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hyporational comments on Question on Medical School and Wage Potential for Earning to Give - Less Wrong
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There are a couple of important questions you didn't raise.
Does he like working with people? Does he perform well under social pressure? Is he good at explaining things in simple terms? Would he like doing so every day? Would he like working in a team and maybe leading it? Would the strict social hierarchy of hospitals bother him? How does he handle sleep deprivation? Can he cope with constant uncertainty about his decisions? Can he handle killing/injuring people by accident?
Med school isn't generally about that. Would it be agony for him to memorize loads of facts without questioning/understanding them too much, then forget them because he doesn't need them for anything? Also, much of the stuff you have to memorize after the first 1-2 years has nothing to do with human biology. There are some challenging moments with complicated patients, but the work is mostly quite simple and algorithmic.
I'm the guy eggman is referring to :) Thanks for all the info!
No I do not like working with people. I would aim for surgery or radiology for this reason. I currently do not perform well under social pressure but my anxiety should diminish with time. Yes, I think I am good at explaining things in simple terms. I prefer less social interaction. I could tolerate a strict hierarchy. I don't handle sleep deprivation well. I do not handle uncertainty particularly well. Yes, I think I could handle accidents better than most people.
That's bad news but not a deal breaker.
A data point: I didn't like working with people, and still stupidly applied to med school thinking it didn't matter. Now I'm a doctor, and patient interaction is one of the things I enjoy the most. I think it's because my social skills improved. Go figure...
I still wouldn't recommend applying to med school to improve your social skills, though.
That's a useful datapoint, thanks.
I social skills tend to improve over time and having good social skills makes social interaction more fun.