 What's happening guys? It's Shane here. So this is going to be a little bit of a controversial video. It's probably going to rustle some jimmies here and there, but it really just needs to be made because one of the most overhyped and overrated professions out there, in my opinion, is becoming a medical doctor. And I think that most people that want to become a medical doctor would be much better off going in a different direction. And in this video, I'm going to break down exactly why I think that is. And this video is not meant to make fun of doctors or belittle them in any way. I have a ton of respect for medical doctors. This video is meant to be a warning to people who are bent on becoming a doctor because I see so many young people out there who've got the blinders on. You know, they've got that tunnel vision for becoming an MD. Smash the like button if you've got that 2020 tunnel vision. But for a lot of young people out there, it's like nothing else matters. It's become a doctor or die trying, and they don't even consider any other careers. And I think it's really gotten out of hand. It's gotten to the point where there are YouTubers on the platform right now that are charging people thousands of dollars, sometimes even tens of thousands of dollars just to teach them how to become a doctor. The internet is for smart, established doctors like me. That means people are willing to pay all of this money just to increase their chances of getting into med school. So not only am I going to go over reasons that being a doctor is overrated and it's probably not for most people, but I'm also going to offer you alternatives towards the end of the video. So first things first, I think it's appropriate to ask why is it that so many people want to become a doctor? And if you ask most people this question, they're probably going to give you some sort of response like, I want to help people out. But when you ask them the follow-up question of why not try to become a nurse practitioner or a physician's assistant, after all they can write prescriptions and diagnose people just like a doctor, most of them will give you a blank face. And they won't really be able to give you a coherent answer. And if they're being really honest with you and really more than that honest with themselves, a lot of them will say something along the lines of, I'm not really sure why I want to be a doctor, but I've always wanted to be one since a very young age. And if you're watching this video and you find yourself thinking like this, in my opinion, that is a huge red flag that you need to reevaluate your decisions. Now, I've met a ton of people like this and most of them of course won't admit it, not to say that they're lying or anything. A lot of them are just not being truthful with themselves. But there's usually three main reasons why they really want to become a doctor. And by far, the number one reason is because their family pushed them into it from a very young age. A lot of them, before they could even remember anything, their family basically brainwashed them into thinking that, you know, it was become a doctor and there wasn't a second option. It was the best possible future that they could have. And so for that reason, they wanted to be a doctor ever since they could remember. Yeah, that's it. All right. Now, in my opinion, the second most common reason that a lot of people want to become a doctor is for the status. Now, being a doctor has always been an extremely respected profession. Even hundreds of years ago, it was respected. But in recent times with the onset of TV and different shows, it has been idealized to a whole another level. TV shows have been glamorizing becoming a doctor for the last few decades. And it's gotten to the point where people think if you get that MD, you're going to be some kind of superhero and everybody will love you and your life will just be amazing and just full of sugar and spice and everything nice and you'll never have another problem in the world. Society puts medical doctors up on a pedestal and in my opinion, they should. But not for the reasons that they do. And later on in this video, I'm going to explain exactly what I mean by that. And then the third most common reason, which I think is the worst out of all of the reasons, the most ridiculous one is people do it for the money. Now, of course, if you just look at the raw figures, you know, medical doctors do get paid quite a bit. It's more than nurse practitioners. It's more than physicians assistants. But it's really not as much as you might think. And later on in the video, I'm going to go over the numbers and explain to you exactly what I mean by that. So let's go over the first reason, which is pressure from family or society. Now, like I said, I think this is the most common reason that people try to become doctors. And I also think this is the one that leads to the most burnout. And the reason for this is because the idealized version of what it's like to be a doctor in your head is so far away from the actual reality of what it's like to be a doctor, that I kind of think weirdly, this causes attention and a lot of stress. And that can really break somebody down and it can lead to burnout. You know, at some point along the process, you realize that being a doctor isn't at all what you imagined it to be. And this could be after you've gotten rejected a few times from med schools and you're starting to consider going to a Caribbean school. Or maybe it's when you're in your third year of medical school and your brain literally feels like it can't fit another single piece of information into it. Or maybe it's when you're in residency and you're working 80 hours a week and you haven't slept in two days and life is just generally pretty bland because you don't really have a life. Or maybe it's when you start working your half a million dollars in debt and you realize is this it? Now, if you're lucky this happens earlier on in the process before you've done a lot of damage and you've gotten to the point where you can't really go back. But unfortunately, a lot of people don't get lucky and they find themselves in a situation where they're trapped and they can't get out. This is why half the time when you see a doctor, they hardly make eye contact with you. I want to reward you with five minutes of uninterrupted eye contact. They seem really tired and not very passionate about their job and they also seem like they haven't slept in days. Yeah, probably got restless. And this isn't to even mention the high rates of suicide and depression that you see among doctors. In fact, this profession not only has the highest suicide rate out of any profession in the United States, but also the rest of the world as well. A 2018 study estimated that the suicide rate was between two and five times as high as the rate of the general population. We're not talking percentages here, we're talking magnitudes. So doing something because your family wants you to or because society wants you to is not a good reason to do it. And it's so much better to be honest with yourself now rather than later. And it's worth it for you to put in the time to really research this rather than committing to something and then doing the research later on. Now, like I said before, the second big reason in my opinion that people become doctors is because of the status and respect. And the first thing you need to realize here is that becoming a doctor takes an incredible amount of sacrifice, not only from you, but also from your family and friends. We're talking 60 to 80 hour weeks, sometimes more high stress level, tons of responsibility. Every single thing you do is scrutinized. So you have to always be laser focused while you're at work, patients being extremely angry at you all the time, a lot of negativity from not only patients, but sometimes some of the other people you work with. And on top of all that, you have to deal with a lot of politics and red tape that you probably shouldn't have to deal with. And basically what I mean by that is you can't just do your job. You have to document every little thing that you do because of insurance issues or something along those lines. So basically the patients that you see oftentimes are probably going to be having the worst time of their life. Literally one of the worst days they've ever had. And so there's a very good chance they're not going to be treating you very well just because they're in a bad mood. They might be a great person 99% of the time, but on that particular day, they might treat you really badly. You'll get scrutinized by a lot of the other people you work with. You're constantly going to be under a microscope. And then on top of that, your family, your friends, your significant other, a lot of them aren't even going to get to see you that often. So this idea that you're going to be some high status person really isn't as great as it seems. And really, I think that intrinsic satisfaction and fulfillment from your work is going to be a lot more important than thinking about the way people view you. Now, a lot of people will look up to you as a doctor and they should because it's one of the most important and valuable jobs out there, but really not everyone can or should try to be one. But overall, with great power comes great responsibility. Yeah, of course it is. And this is a very overrated perk of being a doctor. Now, the third reason for becoming a doctor is like I said before, probably the silliest one and that is because it pays really well. Now people have this perception that doctors make a lot of money because if you look at their salary, it looks pretty good, but there's so much more that goes into this that people just don't think about. So first, let's talk about the insane amount of debt that you have to take on. The average doctor will take out over $200,000 in student loan debt. And a lot of this debt is what's known as grad plus loans, which if you know anything about that, they compound at 6% to 7% interest and they start compounding right away, right when you take them out, not like undergrad loans, which start compounding when you graduate or oftentimes years after you graduate. So for instance, getting an engineering degree, the interest on that would be somewhere around 3% to 4% and it wouldn't start compounding until months after you graduated. Now, there are so many different factors to consider here and it would take an entire video just to break down this one thing, but one of my favorite channels on this subject on YouTube is Med School Insiders. And they basically did an analysis of, you know, comparing engineering to becoming a medical doctor. And they found that a medical doctor won't catch up in net worth with an engineer until the mid to late 40s. Now, there are a lot of assumptions on this spreadsheet, I admit it's really hard to factor in every little thing. But honestly, I think he was pretty nice to doctors because he didn't even include the 7% grad plus loans and the compounding interest that starts right away while you're still in school. And this causes a lot of doctors to go half a million dollars in debt before they even start making money. He also didn't include the medical malpractice insurance that a lot of doctors have to buy. So an extreme example of this would be OB-Gynes, which have to pay somewhere around $85,000 to $200,000 a year in medical malpractice insurance. Another example of this would be surgeons, which generally have to pay $30,000 to $50,000 a year, which is still a lot of money. Now, obviously, you're going to make more depending on which specialty you choose. For instance, anesthesiologists are going to make a lot more than family doctors. But overall, I think you get the point here, doctors don't make nearly as much as you think they do. And this is not a reason to go into medicine. Now, there are other reasons to not go into medicine that don't fall under the previous three categories, but they're still just as important. The first of which is you can't really switch specialties. So once you choose a specialty, you're pretty much stuck there. And you can compare this to other medical professions such as physician's assistant, for instance, where it's actually pretty easy to switch specialties. So you can kind of bounce around to different specialties, work there for a year, or maybe just six months. And then eventually you'll land on one that you really like. And then you can just stay there for as long as you want. Whereas with medicine, you have to get it right on the first try. The second thing, and I kind of went over this a little bit, but there's really no such thing as a work life balance when it comes to being a medical doctor. You pretty much have to be 100% dedicated to your job, and you can't really pursue that many other interests outside of being an MD. So for instance, let's say you got interested in entrepreneurship, you probably just simply would not have enough time to start a business on the side, because you really just have to be focused on your work. As a doctor, there's always something that you have to be doing, even if there's no patients to take care of, there's always studies that you need to be reading up on. So you stay, you know, current with all of the latest literature, and you're giving the patients the best possible treatment. There's literally always something that you have to be doing at all times. And the other thing that's not mentioned is getting into not only universities, but also getting into residencies is really time consuming, difficult, and expensive. For a lot of people, they have to apply several times in a row. A lot of people don't get in on the first or even the second year. And each time it's going to cost you probably tens of thousands of dollars for the travel expenses, the applications, having to take all these different tests, etc. And I have personally seen several people that are, you know, close friends of mine, people I was really close to, that got rejected year after year after year. And it's just heartbreaking to see this. One of them got rejected four years in a row, and then on the fifth time they finally got in. The other one got rejected four years in a row, and they just straight up gave up. Just think of the opportunity cost and what they could have done in those four years with, let's say, $10,000 each year. You could have traveled the world. You could have gotten an entirely new degree. There's so much that they could have done in those four years that they weren't able to do because they were spending all of that time applying to med schools. Then once you get into med school, everybody in med school is the smartest person from their high school. You're going to be competing against the best of the best for the residencies that lead to better jobs. Now, I don't want to come off as extremely negative. What are you talking about? Who's getting negative? Of course, this is a very important profession. And there are certain types of people that should go into the medical field and become medical doctors. And so I'm going to go over a few reasons why you should be a medical doctor. Number one on this list is going to be that you're an A type personality. And I think that, you know, this opinion is going to be a little bit controversial, but almost any other profession that you can think of, you can get away, you know, not being an A type personality, but being a medical doctor is the exception. And you see so many people applying to medical school that basically went through undergrad and they were so smart that they just procrastinate until the last moment and they only study at the last moment and they're able to get by an undergrad doing that. But the problem is, is when they get to med school, that's simply not an option. You not only have to be extremely smart, but you also have to be a really hard worker because medical school and then residency is going to push you to the limit. Number two on the list is that you've done your research. So you've done tons of shadowing. You've made sure that you're not too emotional about it. You're making logical decisions. You spent a ton of time weighing the pros and the cons of becoming a doctor. You've done a lot of research on which specialties you're thinking about going into. And you have a solid plan before going to medical school. Number three on the list doesn't really have a word for it, but I'm just going to call it the stick with it factor. And what I mean by this is you're not only a hard worker, smart, you're an A type personality, but you're also the type of person that can really stick with decisions that you make. Because like I said, you can only choose your specialty once and once you choose it, you have to stick with it for a long time and you're going to have to give up and sacrifice a lot of other things in your life. Number four on this list is that you're a team player and you're an effective communicator not only with patients, but also with other healthcare professionals. If you're the type of person that hates people, then being a medical doctor is not for you. You are going to be absolutely miserable because you cannot be a medical doctor without communicating not only with other healthcare professionals, nurses, pharmacists, et cetera, but also with patients. Now, number five on the list is that you have a deep desire to be the best in the world at whatever specialty you choose. And this means that you're always going to be on the cutting edge so that you can give your patients the best possible treatment. Not only do you want to be the doctor that gives your patients the best possible treatment, but you also want to improve and advance the knowledge in your field and be somebody who actually contributes to whatever specialty that you're a part of. Now, like I promised at the beginning of the video, I'm going to include two other careers that in my opinion are really good alternatives to becoming a doctor that have most of the upsides as well as very few of the downsides. And these careers are going to be physician's assistant and nurse practitioner. So just like a doctor, you get to help people, you get to make a difference, you can prescribe, you can diagnose, but you also get to keep your work-life balance. You can graduate and start working at 24 years old sometimes even sooner if you go an accelerated route, whereas doctors are grinding all through the best years of their life and a lot of them don't start making money until their mid-30s. There's also not nearly as much debt involved in the debt that you do accumulate. You can start paying it off right away so that you can actually enjoy the best years of your life. You also aren't stuck in one specialty like a doctor. Maybe you start an emergency medicine, you realize it's not for you, and you find that dermatology is your life calling. It's relatively easy to switch as a PA or a nurse practitioner compared to a medical doctor, and I think the importance of this flexibility can't be overstated enough. The fact that you have the freedom to switch specialties is really awesome. And physician's assistants and nurse practitioners have some of the highest rates of job satisfaction out of all of the medical professions. And they both have an insane job outlook, which is how much they expect their job to grow in the next 10 years of 26 and 31%. Compare this to the decent but not amazing 7% for medical doctors. And I've talked about this a lot before on my channel, but it's been shown in many different studies that money will make you happy up to a certain point. Some of them say it's like 70,000. Some of it say it's around 90,000. But after it gets to that point, your happiness does not increase at all with making more money. But anyways, I'm thinking about doing a breakdown of nurse practitioner and PA in a separate video. So let me know if that's something you'd be interested in seeing. But overall, make sure to check out my videos right here. I made them just for you. Smash the like button, hit the subscribe button, ring the little notification bell, and then comment down below any ideas you have or any comments you have on the video. Thank you so much for watching and bye for now.