DO/MD or bust.
Most likely DO (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine).
Right now I’m planning on going into Family Medicine, since I want to work with a broad spectrum of patients and diseases. The residency is shorter (3 years) and relatively uncompetitive. A uncompetitive residency is important to me, since I want to stay close to my family and California is known to be hard to land a residency in. Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Pathology would also be really interesting, I think. Those are also known to be less competitive and pretty low in hours (50 hrs/week as opposed to 80 in residency).
Ever since I started taking Bio classes again, I’ve got med school on the brain. I’ve been obsessing over it every single day, tormenting myself over the practicality of doing a post-bacc and entering med school at my age. Best case scenario, I won’t practice until I’m 34. To me, that is ages away and definitely not where I expected to be years ago. It also means I’ll be having children during residency, and I can barely imagine working 80 hours per week, much less be pregnant throughout it and raise an infant.
But unfortunately, this is the path that I carved out for myself years ago in undergrad when I lacked the focus and maturity to excel in my classes. They were monstrous classes, sure, but I definitely didn’t try hard enough. At this point, it’s hard for me to envision myself pursuing another path though. I tried the middle road with PT, and I’m not sure it’s for me. I think a bit too much patient contact and downtime, and the income-to-debt ratio is astronomical. The only other viable option is to become a Nurse Practitioner, and call it pride, but I don’t like the idea of being “nurse” anything.
I know I can’t plan out my life…I mean, look at where I am despite all the planning I’ve done. From when I thought about becoming an optometrist (too boring, weekend hours), to pursuing a psych graduate degree (research is too dry, no other real viable career paths), to pursuing a career in the marketing industry (hours too unpredictable, work unsatisfying, an inherently selfish industry). I’m back at square one after all of that. But I hope I’m getting there…two steps forward, one step back, right? I’m thinking it would still be possible for me to have a baby in my 2nd/3rd year as a resident at 33 years old, and then try to squeeze one out after residency. And if we don’t get the second baby, then adoption is always an option. I’ve always wanted to adopt!
