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EDIT: Please do not PM me about how to get a job at Google. There are a ton of brilliant Quora answers out there which will be able to guide you much better. Thank you.Disclaimers:1. All views listed are my own. Google doesn't endorse them. It may or may not be applicable to other Indian Googlers. Most points are based on my perception. Some one else may have perceived things differently. Let’s agree to disagree :)2. I worked in Hyderabad office. So some of the answers might be more applicable to Google Hyderabad vs Google Bangalore or say Mumbai. I have not worked in all the organisations at Google India. Most of them may be more applicable to my organisation than others.3. I am no longer employed with Google. I left to pursue higher education.What is it like to work at Google India? Let me share some of my experiences in form of short stories/snippets. I have divided the answer into 2 sections - Exceeds expectations (thing that Google India does really really well) and Needs Improvement (things that can be made better).EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONSa. PERKSOne fine Monday morning, I had a single ten rupee note in my wallet. I checked my wallet again on Friday evening and it still had that single ten rupee note in it.At Google I don't spend a dime during weekdays. I reach office in an office provided cab, eat at the free Google cafes, have snacks and dinner at the office itself and then reach home in one of the office cabs.One of my favorite perks of working at Google India was sleeping in the office cabs on my way to home after a hectic day at work. Also, the cab service is only offered in India. In US, Google provides a shuttle service but the cab service doesn’t exist in any other country (to the best of my knowledge).Talking about wallets, the security is pretty great. You can leave your wallet, watch, laptop etc. anywhere in the office and can expect to find it back in the same place the next day or with security. In my 2 years at Google, I never heard of anyone’s stuff getting stolen.Most roles allow for some overseas travel opportunities. I went on a business trip to Europe. I followed all the guidelines for daily allowances (which is pretty generous) and wasn't asked a single question about it. I had drinks when I wanted to and had all kinds of exotic food on the company's card. Some Companies are cost driven where as Google is Value driven. (The cost of asking for business justification for each & every bill is more expensive than letting the employee do some productive work in that time. See point no. 4 under culture)Google offers a generous dental and vision insurance on top of health insurance. I underwent LASIK surgery and it was covered by Google’s vision insurance completely. Generally LASIK is considered as a cosmetic surgery and is not covered in most insurances.I know a couple of Indian Googlers who will never leave Google just for the amazing health insurance that it provides to some of their family members who need permanent medical attention.During employment, if you undertake any professional course that is related to your job, then Google reimburses 2/3 of the total cost. In case of personal development, Google reimburses 1/3 of the cost. Guitar lessons, Dancing lessons, learning a new language etc. come under the purview of personal reimbursement. I have used personal reimbursement couple of times and it was a smooth process. (Upload the bills and fill a small form and done)Much has been said about Google’s food over the inter webs. I don’t have anything new to add to it, but you realise the importance of it during the weekends when you have to get your own food. (I am a bachelor who lives alone and doesn’t like to cook)Other perks that I have enjoyed during my tenure in Google India - On site Gym, playing table tennis, pool, xbox, foosball, concierge service which takes care of all your daily errands like dispatching a courier, paying bills etc. (not free but nominal), laundry service (not free), mail room where you can order all your Amazon and Flipkart goodies :D. Also, there is an in house coffee shop(free), library in the office, culture club, theatre club, football club, cricket club,basketball club (in Hyderabad at least).Google tries it best to care for you. They celebrate every employee’s work anniversary by decorating their work desk and offering them some massage points which in India translates to 60 minutes of free massage.This is how my desk looked like on my 2nd work anniversary. If it makes any difference, I was on my notice period on this day.9. Free Goodies. Team has extra budget? Great, let’s order some goodies. Organisation has some cash leftover from the annual budget? Great. Let’s order some goodies. I have received Google t-shirts (5–6) , couple of hoodies,external hard disk, wireless speakers, headphones, backpacks, selfie stick, neck pillow, keychains, pen drives, coffee mugs etc. in just 2 years. The amount of money Google spends on each employee is staggering.A lot of other companies would pat themselves in the back for saving some money from a party budget and carry it over to the next year. Not Google :)Talking about goodies, the grand daddy of them all - the annual Christmas gift awarded to each employee. I received a Nexus 5X last Christmas and an Android One phone the year before on Diwali.b. CULTUREGoogle allows you to be yourself. They don’t have a one screw fits all bolts policy. Come at what time you want & leave when you want to. There is no concept of attendance or normal office hours. One of my colleagues who got an exceptional rating last cycle had the habit of coming to office at 3 pm. (In his defense, he did work till 12 in the night.)You can wear whatever you want to. No dress code bullshit. You are not judged on how well your shirt is pressed.One of the unsaid rules of working at Google is - Be Nice and Be Respectful. People hold doors for you. You will hold doors for people. Expect to hear the word “Thanks” (or some variant) every other sentence.Elimination of bureaucratic bullshit. Google tries its best to eliminate hassles for its employees. There are proper channels for everything. Have a question about your latest payslip? Mail an email alias and get your concern addressed in 24 hours or less. Need to get some expenses reimbursed? Go to an internal portal and fill out a form and done. You don’t have to jump through the hoops to get things done. This is true for pretty much everything.There is an internal memes site ( check out Eric Schmidt’s book for more details) where you can criticise the CEO, senior VPs, management etc. without any repercussions. You can voice your disagreement and it is OK!. You can respectfully agree to disagree. Also, Googlers are the first to be up in arms against any decision taken by the company which may not be in the user’s best interests. ( Integrating G+ with Youtube was an unpopular decision internally and people weren’t shy when it came to expressing their disagreement)Google India celebrates multiple festivals every year by decorating the office and preparing special food on those days. It also has Bring your children to work multiple times a year where they install make shift slides & play houses in the office for children. Also, there are multiple initiatives organised by Googlers and for Googlers to give something back to society.c. WORKYour work will largely depend on which organisation you join and on your skill sets.Annual increments every year are quite generous. The only time people bitch about their increments is when they compare it against their neighbor. “I only got 20% while so and so got 30% last year blah blah”. Obviously, increments are dependent on your current base salary and your appraisals.You can say NO to projects. If the project doesn’t interest you, then you can decline to take it up. Obviously you need to convince your manager. Most managers will agree to not give you some project which you don’t want to undertake.Google has a pretty good internal mobility program. But the competition is very immense.( See point no.1 in Needs Improvement section)Needs ImprovementOne of my colleagues used to jokingly say that Google hires Ph.Ds to work as janitors. This is true to a large extent. Google hires CEOs to work as mid level managers. Most of the people who work at Google (and in India too) are way over-qualified for their jobs. If Google India wants to hire someone to write an email, they will go and hire a topper from DU. If they want to hire someone who can provide call support to users, they will go and hire an English hons. topper from DU (Do remember that you need some 99% in your boards to just clear DU’s cut off) . There are Ph.Ds at Google from IVY league colleges who just move data from one database to the other. You can see the pattern. This leads to immense competition.Most of the interesting roles are in Mountain View. The Engineering division in Hyderabad and Bangalore work on Google Apps for Work. It is a small team. I am not sure about the exact numbers but it is definitely less 1% of the total engineering workforce at Google. The two largest organisations at Google India are the sales org and the anti-abuse wing of Google which take down offensive content. If you come to work at Google India don’t expect to work on some cutting edge product like Driverless cars, Brain or Loon. Expect to work on something boring.Google India offers very limited scope for career growth. You obviously can’t become the CEO/SVP/VP working from India when more than 80% of your workforce is based out of Mountain View. The roles in India are very limited too since only a handful organisations are based out of India.Sooner than later, anyone, who has some iota of ambition and are not constrained by family, move to Mountain View. (The internal mobility is pretty great by the way minus the tons of competition for good roles. See point no. 1)Google runs a lot of programs to train its management and provides a lot of support to its employees to keep them stress free and remove all politics from the workplace. However, Google is a system run by people and at the end of the day people are flawed. Some politics does creep into the picture. It might be comparatively less than many other places but it does exist.Promotions in the non-tech organisations are very messy. It comes down to how much your manager is willing to push for your case. So, if you don’t have the best of relationships with your manager or your manager doesn’t like your face then find a new manager ASAP. If your manager is someone who backs down easily then say bye-bye to your promotion. I knew a guy on the floor who would stand behind his reportees like a wall (the noun, not Rahul Dravid). Multiple reportees in his team got promoted each cycle. Same cannot be said about the manager who had the reputation of backing down easily. It is not like there weren’t any hard-working or deserving candidates in the latter’s team. The scene is significantly different and less messy for tech ladders.Talking about Promotions, the lack of transparency around the committee who sits down to evaluate your candidature for promotion can be unnerving. Google allows you to be yourself & disagree with the decisions of the upper management. But at the back of your mind, you are always scared of what you say because you never know at what stage it may come to bite you in your backside. Almost any senior person on the floor can get you screwed out of your promotion. You absolutely cannot afford to piss off anyone who sits in one of those promo committees. What if the senior manager whose XYZ decision you disagreed with says he is not happy with your work in one of those closed committee meetings. If your immediate manager doesn’t fight tooth and nail for you, your promotion is gone.This point is specially true for Google India. I don’t think Google India managers are good at taking criticisms from their reportees. Almost all the questions asked during town hall meetings are anonymous. If the management doesn’t allow anonymous questions for some town hall, no questions are asked in that town hall. There is a lot of mistrust between management and non-management.This needs to be FIXED ASAP.Google India takes an awfully long time to weed out bad managers. Managers with bad approval ratings are given multiple chances to become better at their job. It can take anywhere from 3 years to Never for Google to identify a bad manager and ask them to either become an individual contributor or find another role somewhere else. Problem with this is the following : A bad individual contributor screws up a project. A bad manager screws up the career of their multiple reportees, multiple projects, the entire team and relationship with stakeholders.That being said, Google does put in some checks through the internal culture & escalation mediums that ensures that your manager will show consideration for you as a human being (unlike the notorious Indian IT industry where you are addressed as a ‘resource’ and not a human being).However, some people are simply not cut out for people management. I don’t blame Google for any of this. I simply hope they get better at filtering out such candidates early on and removing them sooner.They should also change the annual Manager feedback survey to bi-annual and make it more actionable & hold the manager responsible. Currently, the manager feedback survey is useless and is only used for the manager to self-introspect. So, if a particular manager thinks along the lines of ‘Hey. I am a good manager. All of these people reporting under me who have given me an approval of only 30% are idiots. I don’t care about this survey’ then the survey becomes entirely meaningless. There is no accountability for a manger with a bad survey rating.This might be slightly controversial but - Google doesn’t fire anyone for low performance. How is this a con? Let me explain. Amazon has a policy of firing 10% of its staff every year after stack ranking them. Google rarely fires anyone for low performance. At best after multiple bad reviews, they are asked to find a new team or job and are given enough time to do so.Both Google and Amazon in my opinion are at the two extreme ends of the spectrum. One leads to slack while the other leads to stress over fear of losing your job. I think a middle path is a more suitable approach. My 2 cents.That being said, Google does provide incentives for you to work hard. Hard work leads to good ratings which leads to better pay, more equity, better & faster career growth. However, you will occasionally find some people who are content with putting in their absolute minimum at the job and are simply happy with their take home salary and flying under the radar of the management.Google India is notorious at hiring people at the wrong level. I know so many people who were hired one level below than they should have been. If you are offered a job at Google India, then definitely try to reach out to an existing Indian Googler and evaluate which level is suitable for your profile and try to negotiate with your recruiter. Also, don’t let them push you around. Some recruiters think they have the birthright to hire you at the wrong level for a low salary because they are offering you a chance to work at Google.Again, this point is applicable only for non-tech ladders. Google uses internal tools for everything. You will learn a lot of skills during your job but most of them won’t translate to something that you can re-use in the industry. You will have to rely on your soft skills to get your next job.Open Work space: The floor can be very noisy at times (specially post 5 pm) and sometimes it can be impossible to work without your headphones on. For whatever reasons beyond my comprehension, a few folks used to take meetings from their desks and take 30 min+ personal calls sitting on their desk, happily oblivious of the amount of noise & annoyance they are causing to everyone in the bay. You either need to put on headphones or go up to them and request them to move somewhere else. Most often than not, it is you who will either put on the headphones or move somewhere else because you don’t want to appear rude.The amount of freebies & other perks can sometimes make you entitled. Some become more entitled than others. Some bad apples do treat the temporary employees (TVCs) with disrespect. Some engineering guys do look down on non-engineering guys. (Please notice the word - some. Some doesn’t mean all)Your work doesn’t speak for you. You need to spend a lot of time to market your work. This includes sending emails, reaching out to upper management during their office hours and very subtly praise yourself and your work, speaking out during meetings and again talking about your work and so on. This can be difficult for introverts and for people who are uncomfortable with boasting about their work.Related to Promotions - The amount of work put by you is completely meaningless. To get promoted, you need to deliver on projects and show impact. If the management keeps flip flopping on the scope of the project or you are collaborating with someone who doesn’t care, then either you need to Superman up and deliver the project end to end all by yourself or forget about your promotion.Also, even if you successfully execute a very complex project but for whatever reason, the metrics gods aren’t favorable to you and the impact numbers don’t look good, then it won’t do you much good. On the other hand, it is quite possible for someone to land a super easy project and gain a lot of brownie points by showing some good numbers thanks to business requirements of that particular product.The Microsoft Problem. Google India, like Google is expanding at a fast rate. This means more competition and lesser budgets for everything. The budgets for parties, gifts, events, off sites have decreased over the years. Don’t get me wrong, the perks and budgets are still very high, but every time the number of coffee machines on the floor get reduced or your favorite expensive candy in the micro kitchen go missing or the size of the packets of cookies in micro kitchen go from large to small, a lot of old timers start speculating about the upcoming apocalypse. (Apocalypse here being end of perks and culture as we know it)Throw Nooglers in the ocean and let them either learn to swim or drown completely (metaphorical). This is more of a Google culture and less of a Google India culture. As a new joinee, and after a couple of short meetings explaining the role of your team, you are expected to fly on your own. You are given a span of 3- 6 months to ramp up and learn things on your own. If you run into a problem, you are expected to reach out to someone and seek help. No body will come and ask you if you need help.I am not sure why I am including this in the needs improvement section. Google hires self-starters & ambitious people who like to get things done. However, in the beginning this can be very intimidating and you are expected to struggle a lot. Even basic things at Google from getting the right accesses and getting added to the correct groups to submitting a simple change in the codebase will require you to read some internal documentation or ask someone for help.Bottom line :You will come to work for Google India for the brand and leave to pursue better quality work elsewhere (either to Mountain View or to another company). Google India is a very good employer and treats you well but once the honeymoon period is over, it is the quality of work which will keep you satisfied (or dissatisfied) at the work place and no amount of free chocolates or other freebies will be able to compensate for it. So choose your role wisely and don’t expect flying unicorns or something. Do keep in mind that all the free stuff will cease to excite you..just like your cell phone isn’t exciting anymore and just like your last car or clothes stopped pleasing you after a couple of days/weeks.

There are a number of identifiable causes, and I will cite examples where possible.1) Constriction of supply.Health care is one of those interesting problems in economics where it's essential enough that a significant number of people will go for anything that might help at any cost. While in a normal market, "anything that might help at any cost" doesn't lead to massive price ramps because high margins with high volumes draw in competitors who undercut each other, in health care it doesn't because supply is constricted in various ways. (Thanks Jim Kenyon for mentioning the oddities of the health care market).a) Regional monopolies (mentioned by Shane Bogusz)Regional monopolies are, for the most part, dictated by law. Certificate of need laws are explicit in 35 states, and the remaining 15 states are required to meet a national certificate of need-like requirement.Certificate of Need laws are a requirement that any new medical facility must first obtain a certificate from the state health agency (pretty much staffed by the hospital administrators) before the facility can be constructed.An equivalent in other markets might be this:You have a new microprocessor design that, according to simulations, give much better power efficiency with very good performance per clock cycle, and you have the design and everything ready to go. But before you are allowed to sell this microprocessor, you must first get permission from Intel, and they must verify that they are unable to reach the entire desired market with their products before they will allow you to sell it.In other words, keep competitors out so you can keep prices high.In Utah, the Certificate of Need requirement is not in effect, and its costs per person are among the lowest and its outcomes are among the best. In most states or regions, there is a single hospital network -- many facilities, but all owned by the same group, but in Utah there are many. The University of Utah health network operates entirely independently from the Intermountain Health Care network, which operates independently from the Mountain Star Network -- and that's just in the Salt Lake City metro area.b) Educational supply restriction and barrier to entry.Now why did this happen (the flatness since ~1985)?It's doctors who control the number of doctors in America, not the government.Yes, the article is from a left wing rag, and the article is clearly slanted to portray anything resembling a free market as the worst possible thing, but the information is accurate -- the system is designed so doctors don't undercut themselves with hordes of new doctors.There are many possible education/occupational models that can grant certification and ensure new entrants have sufficient experience, but the one we're stuck with right now is the one where doctors get to control how many new guys enter their field.Furthermore, the cost of education is ridiculous, putting up a huge barrier to entry, essentially making it required that doctors are paid extremely well in order to justify the high price of the education.Credit: KevinMD - Medical education cost is a health policy imperativeI would almost call that enslavement. At that cost, there's no way you could afford to be doling out low-price care to those who need it without having another way to make money. There's no way you could choose any other profession except perhaps high-paid salesman/consultant. On a 30 year term with a 4% interest rate, that's somewhere around $800/mo (didn't do actual calculation, just estimates). It's comparable to owning a second house, but without the benefit of being able to sell it or live in it.In any case, the high cost of education is yet another way the medical industry constricts supply.And it really shows. Just Google "doctor shortage" and you'll get a ton of hits linking to studies, etc.2) Price opacity.a) Plain old hiding the price.Good luck finding the price of a procedure, no matter how routine or obscure, voluntary or involuntary it is.Peeling Away Health Care's Sticker ShockThe Pricing Of U.S. Hospital Services: Chaos Behind A Veil Of Secrecyb) Insurance games.Classically, insurance is supposed to be about protecting your assets -- that is, paying for replacement in the case of something lost, stolen or broken, paying for property damage that you caused by your accident in a car, or other such things. In no other industry is it "pay for everything," but rather a "pay for everything that you can't afford" system.In other industries, insurance pays the total value of damages. In cases where there is a lawsuit, insurance will settle out of court for less than the amount of the lawsuit to avoid the risk of losing money.In health care, it is not so. For many people, insurance pays for everything, minus copays. The person receiving the service is disconnected from payment and therefore has little to no power to negotiate. Combined with the restriction of supply, the consumer really doesn't have much power at all. Furthermore, the explanation of benefits and/or bills for service are almost completely BS.Dr. David Belk at True Cost of Health Care explains this quite well:Health Insurance: More Tricks of the TradeWhy do these tests cost them so much more than an insurance company would usually pay? Insurance companies don’t negotiate—at least not with groups as small as the lab at this hospital. They set a reimbursement rate, which is usually pretty close to what Medicare pays, and we (or the hospital) smiles and says “thank you.” After all, if we’re doing it for Medicare for $75, we’ll probably do it for United Health Care (or any other insurance company) for $80. Why would anyone say “no”?[...]I can think of at least two reasons an insurance company might price services so outrageously high on certain policies. First, that would punish anyone who buys inexpensive insurance with a high deductible (both of these patients did). Second, they keep you from finding out how much (little) medical service really cost. Patients with high deductibles pay for most of their own medical care. The insurance companies make sure that these patients see a much higher price than the “real” price that they could pay. Just as with generic prescription drugs, insurance companies, not providers determine the price of everything. They can hide their real costs, and punish you for not buying a more expensive plan.And it doesn’t just change the way patients behave. If an occasional patient has a policy that pays at or near the maximum price charged by the hospital, the hospital is motivated to keep their outrageously high prices. This helps to keep medical care unaffordable to private payers. If these inflated reimbursement rates are only on policies that have very high deductibles, the insurance company will rarely get stuck with the bill. Even at these outrageous prices, most people with private insurance will never need more than $1,500 of medical care in a year. On occasion, someone with one of these policies will have a serious illness and the insurance will have to pay big, but the insurance companies more than make up for these loses with the increase in premiums they get by maintaining their smokescreen.(What isn't mentioned: there are a few states where if you are on a high deductible plan, then the rate that you pay is equal to the insurance "negotiated" rate -- that is, you pay the same as the insurance company would pay even if you haven't met your deductible. I know of only 2 states that do that -- Utah and Arizona -- and there may be more, but most states do not regulate insurance in that way. Ope, there's Utah again on low costs).c) the drive for cost/profitSome folks blame the fee-for-service model of payment, which makes sense. After all, if you get paid per procedure, you'll do what you can to make sure you jam in more procedures. But if the consumer has any degree of power, they'll try to minimize their costs or do whatever is in their best interests. If you post a sign in an ER that says "ER visit: $300; Office visit: $75" I'm sure you'd see a lot more people skipping the ER unless it's a genuine emergency. If you indicate that an MRI costs $500 versus $100 for an x-ray that is just as likely to give the same information, people will pick the x-ray.The problem is when fee for service is combined with cost obfuscation and supply restriction -- making it so the cheaper alternatives aren't considered as options, either because they're constrained to be unavailable or just because the patient is unaware that the alternative is cheaper.There is another model used in a number of places in the US -- doctors on salary and people on "unlimited services for fixed monthly fee" plans. This encourages the doctor to try to go for lower cost alternatives, and the patient then is the one to push for more.As long as the costs aren't obfuscated, both models seem to work pretty well.3) Push for more care than is necessary.a) Good old RacketeeringI've got a few stories of tests ordered when not necessary. 95% probability it's IBS? Well, let's take a CT scan just to make sure it's not something else. By the time you get the scan, you could have been getting treated for IBS and would have started to feel better, confirming the diagnosis. But no, get the scan just to be safe, right?A significant portion of this is blamed on defensive medicine -- stuff done just to cover bases and make sure the doctor doesn't get sued.Right. And the doctor and facilities don't make a killing off of this? It's all just to protect them from those evil lawyers who chase ambulances? There are better ways to protect themselves from lawyers. For instance, all those bajillion forms you have to fill out and sign before stepping into the office.Furthermore, it's not just a matter of getting effective treatment, it's that they pick which treatment based on pharmaceutical salespeople's arguments, and based on their bottom line rather than what's good for you and your wallet. Many will push MRI and CT when a simple x-ray is enough (such as for injuries). Push for the latest expensive drug when there's a cheap-o generic one that does the trick just as well. Or, you know, get people to pony up for things that statistically don't help, like this:Statistically the treatment isn't doing anything to reduce death rates. Chances are you'll die of something else before you die of prostate cancer, even if you're diagnosed with it. Oh, and if you get treated, say goodbye to your days without diapers.Medical disclaimer: Not being a physician, I can not tell you in your case whether or not prostate cancer treatment is justified. All I know are the statistics that indicate a significant fraction of cases are not necessary to treat. But there are still plenty that might justify treatment, and be sure to question your doctor very thoroughly about whether or not you're going to die of prostate cancer if you are diagnosed. If your PSA comes up high but not 6-sigma high, ask your doctor if you can wait before pursuing just to get a baseline.b) Extortion and old ageCough up the dough or Granny dies in 2 months at home, instead of in a year suffering in a hospital with chemo in her veins. Oh wait, you weren't supposed to hear that she's going to die anyway.Credit: Forbes - 2012 - The Year In Healthcare ChartsAccording to this chart, health care costs don't seem all that ridiculous until you get to age 60. (They are, but it's not as bad).How do you explain it? Is it just that old Americans are so much fatter and unhealthier than the rest of the world that we have to spend more on them? (answer: no, because by procedure it's more expensive. The difference on health is significant, but that doesn't translate into per-treatment price differentials).People are deathly afraid of death, no matter how inevitable. They'd gladly take a year of suffering and dependence over two months of pain with independence. The problem here is, I believe, that the statistics are obfuscated. End of life treatments are considered as something to cure whatever comes up, rather than as something that merely delays the inevitable.Altogether the system doesn't favor people taking better care of themselves when they're younger. With proper education on it and a sense of responsibility for the outcomes (instead of 'oh, someone else will end up paying for it') people might be more inclined to take better care of themselves so they don't need tubes hanging out of them to keep them going for another minute as they ferry themselves around on motorized chairs. In a system where that isn't an option and everyone's aware of it, they tend to take care of themselves better. Or as Rick Santelli put it in reference to the financial system, "Failure is the most effective regulation."There are plenty of other reasons, but I believe they pale in comparison to these three.

Hi there :),I’m honored that I was asked to answer this question, thanks for the opportunity. Now to get to the question at hand. First I want to say congratulations. Picking Medicine is an extremely noble choice and one of the most noble professions (not putting any other profession down, just merely speaking about Medicine as a profession individually). Congratulations on getting into a top 20 university in the United States and a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS on staying “starry-eyed” and hopeful. I think we need more of this in this country currently with all of the shootings, budget crises, international wars, and all around other negative things that media feeds to us daily. There is enough negative energy in this world to fill billions of double A batteries (sorry, just had to insert this nerd joke). We seem to talk of being “Starry-eyed” and hopeful of being naive and negative, but if you are using that positive belief to make the world a better place…I say keep doing you :)I usually always start off with a disclaimer ***What I say represents just me and my observations. Not all physicians. I try to do research where I can, but it would be arrogant of me to say I represent the majority. I’ll leave that up to the majority to decide.***Ok. Now to get to the meat of the question. I see that a lot of people are giving advice on how to get into medical school. From the way I am interpreting the question it seems that you are asking what are the Pros and Cons/General good to know things about the path and life of becoming a doctor. So that is precisely what I am going to focus on, it seems some people are already giving good advice about getting into school plus if you want some more advice don’t ever hesitate to comment and I’ll answer whatever questions you may have accordingly, no matter who you are :). Just keep in mind that I am based in the U.S. so most of my advice is applicable here. So now without further ado the pros and cons of being a doctor:Pros:Look at that above. That is one huge pro. All joking aside and even if you aren’t Obama, being a doctor makes you feel…for a lack of a better term…bad-ass. Seriously. Who doesn’t feel insanely cool wearing a white coat with a stethoscope around their neck and 20 pens in their front pocket (which you will inevitably lose from loaning them out as a medical student. As a fully trained physician you will find yourself no longer carrying any because every previously mentioned medical student will be excitedly ready to hand you a writing utensil :P). Most of us have been conditioned since we were little to see doctors as cool, amazing, knowledgeable, life saving wizards (I’m looking at you Scrubs, Dr. House, Grey’s Anatomy, ER, etc.). I mean people dress up like us for Halloween!Job stability. The world will always need doctors. People will always get sick, and you will always be there to help heal people. It is your calling. It is your duty. It is your job. Please note I said JOB STABILITY notice this does not mean a lot of wealth (the time for a ton of wealthy doctors by just being doctors is a time that has past in my opinion and will be mentioned later in the cons section).Status. Society has a very lofty position for doctors. A position that comes with much respect. No one ever looks down on you for being a doctor. And I apologize if this comes off as sounding arrogant. I don’t mean it that way at all, but it is just an observation. Whether it is myself or my colleagues I have never seen anyone mock someone for being a doctor. This might be one of the number one reasons why immigrant families always want someone in the family to become a doctor. I am Asian myself. I have very personal experience with that :P.Power. The Number 2 or number 1 reason immigrant families want someone to be a doctor. In the past being a doctor came with money and thus power, which as I mentioned before money is now diminishing, but the power still stays. This comes from the fact that you will be treating people in their most vulnerable of times. Whether you like it or not, you will be in a position of power. There have been numerous studies to show this power dynamic and it’s even reached mainstream enough that there are articles teaching how to take some power back (see here: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/patient-advice/articles/2014/05/13/managing-the-power-dynamic-between-doctors-and-patients). This power can be abused and is even an important part of medical school curriculum to teach doctors how to be wary of such a delicate relationship. This is why DOCTORS DO NOT DATE PATIENTS. This is a big no no. The medical community scolds this, and it is all because we are aware of the power dynamic between doctor and patient. ***Again, I am not saying doctors are better than anyone else this is just an effect of the profession. I clarify more down below under “Intimacy”***Altruism. As a doctor you never doubt that you are doing good in this world. Ok maybe that is a bit exaggerated, everyone doubts sometimes, but for the most part unlike other professions you don’t ever stay up at night wondering how you are contributing to the world or feel insignificant. You are LITERALLY saving lives every. single. day. If that isn’t altruism and philanthropy, I don’t know what is. I mean take a look at this man on another Quora answer: Raed Shakman's answer to What do doctors do when a patient can't pay for life-saving surgery? Will the surgeon let the patient die, or perform the surgery at his/her own expense?Intimacy. You will get to know people at such a secret and special level that an act was created in 1996 which we have all come to know and love as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Even if you don’t know what this act is, it is more than likely that you have heard the term “HIPAA” and “patient privacy” being thrown around. Doctors are one of the few professions on this beautiful planet where we get to know such touching, horrifying, beautiful, and sad information about complete strangers. This is one of the reasons why doctors have so much “Power” mentioned above. You will develop some of the deepest friendships and relationships that a human can possibly develop in this profession, and that alone makes one of the most powerful Pros of being a doctor.Connections. Some of my teachers and mentors in medical school have treated some extremely famous political figures, actors, and personalities. I can’t say who due to the law that I mentioned just previously, but as a doctor you make some lofty connections. Even if you don’t meet or treat some of these famous people your circle is a bunch of other doctors who know even more people so you can just see how this leads to some pretty amazing connections. One of my best friend’s dad is a doctor and he got us free prime box seats to an Aziz Ansari comedy show in a sold out stadium. No joke. I have never laughed so hard with my wallet so full in my life. Which was great because I am broke as heck :P.Knowledge. You have reached one of the pinnacles of academia. There are 318.9 million people in the United States measured as of 2014 (Population Clock). There are 1,045,910 doctors in the US including inactive ones (I got this statistic from here: Topic: Physicians). If you calculate it that means that only .328 % of the population are doctors. Yes that decimal is in the correct place. Less than half of 1%. Again I note that this number includes non-practicing physicians, so those actually treating is even less. That means that this less than 1/2% of doctors has enough knowledge to save lives and treat the rest of the population. Wow. Don’t you feel special and knowledgeable now? As a side note I would like to mention that with a number as low as this, does it surprise anyone that there is an impending doctor shortage, long wait times at the doctors offices, and a general growing dissatisfaction with healthcare? (See this website from the Association of American Medical Colleges: The American Doctor Shortage)Cons, now that I have finished tooting our wonderful horns as doctors…its time to get to the ugly and boy is there a lot of ugly:Stress. It is a quiet 5pm shift in the Emergency Room. You are the only doctor around currently because your colleagues are busy doing other important tasks that need to be done to keep the hospital running. Suddenly you hear that oh so familiar blaring of the Emergency Medical Transport car. In bursts 10 transport beds. There was a mass shooting at the local high school. Someone just unloaded two rifles on a bunch of innocent children who were happy to get out of school. One high schooler closest to you has an open wound gushing out blood on his leg. You quickly run up to him to close up the wound and minimize bleeding as much as possible. You shout to your nurses to get you all the necessary materials, get his blood type, call the blood lab and get some blood over…The bed next over a girl has an open wound on her chest she is now choking on her own blood. The bullet has caused one of her lungs to collapse and her other lung has a puncture wound that is also on the verge of collapsing, but filling up with blood rapidly. She is literally gasping for air with her eyes wide. You realize that she is in more need of your medical attention you run over grabbing as many medical staffs as possible to assist you. You scream to call all of your doctor colleagues over, there is just too much….Next bed over a teacher becomes pulse-less due to blood loss. You now need to grab a defibrillator to try and start her heart back up you are rushing over to grab them when suddenly you hear more blaring sirens in the background. Stressed yet? This has actually happened. Especially with all of the shootings happening in America currently. Somewhere out there are doctors working hard day in and day out dealing with this stress. This is especially true for hospitals that are in lower-income areas of the country where violence can sometimes run rampant. Movies and TV make it seem so glorious sometimes, but remember for a doctor this is reality. This is not a movie. The end is not always beautiful.More Stress. I put this twice because it is THAT stressful. Remember, people’s lives is your job. Mistakes cost lives. Laziness costs lives. Ignorance costs lives. Arrogance…you guessed it. Costs lives. Stressed yet? Well when you enter medical school you think you are a hot shot. You were the top of your University. You aced every class. You scored top on the Medical College Admissions Tests (MCATs). You can handle anything. That is until you are studying for over 60 hours a week and STILL CANT REMEMBER EVERYTHING. Medical knowledge is growing at such a rapid pace now that it is not even humanly possible to keep up without help. Especially with the internet.Lacking education system. WHAT?! You reached one of the pinnacles of the academic world and the education is LACKING? Well sad, but true. This is a huge topic on it’s own, so if you are interested you can actually read a Quora post I wrote in the past: Tanakorn Kittisarapong's answer to What useful skills do they not teach you in medical school?.But to summarize, they train you well to memorize and learn disease processes, medical terminology, and treatments, but there is so much more to being a doctor that is completely overlooked and learnt on the go by yourself. A lot of the teachers in medical education right now can be extremely malignant as well. A lot of it has to do with the fact that teaching has taken a back seat in the hospitals since patient lives always come first, in the clinical years (where medical students go into the hospitals to learn) there aren’t doctors who are solely just teaching students. They are practicing physicians who have to treat patients, continue to do their own research, manage their team, contribute to efficient running of a hospital, keep up to date with their own knowledge, and finally teach. You can see why teaching students doesn’t always come first. In fact, many doctors are so burnt out and so stressed out that the only place they can release some steam is unfortunately said students. Again if you are interested in reading more I have some evidence and more in depth analysis in the link above!The realization that you are human and make mistakes. This goes hand in hand with everything mentioned before. Even when you are a doctor working for 40 years you will make mistakes. Sometimes you don’t even know you make mistakes. We go into this field thinking that we will ALWAYS be able to find the cure or we will ALWAYS know what is going on with a patient (I’m looking at you again House…). The fact is, sometimes we never know. Sometimes we get lucky and the patient just gets better. Sometimes the patient dies. It is easily typed, but when you experience these things first hand it can be one of the most devastating feelings in your life. It can also be one of the most transformative in a positive way. Either way, just remember we are all human and we need to support one another and reach our potentials.Hours of working. (Sleep Loss and Fatigue in Residency Training, How Being a Doctor Became the Most Miserable Profession, The effects of acute sleep deprivation during residency training.) These are a few articles, but recently in 2002 laws were set in place to limit the number of hours residents work and more recently in 2011 with further alterations to these laws. The reason? Turns out working 100+ hour weeks and staying up 30+ hours at a time wasn’t good for doctors or patients. Doctors don’t do this just because we are sadistic. It really takes a hard balance in order to keep patient care consistent and high quality all the while giving doctors-in-training the valuable experience and patient face time they need. In fact the amount of time doctors should be working is an on-going debate : Study Suggests Surgical Residents Can Safely Work Longer Shifts. All I can say is this. Even as a medical student I clocked in 80+ hours a week at times. As a medical STUDENT. So you can imagine the number of hours the training docs work. Also another side note is that even with these 80 hour limitation laws put into place, some residencies will send their residents home at the limit, but these residents still have to finish writing patient notes at home effectively increasing their work hours back to the same number it use to be before these laws were put in place (the 100+ hours). Now shifts tend to be limited to 24 hours when doctors need to stay overnight, but even that is being studied to see if it has detrimental effects on doctors and patient care. Part of this is due to trying to train good doctors by exposing them to more patients, part of this is due to trying to keep patient care consistent, and part of this is due to a shortage of doctors and an increasing demand for healthcare. I haven’t even mentioned having a family yet. Yikes.Debt load. The average student loan debt in America in 2012? Average student loan debt: $29,400. You can see it at that article there. More student loan debt statistics? U.S. Student Loan Debt Statistics for 2016 | Student Loan Hero. It’s getting higher. Now why does that matter for doctors? Want to know our average student loan debt now?$166,750 in medical school debt, while average salaries are declining. Take a look. It’s gotten enough notice that even normal news networks are covering it: $1 million mistake: Becoming a doctor. This is the reason why I say the money isn’t there anymore. You’re debt is so high when you get out that many doctors aren’t willing to risk opening their own businesses or even to take lower paying family physician jobs simply because after the government takes taxes out of your $150,000 paycheck (which places you in a higher tax bracket by the way), you are going to need to pay about $4000+ per month for 10–15 years to pay it off. I know this because I have calculated it based on my own debt.There is also something called residency before you become an “Attending Physician” which is the fully fledged fully paid version of a doctor that practices on their own. This residency can last anywhere from 3–7 years depending on what specialty you choose. During residency you are a doctor in training and earning on average of $51,000 (see here:Medscape: Medscape Access) when you first start. This is no where near enough to pay for everyday living expenses PLUS that enormous debt. This is not even throwing in a family which some people have during residency. Your debt is accruing anywhere from 5%-7% currently (these numbers may change by the time you go to/finish medical school, but these are the numbers now) so by the time you get out of residency you may have north of $200,000 dollars in debt and even more than that depending. I myself went to a private school so I have greater than $350,000 currently. If that number is making you have heart palpitations, trust me I know…they give me the same feelings. Maybe this will help people understand why more docs are trying to sub-specialize and get paid more.Broken Health Care system. This can be a Pro or a Con depending on your interests. The current Healthcare system in the United States is under heavy fire constantly in politics due to its high costs and inefficiency. When you are a doctor you will front line be experiencing this. When I say broken, I mean broken. Medical records don’t even communicate between hospitals currently because each hospital uses a different electronic medical record system and many of them can’t communicate with each other at this moment. This isn’t even solely the hospitals faults because there are so many Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems out there that it’s hard to choose at times. Funding to create a unified system can be very hard to obtain, especially when you factor in political concepts like monopolies. So in the end sometimes you end up needing to treat patients without their prior medical records because it can take a few days for hospitals to fax you the records. Heck, doctors don’t even always use the same abbreviations (personally I hate abbreviations which is why I always define what my abbreviations are when I can) so even when you get the medical records you have such a headache trying to decipher what they even mean. Then comes the insurance issues and getting paid. Doctors/Hospitals are getting reimbursed less and less as times goes on, and reimbursement can even take months sometimes to process. This is why some private practices are closing and doctors are retreating back to the safe havens of hospitals or medical groups. (Doctors: We could go out of business). Again this can be a Pro because if you love fixing things, boy do we have a doozey of a problem that needs fixing!Mental Health. It is very ironic that as the gatekeepers of health we are one of the most mentally unhealthy professions out there. In fact some surveys showed that we actually took the trophy for profession with the highest suicidal rate (Highest Suicide Rate by Profession). Wow. Very sad indeed. It is estimated that 300–400 physicians will commit suicide each year. That is A DOCTOR A DAY. This is something that our field knows is a growing problem, hasn’t talked about it for a while, but is now cropping up more and more awareness ( See articles here: Medscape: Medscape Access, How many doctors contemplate suicide?, Physician Suicide). Unfortunately our field currently doesn’t teach us how to cope with all the stress we handle daily or how to keep good mental hygiene. I remain hopeful that we can all work together to fix this and I for one am very interesting in continuing to advocate for change and better education.Congratulations. You’ve reached the end. If you’ve made it this far, more than likely you are feeling extremely stressed out now. Don’t be, I hope that I’ve given you some good honest things to think about. Not deter you from being a doctor. This list doesn’t cover everything and to remain fair I kept the number of Pros and Cons the same. It may look like I have a bias towards the cons, but the pros just don’t need as much support in my eyes. Hopefully I can remain as objective as possible. There are so many more things I wanted to talk about, this post has already gotten wayyyy too long at this point already though.I’ll end this with the final part of your question…Good things to know:It’s not about the money. Only do it if you seriously just enjoy the fact that you love helping people and saving lives. It is stressful, but so gosh darn rewarding. Again, nearly no other job saves lives so intimately DAILY. If your parents are pushing you into this, take a moment and really think about what you want. It just isn’t worth it to push through anymore….for financial reasons and health reasonsWhat the journey of becoming a doctor is actually like in the United States:3–4 years in Undergraduate College doing whatever major in addition to the pre-requisite courses for medical school (such as anatomy, biology, organic chemistry, physiology, etc.).4 years in Medical School with 1.5–2 years in the classrooms traditionally and the last 2.5–2 years working in the hospitals doing “clinical rotations”You will take the first part of your licensing examination the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 in between your classroom and clinical rotation years depending on your school.You will take the second part of your licensing examination the USMLE Step 2 broken down into two parts Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK) and Step 2 Clinical Skills (CS) in between your 3rd and 4th year of medical school or more into your 4th year, it is actually more up to you to schedule this as long as you get it done before you apply to residency3–7 years in Residency (You are a doctor at this point, but not licensed until you take Step 3 after 1 year of working, this is the current requirement) depending on specialtyYou will take the last part of your licensing examination USMLE Step 3 after the first year of residencyYou will then take a Licensing Board Examination to get certified in whatever specific specialty you chose at the end of residency (Internal Medicine, Surgery, Pediatrics, etc.)If you want to sub-specialize (like be a cardiologist or gastroenterologist for example) you will spend another 2–4 years working as a “Fellow” which is still a doctor in training, but much higher in. And no…I know what you are thinking. You don’t get a huge raise at this point. The average salary for a fellow is $59,812 ( Salary: Medical Fellow ). That is about an $8,000 increase over 3–7 years. Or you can choose to go work at this point which will grant you a huge raise, but at this point you will be a “Primary Care Physician” and your pay tends to not be as high as previously mentioned sub-specialists.If you sub-specialize you will once again take a Licensing Board Examination to get certified in whatever specific specialty you choose)Figure out what kind of doctor that you want to be before the end of 3rd year of school. I wish someone had told me this early on, but if you can start even as early as undergraduate college figuring out what kind of doctor you want to be (Pediatrician, Internist, Family Practitioner, Surgeon, Ophthalmologist, Orthopedist, Urologist, Radiologist, etc.) the better off you will be when you get into medical school. This is because you have to pick a specialty when you apply to residency and each specialty will have its own requirements on test scores, recommendations, grades, and extracurriculars. So ask ask ask ask. And when you are done…keep asking everyone you know. Every opportunity you have for an interesting experience that will help you grow and learn more about yourself…just take it! :) The way I see it, even if you hate the experience at least you know that is not what you want to do in the future!No matter what you do in life every job has it’s stresses. Figure out your support network. Who you can trust to be you around. Who stays around and helps you through when you are the worst possible version of yourself. When you find these people, hold onto them and never let go. Tell them you appreciate them. Help them in their time of need. During your journey through life you will need them more than you could ever imagine. Especially if you choose to go to medicine. It can be your family. It can be your friends. It can be your significant other. Heck, it can be your dog, cat, or guinea pig. Whoever or whatever it is find it and never let go…(don’t ever let go Jack…Sorry had to insert lame Titanic joke here.).This will be my last bit of advice unless I get requested for more. You will stumble. You will fall. You will make mistakes. You are human. These things will make you grow stronger. Try not to get jaded by the negativity in the world (don’t contribute to the overly charged battery!!). When you see others in need help them. Someone may treat you poorly because they are in a bad situation. Remember that you chose your profession to help people. Sometimes you will lose sight of that. It’s alright, you can always redirect yourself and bring yourself back. What you are doing and contributing to the world is so much greater than what you can even imagine, even though at times it may not feel like it.Thank you so much for reading. If this helped you at all, please share because I want to increase awareness of the current state of the medical field in general and any Upvotes helps me to know that I am doing a good job :) Have a good one all you beautiful people on the internet ^_^