realize that I like surgery somewhat but I'm not ready to sacrifice my life. Average around 70 hours a week, being on call at the emergency department once or twice a week, not to mention the enormous stress and high standards. No... I've noticed myself becoming more anhedonic and - to put it bluntly - an asshole towards my peers with each week passing.

I'm in the process of quiting, I just can't get myself to pull the trigger. I don't trust my own choice. I keep thinking maybe it's just an emotional part, or subconscious something that just can be pushed down and is just temporary. Cuz' almost all my fellow medicalstudents are thinking this now because we're the unpayed stress out slaves. So I keep thinking maybe I'm just weak-willed...
I hate giving up and sadly I realize now that I made my career choice partly because of other peoples expectations... But then I keep thinking grass will always be greener (but never more than 80 hours). It's just that I always kept thinking in medicine: it will get better, it will get better. But than again how do you ever know if you like a career if you first always have to push through the less pleasant parts. Now I'm rambling.

So as you can see I'm kind of in identity - or plain general - crisis here. And that's how I found out about the Myers-Briggs Types. I'm an INTP/INTJ by the way.

Right now I'm thinking of becoming a GP (fear of boredom, even though I consider myself who is always kind to strangers), forensic medcine (fear of neglecting my human/Fe-side) and maybe go into hospital management (complete unknown terrain with my very poor legal, political, economical background - yeay medicine!).

Anyway any thought on the matter would be much appreciated.

 

[ApostateAbe]

I vote for general practice medicine. There isn't much point in getting big bucks if you don't have much time to enjoy it, in my opinion. And you know the world needs more GPers, so you will be doing the world a favor. Help the world, make a good living, and chill. If you need help writing a resignation letter to your academic superiors, I am here for you.

 

[downsowf]

Sometimes going through a major transition is hard. I've been in your position several times throughout my life too. You could just be in a funk and it might take some time getting used to your new routines. If you're truly unhappy and feel a tremendous burden, you might have to make a change. However, I think you just feel overwhelmed and it's hard to deal with that. At the end of the day the questions should be: What do I find most rewarding? Good luck. I'm sure you'll make the right decision.

 

[EditorOne]

Well, we have our own Greg House now.

Are the decisions you're contemplating irreversible? I know you've got a good many years invested, but surely whatever you choose right now could be set aside if a new option appears in a year or two or three?

I've done the management thing in another field. Other than the part where you acquire the knowledge on how to do it, it's not all that rewarding. You are almost always implementing someone else's goals. As a GP, with a possibility of your own independent practice, you would at least avoid that trap.

Speaking broadly, a great many of the people who hang around this forum have observed that, one way or another, our big enemy and the source of depression is often related to boredom, and that a professional field that offers new challenges or shifts in "content" every couple of years is one way to stave it off. Surgery seems, at least from the outside, to involve intense specialization requiring long training. I'm not sure, once you've cut out enough cancers or repaired enough hearts or rebuilt enough knees, whether you could quickly retool to take on some other surgical specialty. Most of those folks seem content to drill ever deeper into their specialty; that might be a good way to go mad for an INTP, not sure about an INTJ.

Anyway: While it is undoubtedly true that many going through medical training feel burned out at some point, just from the torturous nature of it, you may simultaneously be experiencing INTP boredom at a deeper level than the burnout. The only way to figure out if that's the case may simply involve patience on your part. At some point you'll know, either by deliberately thinking it through or because your brain works it out while you're not paying attention and suddenly it's just there. (You don't seem to be all the way through the process.)

Best wishes on all this. It's a rocky road.

 

[Jah]

Coroner ?

The patients are the quietest this side of the grave.

 

[snafupants]

Coroner ?

The patients are the quietest this side of the grave.

When being called a patient is a compliment, you're in trouble.

To the OP, life is too short to squander; I left academia after a year: too much bullshit. An epitaph or eulogy shouldn't suggest you took shit for fifty years and were vaguely compensated.

This is your life. To be less abstract, I suggest shadowing people in any interested field to get a flavor of the day to day terrain.

 

[Athalas]

Well, we have our own Greg House now.

Are the decisions you're contemplating irreversible? I know you've got a good many years invested, but surely whatever you choose right now could be set aside if a new option appears in a year or two or three?

I've done the management thing in another field. Other than the part where you acquire the knowledge on how to do it, it's not all that rewarding. You are almost always implementing someone else's goals. As a GP, with a possibility of your own independent practice, you would at least avoid that trap.

Speaking broadly, a great many of the people who hang around this forum have observed that, one way or another, our big enemy and the source of depression is often related to boredom, and that a professional field that offers new challenges or shifts in "content" every couple of years is one way to stave it off. Surgery seems, at least from the outside, to involve intense specialization requiring long training. I'm not sure, once you've cut out enough cancers or repaired enough hearts or rebuilt enough knees, whether you could quickly retool to take on some other surgical specialty. Most of those folks seem content to drill ever deeper into their specialty; that might be a good way to go mad for an INTP, not sure about an INTJ.

Anyway: While it is undoubtedly true that many going through medical training feel burned out at some point, just from the torturous nature of it, you may simultaneously be experiencing INTP boredom at a deeper level than the burnout. The only way to figure out if that's the case may simply involve patience on your part. At some point you'll know, either by deliberately thinking it through or because your brain works it out while you're not paying attention and suddenly it's just there. (You don't seem to be all the way through the process.)

Best wishes on all this. It's a rocky road.

If I choose to stop general surgery. I will never get back in, at least not in this country. It's all very aristocratic and if you doubt of wanting to be one, you're not seen as worthy of becoming one, unless you're one of the best students out there.
But even though I sounded quite desperate yesterday (intermittent moment of hesitation), I'm pretty sure of going for the GP thing. Because I just read a few threads on the boredom thing: it sounded very familiar. So we'll see how that goes. GP is very variable in pathology and you meet every type of people of every ladder of society. Just shivering in horror of meeting women (40-60 years old), who come to the doctor with a problem and who refuse any rational solution and just came by to nag. But I'll never be like that all day long, and maybe I'll be very rude and scare them away . Also the autonomy is very handy indeed. If get bored, I'll just study something extra while working, and reshape my career.

Anyway, thanks, guys. I'm loving the discovery of this very interesting forum with likeminded people.

 

[downsowf]

Just shivering in horror of meeting women (40-60 years old), who come to the doctor with a problem and who refuse any rational solution and just came by to nag.

If you see my mom say hello for me.