"My appointment today:

Doc: "So, I hear you want to go into medicine?" Me: *smiles, nods* "yes, I do"

Doc: "Can I convince you out of that?"

Me: *I have NEVER heard that response before -- hence the uncertain expression on my face* "Why is that?"

Doc: "My son wanted to go to med school. I convinced him out of it. Twenty years ago, it would have been a fantastic idea. But now, as l've frustratingly learned, medicine isn't about patient care. It's politics. I didn't go into medicine to become a technician to do what someone else tells me to do for the patient. Nowadays, people who maybe only finished high school, have no medical background, are making decisions for patients. It's all politics. Even if you go straight from med school to research, you don't have a job unless you have a contract. And funding. That's a whole different story. Now, it's all just politics." Me: *As I'm listening to this, I'm thinking how he's both right and wrong. But I'm also still surprised that this issue is honestly so frustrating for him, that he's actually discouraging people from pursuing medicine...* "yeah, a lot of that is true..."

When someone is actively attempting to discourage you from helping people, discouraging you from going down the path they went down to pursue their passion...they clearly expected the outcome to be very different than what it is. I heard all this from an older doctor who has been practicing for quite some time. Clearly, he's struggled through the changes over the years as he became less and less able to be the one fully calling all the shots for his patients, but still having to watch them suffer, have them blame him for a lack of care when in reality, his hands were tied.

I still have a ways to go before even beginning medical school, never mind simply establishing myself as a doctor. I know most others around my age also have a ways to go before establishing themselves within whichever profession they choose.

I hope that by the time I've established myself as a doctor, others my age will have settled into their careers too. I hope that those who have the power or position to change things for the better realize they have this power, and are open, able, and willing to do what it takes to change things.

I hope that I do not feel an urgent need to discourage my own patients from going into the field of medicine, simply because the healthcare system has changed for the worse.

I hope that by the time I have patients of my own, it will be a time where doctors can treat patients, a time where patients don't feel their doctor has abandoned them, or doesn't care about them, a time where politics is not negatively affecting medicine."