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Basically, it’s a combination of a few things:Medicine is glamorized by our society. Most non-medical people think being a doctor is like House, M.D., Grey’s Anatomy, or other similar medical shows. They don’t realize all these shows glamorize what it’s like to be a doctor. They’re not realistic. Scrubs is one of the more accurate fictional medical shows, but even Scrubs leaves out all the toil, sweat, and tears, and many other things that most people simply wouldn’t know about unless they’re in medicine. In any case, thanks to popular culture, most people think being a doctor is sexy and cool, even though there’s a 100 lbs. of “not cool” (to put it nicely) for every ounce of “cool.”Most applicants to med school think having the title of “doctor” will give them social status or that being a physician will still make them tons of money.Most applicants don’t realize the huge sacrifices and costs doctors have to make to become a doctor.They don’t realize that the title “doctor” only sounds meaningful to outsiders. But even that’s changing as most people no longer put doctors on pedestals. Plus you won’t think it’s so special to be a “doctor” when you have a bunch of patients yelling at you and “demanding” you do this or that for them or else they’ll sue you. There are also patient satisfaction scores that doctors are judged on and which could effect their salaries or even careers (just Google Press Ganey for emergency physicians for example). In medicine, there are other health care professionals such as midlevels like nurses, nurse practioners, CRNAs, physician assistants, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and so many more. Many of them want to be considered “equal” to doctors (just look at the fights between anesthesiologists and CRNAs as “anesthesia providers”). Many midlevels also wear white coats, carry stethoscopes, do procedures, etc. Some even want to be called “doctor” in a medical or clinical context because they have (for example) a DNP (Doctor of Nursing Practice), even though that’s very confusing for non-medical people to have a DNP address themselves as “Dr.” while wearing a white coat with a stethoscope in a clinical setting. Regardless, being a “doctor” isn’t all that special anymore. Maybe your mother or grandmother might think it’s special. Otherwise, it’s just a title, like many other titles in the world.Also, applicants don’t realize that it actually doesn’t make that much money all things considered, especially if their idea of a doctor is the family physician, pediatrician, or other primary care physician.They don’t realize it’s costing them the best years of their lives (20s and 30s).They don’t realize that working 80 hours per week isn’t a one time thing, but a regular occurrence for years, especially if they want to become a surgeon or cardiologist or critical care physician.They don’t realize how their non-medical friends and family won’t usually understand much of what they’re going through, and that they may even lose friends over pursuing medicine.They don’t realize they will have to deal with many patients yelling at them throughout their careers and some even throwing blood or urine at them.Or having to sift through patient’s poop and pee at times.They don’t realize they will have to work a full day (not just 9 hours of work, but 12 or more hours in a day), crash in bed, only to get paged, then have to go back into the hospital at 2am, finally leave at 3 or 4am, then have to go back to work at 7am. They don’t realize this isn’t just a one time thing, but a regular occurrence for much of their careers, such as if they’re a cardiologist (heart attacks don’t wait until regular office hours).They don’t realize how entirely life-consuming being a doctor is. They don’t realize that tons of doctors would be more than willing to give up money (“golden handcuffs”) if they could just have more freedom to spend time at home with their families or spend time reading a book or spend time with a friend having a coffee or many other simple pleasures in life. But they can’t because their more senior partners won’t allow it or the hospital administrators wouldn’t like it or whatever.I haven’t even talked about how both Republican and Democrat Parties aren’t exactly supporting doctors, to say the least, but everyone wants to reform the health care system, which will affect the lives of doctors. And most likely for the worse, regardless of which party is in charge. So in the future expect that doctors will only be working even more hours but for less pay (bundled payments anyone?).And all this is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot more that’s worse but I don’t have time to talk about it all.In short, most applicants glamorize medicine, most applicants are idealistic and starry-eyed about being a doctor, yet they don’t know the reality. Shadowing a physician as a pre-med isn’t all that eye-opening either. Hence applications continue to go up despite survey after survey saying that approximately 50% of all physicians wouldn’t want to go into medicine again or wouldn’t recommend medicine as a career for their children. Of course there are another 50% that don’t think this, but even most of them don’t think the future of medicine and our health care system is only going to be smooth sailing. In the end, I think only do medicine if you really are passionate about medicine and can’t imagine doing anything else with your life.101 things you wish you knew before starting medical school:If I had known what it was going to be like, I would never have done it.You’ll study more than you ever have in your life.Only half of your class will be in the top 50%. You have a 50% chance of being in the top half of your class. Get used to it now.You don’t need to know anatomy before school starts. Or pathology. Or physiology.Third year rotations will suck the life out you.Several people from your class will have sex with each other. You might be one of the lucky participants.You may discover early on that medicine isn’t for you.You don’t have to be AOA or have impeccable board scores to match somewhere – only if you’re matching into radiology.Your social life may suffer some.Pelvic exams are teh suck.You won’t be a medical student on the surgery service. You’ll be the retractor bitch.Residents will probably ask you to retrieve some type of nourishment for them.Most of your time on rotations will be wasted. Thrown away. Down the drain.You’ll work with at least one attending physician who you’ll want to beat the shit out of.You’ll work with at least three residents who you’ll want to beat the shit out of.You’ll ask a stranger about the quality of their stools.You’ll ask post-op patients if they’ve farted within the last 24 hours.At some point during your stay, a stranger’s bodily fluids will most likely come into contact with your exposed skin.Somebody in your class will flunk out of medical school.You’ll work 14 days straight without a single day off. Probably multiple times.A student in your class will have sex with an attending or resident.After the first two years are over, your summer breaks will no longer exist. Enjoy them as much as you can.You’ll be sleep deprived.There will be times on certain rotations where you won’t be allowed to eat.You will be pimped.You’ll wake up one day and ask yourself is this really what you want out of life.You’ll party a lot during the first two years, but then that pretty much ends at the beginning of your junior year.You’ll probably change your specialty of choice at least 4 times.You’ll spend a good deal of your time playing social worker.You’ll learn that medical insurance reimbursement is a huge problem, particularly for primary care physicians.Nurses will treat you badly, simply because you are a medical student.There will be times when you’ll be ignored by your attending or resident.You will develop a thick skin. If you fail to do this, you’ll cry often.Public humiliation is very commonplace in medical training.Surgeons are assholes. Take my word for it now.OB/GYN residents are treated like shit, and that shit runs downhill. Be ready to pick it up and sleep with it.It’s always the medical student’s fault.Gunner is a derogatory word. It’s almost as bad as racial slurs.You’ll look forward to the weekend, not so you can relax and have a good time but so you can catch up on studying for the week.Your house might go uncleaned for two weeks during an intensive exam block.As a medical student on rotations, you don’t matter. In fact, you get in the way and impede productivity.There’s a fair chance that you will be physically struck by a nurse, resident, or attending physician. This may include slapped on the hand or kicked on the shin in order to instruct you to “move” or “get out of the way.”Any really bad procedures will be done by you. The residents don’t want to do them, and you’re the low man on the totem pole. This includes rectal examinations and digital disimpactions.You’ll be competing against the best of the best, the cream of the crop. This isn’t college where half of your classmates are idiots. Everybody in medical school is smart.Don’t think that you own the world because you just got accepted into medical school. That kind of attitude will humble you faster than anything else.If you’re in it for the money, there are much better, more efficient ways to make a living. Medicine is not one of them.Anatomy sucks. All of the bone names sound the same.If there is anything at all that you’d rather do in life, do not go into medicine.The competition doesn’t end after getting accepted to medical school. You’ll have to compete for class rank, awards, and residency. If you want to do a fellowship, you’ll have to compete for that too.You’ll never look at weekends the same again.VA hospitals suck. Most of them are old, but the medical records system is good.Your fourth year in medical school will be like a vacation compared to the first three years. It’s a good thing too, because you’ll need one.Somebody in your class will be known as the “highlighter whore.” Most often a female, she’ll carry around a backpack full of every highlighter color known to man. She’ll actually use them, too.Rumors surrounding members of your class will spread faster than they did in high school.You’ll meet a lot of cool people, many new friends, and maybe your husband or wife.No matter how bad your medical school experience was at times, you’ll still be able to think about the good times. Kind of like how I am doing right now.Your first class get-together will be the most memorable. Cherish those times.Long after medical school is over, you’ll still keep in contact with the friends you made. I do nearly every day.Gunners always sit in the front row. This rule never fails. However, not everyone who sits in the front row is a gunner.There will be one person in your class who’s the coolest, most laid back person you’ve ever met. This guy will sit in the back row and throw paper airplanes during class, and then blow up with 260+ Step I’s after second year. True story.At the beginning of first year, everyone will talk about how cool it’s going to be to help patients. At the end of third year, everybody will talk about how cool it’s going to be to make a lot of money.Students who start medical school wanting to do primary care end up in dermatology. Those students who start medical school wanting to do dermatology end up in family medicine.Telling local girls at the bar that you’re a medical student doesn’t mean shit. They’ve been hearing that for years. Be more unique.The money isn’t really that good in medicine. Not if you look at it in terms of hours worked.Don’t wear your white coat into the gas station, or any other business that has nothing to do with you wearing a white coat. You look like an ass, and people do make fun of you.Don’t round on patients that aren’t yours. If you round on another student’s patients, that will spread around your class like fire after a 10 year drought. Your team will think you’re an idiot too.If you are on a rotation with other students, don’t bring in journal articles to share with the team “on the fly” without letting the other students know. This makes you look like a gunner, and nobody likes a gunner. Do it once, and you might as well bring in a new topic daily. Rest assured that your fellow students will just to show you up.If you piss off your intern, he or she can make your life hell.If your intern pisses you off, you can make his or her life hell.Don’t try to work during medical school. Live life and enjoy the first two years.Not participating in tons of ECs doesn’t hurt your chances for residency. Forget the weekend free clinic and play some Frisbee golf instead.Don’t rent an apartment. If you can afford to, buy a small home instead. I saved $200 per month and had roughly $30,000 in equity by choosing to buy versus rent.Your family members will ask you for medical advice, even after your first week of first year.Many of your friends will go onto great jobs and fantastic lifestyles. You’ll be faced with 4 more years of debt and then at least 3 years of residency before you’ll see any real earning potential.Pick a specialty based around what you like to do.At least once during your 4 year stay, you’ll wonder if you should quit.It’s amazing how fast time flies on your days off. It’s equally amazing at how slow the days are on a rotation you hate.You’ll learn to be scared of asking for time off.No matter what specialty you want to do, somebody on an unrelated rotation will hold it against you.A great way to piss of attendings and residents are to tell them that you don’t plan to complete a residency.Many of your rotations will require you to be the “vitals bitch.” On surgery, you’ll be the “retractor bitch.”Sitting around in a group and talking about ethical issues involving patients is not fun.If an attending or resident treats you badly, call them out on it. You can get away with far more than you think.Going to class is generally a waste of time. Make your own schedule and enjoy the added free time.Find new ways to study. The methods you used in college may or may not work. If something doesn’t work, adapt.Hospitals smell bad.Subjective evaluations are just that – subjective. They aren’t your end all, be all so don’t dwell on a poor evaluation. The person giving it was probably an asshole, anyway.Some physicians will tell you it’s better than it really is. Take what you hear (both positive and negative) with a grain of salt.90% of surgeons are assholes, and 63% of statistics are made up. The former falls in the lucky 37%.The best time of your entire medical school career is between the times when you first get your acceptance letter and when you start school.During the summer before medical school starts, do not attempt to study or read anything remotely related to medicine. Take this time to travel and do things for you.The residents and faculty in OB/GYN will be some of the most malignant personalities you’ve ever come into contact with.Vaginal deliveries are messy. So are c-sections. It’s just an all-around blood fest if you like that sort of thing.Despite what the faculty tell you, you don’t need all of the fancy equipment that they suggest for you to buy. All you need is a stethoscope. The other equipment they say you “need” is standard in all clinic and hospital exam rooms. If it’s not standard, your training hospital and clinics suck.If your school has a note taking service, it’s a good idea to pony up the cash for it. It saves time and gives you the option of not attending lecture.Medicine is better than being a janitor, but there were times when I envied the people cleaning the hospital trash cans.Avoid surgery like the plague.See above and then apply it to OB/GYN as well.The money is good in medicine, but it’s not all that great especially considering the amount of time that you’ll have to work.One time an HIV+ patient ripped out his IV and then “slung” his blood at the staff in the room. Go, go infectious disease.Read Med School Hell now, throughout medical school, and then after you’re done. Then come back and tell me how right I am.

Going through this actually right now. Though I cannot say my red flags changed to become non issues and green flags became issues. Red flags to me are never fine. You are starting at a deficit in my eyes until it is corrected or dealt with to my satisfaction it is something I will remember and keep in mind. Green flags that change into problems. I have never encountered that. Everyone's perception is different however until I experience the result nothing is green or golden. Until I see a consistency in rate of return. Anyhow these are my examples..take them for what you will.Red Flags:A long time passes before you receive an offer letter and you are not told why until later. And it turns out to be about salary negotiations. This is a big red flag. Recruiters often make promises they have to walk back after talking to the person who has the authority to broker such a deal in HR says no..no way. They come in with an initial lowball figure they know you won't accept. When you state what you are willing to work in fairness they come back and chisel down that number again and offer a signing bonus in some cases. This is like auction bidding. And finally when you have reached your compromise in the back of your mind you are wondering. After all of that will you get your first paycheck without any problems on the date it is due. Honor is key. Never promise what you cannot deliver.When you go back and forth like tennis it becomes less certain. And you begin to wonder about the true character behind your employer. Oh and some employers have you as a placeholder in that fashion while they are interviewing to get someone onboard who is much cheaper in salary demand. And this smacks of intellectual dishonesty at the base level.Bad logistics and planning. The company decides you need to fly out to their hub for onboarding and training. But one condition YOU must pat for the hotel, rental car and the round trip plane ticket. They will not pay at their expense to see you there. But they promise to reimburse you by you filling out a claim for the expenses incurred. To me this was not too bad at the initial point in time. But when the onboarding took place it was an 8 hour PowerPoint presentation slideshow and receipt of our laptops. A guy leaving with me attening this in my group told me this could have all been done through WebEx and the laptops shipped to us with signature receipt and proof like an ID shown of the receiver. And the Q&A could have been online.I agreed with him wholeheartedly.The organization of it all seemed not well planned in execution or thought out even from the end of being less cost effective for the company.No plan and being benched until all compliance and administrative paperwork is completed. Based on the urgency of hire and the pronounced need of the employer. I assumed I would hit the ground running. Well I am still in the air skydiving. A contractor or consultant not billable is an unpaid contractor no matter who you work for. You have a job but you are making no money. That is the ultimate oxymoron and a cardinal sin.Green Flags:Quick turnaround time for interview to being hired. Some companies drag this out. You need a job. They want a quantifiable asset. But some companies are ultra picky and subjective. Some go overboard with four technical screens, white boarding, panel interviews like a firing squad of four or six people and HackerRank and then you have to deal with arrogant interviewers on the phone with no people skills eager to shortlist you and cross you off as not good enough. Adversarial and combative interviewers. Remember your worth. You are the most important person in that room and your time is a commodity not just theirs.Friendly staff and HR that get back to you quickly with issues you might have. This is vital. You are a fish out of water and you are put in a bigger ocean you need to learn to navigate in with help. Diligent and kind people will help out and be instrumental to that transition.

Truth is- I’ve had that happen to me! In the form of my ex-husband and father of my 2 kids who were 7 and 4 at the time. He was a stock broker who continued to receive bonuses and advancements- and he handled all of our money. I was more than happy to give him that job as he was useless in other ways and made life quite chaotic. (A trick of addicts- who often control you with your own anxiety). Turned out he was trading options all day long- he gambled a sizable inheritance, savings, put us in huge debt- forged my name over 40 times.We almost lost the house.I had very little if any support from my family- his family blamed me- said it was because I wanted so much which was so completely untrue- he was the spender in our relationship.One night I had a dream= I woke him up and said, “Rob I just dreamed we had NO money!” He told me later that he was freaked because that was true! (Never underestimate the power of the unconscious mind.)As often occurs in situations such as this- throughout the years he suffered no real substantial consequences. I on the other hand fell into a major depression the likes of which I had no idea could occur- ended up having convulsions from anxiety- took on a new job at that time- highly stressful.I received, as I look back upon it- very bad advice from a lawyer who said to me when I seriously wanted to press charges against him- “You can’t kill the golden goose.” Translation, if we were to emerge from this nightmare his salary would be essential as my own earning power was nothing compared to his.I also asked my old psychiatrist who knew me very well- he said, “Linda, you are too depressed to divorce him right now- you couldn’t do all that you need to do with the kids and work- you have to hang in there.”Well the latter was true- however I’ve later heard that if I had pursued charges against him the brokerage firm would most likely reimburse everything in order to avoid the scandal. And had I sent him to jail- I’m quite certain his family would have raised the money- oh well- I didn’t.Its been an interesting journey- when I tell people the story they always say- rather smugly, “I’’d have killed him.” Other friends didn’t believe me.That’s akin to saying I’m some kind of a pussy, milquetoast sort of person which believe you me- I am not- but I did have 2 kids both of whom were also depressed because their lives were also turned upside down.All I can say and I knew it at the time when I discovered it- although he never told me the complete details for about 6 months- that my life would never be the same. The enormous effort in holding on to my home so the kids could remain in the school district and retain their friends on a street that was like an extended family- the most fundamental supports other than what I could provide and I was most definitely injured- well it was sheer unadulterated hell. I didn’t eat or sleep for 2 weeks at one point.There is a point here that I’m trying to make- and it is this- women with small children are extremely vulnerable. A predator like this guy- who has never shown ANY remorse- knows this and acts upon it. He knew me before I had kids- and I absolutely believe he’d NEVER have done this at any other time to me- for sure I’d put him in jail-(or worse) that jerk lawyer said to me- there could have possibly been some issue about me testifying against him- though as he also stole from my father and some of his clients- (the bleeding heart liberal types) I’d perhaps been able to persuade them as well.The financial abuse didn’t stop there by the way- but I won’t go into to that. I did all the ‘right things’ went to the Anon part of Gambler’s Anonymous- therapy which I couldn’t afford and wouldn’t have otherwise have needed. My life went on hold in a way that continues to this day.I had worked in mental health for many years by that time- and more now of course- and I worked as we all do with addictions in some way or another- but I had NO CLUE WHATSOEVER- that a person could simply take all the money from his family (I’d had set up an excellent investment plan for the kids’ college) and simply piss it away- day after day-. Of course- it is a ‘disease’ but there are accompanying personality issues- psychopathic in his case- let’s put it this way- in this case it was a murder of the soul.So that is my story greatly abbreviated of someone stealing my money, years of my life to depression and complete destruction of being able to celebrate and enjoy my kids with the vitality that I’d dreamed of my entire life.