symbolipoint said:
Many (or should say "some"?) parents are foolish and push their offspring in the wrong direction.
I do not know where the user is from (they didn't reveal it in their bio), but I wouldn't be surprised if they were from my country. The situation here regarding studying medical is far worse than what you guys can probably imagine. In my country, parents spend lakhs (10 lakhs = 1 million for reference) of their hard-earned money to get their children admitted into coaching institutes with only one aim: crack the medical entrance exam. If they can become a doctor, their future is secured once and for all.
Doctors in my country are among the top earners in the society. They don't have to be good doctors. In fact, I have seen some real idiots throughout the last nine months when we were visiting hospital(s) almost everyday for Dad's treatment. If you can become a doctor, you can earn a substantial income through "private practice" only, which refers to situations in which the doctor is not affiliated with a hospital, but sees patients at their residence or a clinic. Then there are unfair (but not illegal) practices, like preferring medicines or diagnostic tests from brands that give them incentives. Suppose there is one particular drug that is manufactured by different companies. Now, many doctors tend to recommend only those brands that give them money for referring their medicines. Other unfair practices include asking the patient to come back every week for review (and pay the full fees each time), even though they know that the medicines can't produce results in such a short time.
When my Dad was admitted in the ICU for the last 18 days before his death, we came across some doctors whose work was to just visit the patient twice every day and sign the register so that the hospital can charge their fees. While Dad was still under BiPAP support, an oncologist recommended immunotherapy, as if it would do some magic and stop the metastases of the cancer immediately. Immunotherapy is very costly, and the hospital nurses and staff soon took up the opportunity and started pressuring us (as well as Dad) to give consent for the treatment. Finally, our primary treating doctor stepped in, and they had to stop.
It is definitely not the case that there are no good doctors, and I have seen examples to prove it. But parents often push their children into this field because of money, not because of the student's passion. I have met some doctors who have told me that they really wanted to study physics, but had to study medical science under coercion from their parents. Unfortunately, medical science is a noble profession, but most people only consider the monetary incentives, and it has become a kind of business. The situation in my city is worse when compared to other places in the country, where these practices are comparatively less.
From that perspective, I consider myself lucky because I was never under any such kind of pressure from my parents, and could happily choose physics over anything else.