My style

Watching Trauma: Life in the E.R. today helped me realize that I pretty much really want to be a family practice doctor. The lure of having regular hours, a specific demographic of patients that I have control over, and time to make important decisions seems too good to be true in one career. I have decided that is what I will tell people when I get asked "so what kind of doctor do you want to be" (a question I get a couple of times a week). I am aware that I am making this decision with limited experience, and that a million years lie between me and when I'll actually have to decide what to practice, but it is nice and comforting to have that extra little bit of vision about the future. Another reason for family practice: I am the kind of person that likes to know a little about everything, not someone who likes to know everything about one thing. A brain surgeon KNOWS brains. A family doctor knows how brians work, but he also knows how every system works in the body too. Plus I've always liked to get to know people and I think a Family Practice doc has much better odds of getting to know people for a long time. As a mentor once told me "a surgeon meets a lot of different people, but a family practice doctor gets invited to weddings and baby showers".

Summer Plans

Well, I'm now in the middle of making another decision. What should I do this summer to prepare me for med school? I still have quite a few things on my list of stuff that I need to do. No rest for the weary. I need to do several physician shadowing days, I need to volunteer or work part time in some place where I can get patient contact hours, and I need to do a summer research program. I think I might try to get one or two physician shadowing days in this summer, but I am mostly going to focus on getting patient care experience. I can worry about research next year, when I am more familiar with the staff and programs at the University. I'm hoping I can actually get paid patient care experience. Like an actual job. Rather than just volunteer. But either way I will be happy to get back to helping actual patients. I haven't done that since High School. Busy summer here we come! (of course I'll still make time for vacations and stuff though).

Dentistry....

Another tempting alternate to becoming an MD is the highly enticing proposition to go into Dentistry. Just today I was having a conversation with one of my friends and I was led to wonder why I have chosen Medicine over Dentistry.
1st of all, I am comforted by the increased flexibility in the medical field. From eye doctors to trauma surgeons to family practice doctors and everything in between there are a lot of different options for a lot of different personalities. I always saw dentistry as having a little less variety. My friend did point out that there are a lot of different kinds of dentists (oral surgeons, etc.). I still don't see that the differences between different kinds of dentists come close to the huge differences between various kinds of doctors. I have always been a little indecisive and that little extra cushion of decision flexibility is comforting.
2nd, I have heard from others' experience that practicing dentistry in Utah is highly competitive. Furthermore, there are no dental schools in Utah so one must fork over the extra cash to go to school elsewhere. There are even more hurdles to overcome when it comes to moving from state to state as a dentist as well.
That being said, who can argue that the standard of living that dentists have is not AMAZING. Very kind hours, great work environment, a satisfying occupation, and good pay are all very enticing.
I'm still planning on medicine, and by this summer making a switch to dentistry will become time consuming and costly. Until then I'm still open to persuasion. We shall see.

Doom update...

Ok, so I did a bunch more research about how the future of healthcare will affect me. Here are my conclusions:
The thing that is scaring everyone is the concept of "universal healthcare". This type of system is employed in all modernized western economies except the US. The basic concept (from what I could gather) is that the government will cover the costs of healthcare for all individuals in the nation. There are so many opinions flying around out there that I'm not even going to touch on whether this is a good idea or not. I'll just mention what things I learned that might affect me as a future Med Student.
1st: there is a general consensus that MD salaries will drop in a universal healthcare system. In western Europe salaries are less than half of what they are in the U.S. That would put salaries at around 80 to 100k a year. Everybody shouts that you shouldn't care about money at all if you want to be a doctor. But the way I see it is that anyone who truly didn't care about money and just want to help people could work as a CNA, EMT, or Medical Assistant and be very happy for the rest of their lives. Salary does make a difference. It is not my motivation for going into medicine, but it is part of the motivation for me going all the way to getting an MD.
2nd: Doctors might have less flexibility due to the fact that they would probably all be getting paid the same as each other. No added benefit for being really good or for going into a really hard specialty. Bad doctors would get the same amount of money as good doctors.
3rd: It will be really hard for Obama to pull this off. Most democratic presidents have tried to do this. All of them failed. And they also didn't happen to have an economic mess on their hands. Odds are there will be changes, but not to full blown universal healthcare.

If you want to learn more go on google and type in "universal healthcare affects doctors". You'll see plenty of different pages with interesting information. My conclusion:

A lot of fear is thinning the amount of competition heading towards medical school. Chances are there will be no sweeping changes anyway. I know I want to go into medicine so I might as well go for MD since I believe I can make it and I know I would like it. My love of caring for other people shouldn't hinge too much on government policy and income. Still going for it!