 So we hear about the money, we hear about the nice cars, the nice houses and the prestige of wearing that beautiful white coat, but what are some of the worst parts about being a doctor? We're going to get to that in this video. All right guys, welcome to another video in the MD journey. My name is Lakshay. I'm a first year medical resident helping people just like you succeed on a medical journey with lack stress. If you're new to the channel, consider subscribing, consider hitting that like button. But today I wanted to talk about something that maybe we don't talk about enough and that's the worst aspect becoming a doctor. We always talk about the nice elements, which includes, you know, the ability to really change lives, to save lives, the prestige that comes with being a physician, the ability to just practice a revolutionary science and technology to really change not the lives of only yourself, but the people you take care of. So lots of elements are becoming a physician. But now after going through this journey myself for a year and truly taking care of patients as their physician, I really have come through a few things that maybe I just don't like as much. I want to share those with you guys. So let's dive right into the video. And the first thing that's probably my biggest pet peeve and that is the time away from medicine. Now I'm not referring to an ability to kind of find time for yourself outside of a hospital or your job. We'll get to that later. But what I'm referring to is even when you're at your job, sometimes it's not medicine. Actually most of it's not. And that's the unfortunate part. If you think about other professions, a teacher, a chef, a businessman, you could argue that a majority of their nine to five or whatever hours they may be spending is spent doing the craft that their occupation entails. Sometimes as a physician, that's just not true. If I get to work at five, 30 or six and I leave at five or six, those 12 hours they've been spending, unfortunately not all of them or most of them are spent doing something medical. I'll get into med school to help treat patients and consider what's going on with their diseases, how I can better help manage their care. A lot of my time is actually spent doing notes, documentation of some sort, chart checking if people have come from different institutions and a lot of just kind of social disposition. If people can't afford insurance, people can't afford their medications. If people can't leave the hospital and go home, then you have to figure out a lot of different kind of elements to allow them to go to maybe a short-term center or a nursing home or a rehab center. But all of those elements fall into the role of becoming a doctor. And while my desire would be to go and see new patients, start diagnosing, treating and just kind of doing that throughout the day, unfortunately the ratio of how much I do it is so much more limited than what we're told when we're going into medical school. So it's always refreshing when you have a day where things are just kind of clicking the documentations and notes are kind of out of the way and you're just practicing medicine. You're admitting people, you're diagnosing them, you're treating them and you're just managing their care. But unfortunately that ideal day happens less often than I would want. Now the second thing is something you're probably aware of, you experience definitely more when you're in a position. And then it's just you experience resistance at every single phase of the kind of medical ladder that goes from early level providers, such as techs and nurses, all the way up to the CEO of the hospital and the kind of the medical system. And what I mean by this is sometimes it feels like people are going out of their way to find a reason not to do their job. I'm sure I'm guilty of this myself, but let me just give you an example. Sometimes you may call a consult one of your patients, you think that maybe they need to see a cardiologist, they need to see a TI doctor or they need to see a surgeon. These are some examples. But instead when that professional sees them and you see their note or they give you their recommendations, you know, they may not have that urgency that you think that the patient requires. Maybe they say, I'll see this patient in clinic instead of doing something for them here. Sometimes it's reasonable. Other times it feels like people are dragging their feet and that really impedes on the care that a patient gets. And that may fall on you as their primary physician in the hospital to say, I'm sorry, I wish you could get this done. But X, Y and Z individuals that I need to kind of have this ball rolling, you know, don't feel like it's as necessary. And that's not something we talk about in med school very often. We're told about a diagnosis, we're told about management, we're told about kind of how to move from part A to part B, but no one really tells us what to do in the middle when people aren't really trying to help you progress in that journey. So going back to my first point, a lot of my time has been convincing consultants or nurses or social workers or administrative staff that the care a patient needs is urgent. Now, and again, to put those some of the blame on myself, people are doing that to me too. And I need to obviously pick up the slack and make sure I'm doing my role. Now, number three is something that I have experienced working at a county hospital. And that just essentially means that a lot of the patients in terms of the health care, even if they can't afford it, are covered through some form of taxes by the individuals within the county, the state, the government. And that is that you definitely get to experience the inequality that exists through health care. You know, may have somebody who comes in for a wealthy background, at least can afford insurance, can afford their medications, and there's a certain level of care you provide them. And then on the other hand, you may have somebody who, you know, may not have insurance or may not have a job, may be homeless, and there's limitations of how much you can do for them. Obviously with our current system, money does play a role in the type of health care that we can provide you, but it's difficult as a physician when you're taking care of two individuals, maybe right next to each other in terms of rooms, go into one room and you can offer one option or two options. And the other one, you may just say, this is unfortunately the best I can do. It just feels like you're short changing somebody because, again, in med school, you learn, you know, a patient has this, do B and C, but sometimes B and C may not be an option. You have to get creative, and those are things that, again, we're not really told about in med school very much. Now, number four, and this is something that I'm still trying to struggle with as a new doctor, is that sometimes as physicians, we are in a fixing instead of a healing mentality. You know, we have patients who come in with a lot of comorbidities, whether it's asthma, heart failure, you know, diabetes, hypertension, lots of different diseases. And, you know, a lot of times in the hospital, especially, we're just trying to kind of get them back to stability. But unfortunately for these patients, sometimes they just don't have enough of the resources or support that when they go home, they just kind of continue to do the same things that led them to come back to the hospital. And I feel like sometimes as physicians, we get numb to the fact that, well, this patient's going to do, you know, X, Y, and Z. We're just going to take care of the hospital and then send them on their way. And there is some truth to that. The patients do have to have some level of responsibility, but it is difficult when I just kind of see a patient that just comes in with behavioral-related chest pain from like drug use or from just not eating correctly, but they have a heart history, things of that sort. And then my job really is to just kind of get them close enough to what they were when they came back to the hospital because the hospital stays obviously expensive and then discharging them. But you may not always feel like you're fixing people to the extent that you may have wanted when you're writing your personal statement to get into medical school or into residency. And number five is something that's very obvious, but you don't really understand the significance until you're put in this situation. And that is just the hours and time that's required to become a physician. And we're not even talking about the hours of studying and years of studying and training that you're doing to get that MD or that DO behind your name, but instead the hours and time that you're spending in the hospital taking care of the patients. And even when you go home, I'm guilty for this too. I'm chart checking on my patients that have been really sick throughout the day and make sure they're doing okay. Sometimes I'm texting a doctor that's covering for me at nighttime. And it's sometimes difficult of taking that medical physician hat off and enjoying your regular life. And as a second part of that, because we spend so much time in the hospital, in the clinics, in the ORs, that time is taken away from our loved ones, our hobbies, our friends, as well as important events that we may want to attend. Those guys are my biggest kind of cons of becoming a doctor, the worst parts of everything in a physician. But with all that being said, I absolutely love my job. I love walking into a patient's room and seeing them go from day one to day X of discharge and seeing that I've truly made an impact, but not only in their lives, you know, obviously seeing them becoming healthy is a big achievement. But when you're able to see that that person plays different roles in the community and their families and those people around your patient are now able to enjoy their presence. For example, if you take care of a female, she may be a mom, she may be a sister, she may be a wife, she may be an employee, a teacher, just having a different impact in her community. When you're able to discharge her and allow her to become healthy, she can play that role that she has in the lives of people around her. So you definitely are making a bigger impact than you think. And despite the things that we talked about earlier in this video, the pros still outweigh the cons. I love going into work and making the impact that we talked about. And the cons are just going to be a part of any job, to be quite honest. And so I'm going to just keep tracking along. Hopefully you guys have enjoyed this video. Hopefully you've enjoyed this insight. You guys have more questions about what it's like to become a doctor. Let me know in the comment section down below, as well as if you're in residence or if you're in any form of training after medical school. If you guys want more tips and kind of insights and experiences like this, make sure you check out the link down below. It's basically going to be taking you to the MD journey website. And it's going to be collecting, collaborating all of the tips and videos as well as blog posts that we have about helping you on your residency journey. So definitely check that out. But if you've made it to this video and that subscribe button starts and it hit up a brother out. But thank you guys so much for watching and listening. If you're listening on the podcast, but I will see you guys in the next video. Peace.