The Consequences of Misguided Parental Pressure on Career Choices in Medicine

[symbolipoint]

This one has bothered me for a while now. pointing to it is worth to doing.

batman123456 wrote what is quoted here, in the topic "Switching from Biology undergrad to Physics grad"

...,but was convinced by my parents to pursue biology for career in medicine.

Many (or should say "some"?) parents are foolish and push their offspring in the wrong direction.

 

[berkeman]

Did you use a bot to generate a random title for this thread? I'm getting dizzy...

 

[fresh_42]

Title adjusted.

 

[berkeman]

Title adjusted.

Thank you fresh, my nausea is subsiding...

Many (or should say "some"?) parents are foolish and push their offspring in the wrong direction.

On the question of parents pushing their kids toward medical school, I think it's always important for the prospective medical student to do some volunteer work or other work to start to gain some experience with "patient contacts". It's important because you will start to find out how you feel about working with patients, and whether you enjoy it or really don't like it. It makes no sense, IMO, to go to medical school if you don't enjoy helping patients.

So if the parents are doing a good job of this, they may help the young person find a way to start experiencing patient contacts. If the student can then say that they really don't like the contacts (especially the most difficult ones), then indeed it is a bad thing for the parents to keep pushing in that direction.

 

[symbolipoint]

Did you use a bot to generate a random title for this thread? I'm getting dizzy...

No. I formed the original "in need of a title" title on my own without any use of external technology. @fresh_42 gave the topic a satisfactory title.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

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.

 

[BillTre]

When I was an undergraduate Zoology major (they didn't have Biology as an option at the time), the first year of classes were flooded with "Pre-Meds", students who were there in order to get into Med School and make a lot of money.
It would not surprise me if this were almost universal.

Whether they were there due to parents, or on their own, was unknown to me.

Some of them were very smart, other not so, and not so well motivated.
Not all the Pre-Med went into clinical work. Some did research and some got MD/PhDs. Some of them run big parts of the NIH.
There were huge first year classes (hundreds) with the assumed function of flunking a lot of these people out of the major, in the first year.

 

[fresh_42]

When I was an undergraduate Zoology major (they didn't have Biology as an option at the time), the first year of classes were flooded with "Pre-Meds", students who were there in order to get into Med School and make a lot of money.
It would not surprise me if this were almost universal.

In my time it was:

Micro Economy. (Oops! Math!)
-> Macro Economy. (Oops! Even more math!)
--> Jurisdiction.

Pharmacology was the marriage market.

You can't really get rich here being a medical doctor, at least in general. I guess it is more the reputation that counts.

 

[berkeman]

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)

What do you call the medical student who graduates last in their class at the worst medical school in the country?

Spoiler

"Doctor"