I have parents who tell me every day that if I don’t have a degree, I will never be anyone in my life. Both are doctors, surgeons. For them, being a doctor is the only possible way.
And me?
I hate medicine. I literally hate her. I don’t like it, I’m not interested, it makes me unhappy.
But here I am, studying it, because they demand it. Because they expect me to follow the tradition. Because in his head, a son without a white coat is a disappointment.
The saddest thing is that a thousand things happen to me a day, but they never really are. They tell me “everything will be fine,” but it’s not. Because I’m not living my life, I’m fulfilling a script that I didn’t write.
And I know that someone will come to say:
“But medicine gives money, status, contacts…”
And what’s the use of that if I feel empty? If every day I wake up wanting to send everything to hell. If I have to crawl to follow something I hate.
I’m tired. I’m fed up. And honestly, I’m one step away from saying: I’m leaving.
I have some savings. Not many, but enough to start over.
I don’t know if I’m leaving home, I don’t know if I’m leaving the race.
What I do know is that I no longer want to continue living the life that others chose for me.
Edit: they help me in every way I have a car, a house, they give me money they gave me a card I have everything but they already told me on several occasions that if I drop out of studying medicine all that would go car, bone card everything because they were not going to raise a sloth because they live in a world where everything is about medicine what should I do?
TL;DR:
Mis papás son doctores y me obligaron a estudiar medicina “para ser alguien en la vida”. La odio con todo mi ser. Estoy cansado de vivir una vida que no elegí, y estoy a un paso de salirme, aunque me cueste todo. Prefiero ser libre que ser el reflejo de sus expectativas.
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Take a gap year, cut off parents support and go hitchhiking around while doing manual labor. See for yourself if you really want that life.
Is there an area of medicine you might like? Like for nursing, there are options where you work on a cruise ship, or stay in oil fields for emergencies, or do emergency care in a helicopter, or are a student placement coordinator and just sit at a desk all day and never see a patient. Can you get creative and find some area like a radiologist where you get paid well to work from home and use AI tools to interpret xrays and never see a patient?
Not sure where you are, but med school is hard. I’ve been aiming for it for 9-10 years now, put in a lot of work, but am considering dropping out the race myself. Residency is rough in the US, and I’m not sure I could handle the mental and physical toll of 80-100 hours a week, never seeing friends or family, for the three years internal medicine takes. But once you start med school and acquire those tuition loans, you have no choice but to see it through. I’m taking a year off applying to think about it myself, if I want to be a doctor bad enough to go through those 3 years of hell.
Is it possible your parents will respect a different prestigious job? Lawyer or something else that might be more interesting to you? Worst case scenario, you can work a job saving up for a cheap beater car and get an apartment squared away before dropping the bomb that you aren’t pursuing medicine. Trade school might be cheaper than university, but you can definitely pursue a 4-year degree while working, might just take a little longer than 4 years or maybe some winter/summer semesters to finish on time. Online universities might also be something to look into as an asynchronous format might work better with a job, plus would be cheaper than a physical campus.
Reminds me of a story out of China sometime back… again a young man was pushed into medicine against his will. On the day of graduation he hands the diploma to his mother saying “You wanted this, not me”. Then he goes off to start a band.
The real question in my mind is: do your parents actually care about you, or do they care more about having a showpiece they can brag about? I think it’s a good idea you find out ASAP so you know where you stand. Are you on your own, or will they care enough about you as a person to let go of their expectations and just support the real you no matter who or what that person is? Once you know the truth of your situation, then you’ll be able to plan out what you have to do for yourself.
Be aware that they’ll likely have difficulty letting go of their expectations, so you may need to get away for a while and let them process things in their own time and way while you spend some much needed “you” time figuring out what you really want. Go low-contact for a while, but always be open to discussing things with them if they seem willing to be rational about it. It’s going to (hopefully) be a period of self-discovery for all of you.
What do you like?
Tell your parents your are passionate about X and switch mayors? I mean studying something is not the worst of ideas… most people just have to work shitty jobs their whole life
you get this one precious life as “you” and who knows what comes next. dont waste any of it. not a second. for the love of god dont waste a single moment.
I want you to imagine you go to a doctor who’s not passionate about their craft. Or try a mechanic who hates their job. Or a catering service that hates making food.
None of those are great experiences, and some of them come with lawsuits for malpractice.
For your sake, pick up a new life, even if it means sending the old one to hell.
I am one of the few people at my workplace without a degree. And I have a better position than most there. My boss also has no degree. Some places it’s just an expensive accessory that most do not use in their job.
I tell medical residents that their career will be careers of intense, unending and unyielding pressure to make life changing decisions with incomplete, misleading and inaccurate information.
It’s definitely a career that, if not for you, is best to get it out of early rather than late
I won’t claim to know how you are feeling – as my own parents always supported whatever I want to be.
But I want to offer my perspective as a medical doctor who aims for her board examination (or rather my country’s equivalent) this autumn.
I was burning for the subject when I started med school, worked hard for years in school to get in. And then slowly, it was chipped away. The reality of the system hollowed me out. But I found a semblence of joy in anaesthesiology in my final year.
And then Covid hit full force. It was an all around horrible experience and I needed to get out, knowing I would be crushed. So I concentrated on what actually loved about medicine – the diagnostic process. And I became a clinical pathologist (we do need one year of a direct patient care speciality, so it worked all out).
I’ve been happy ever since. Medicine is a broad field, I am sure something could be there for you, too.