"Why I don't want my daughter to become a doctor"

The Patient's Doctor blog lists a few reasons why he is doing his best to discourage his daughter from taking up medicine:

"Doctors will have to spend half their lives on paperwork; or arguing with clerks about the "medical necessity" of the treatment their patients need."

Don't forget the 10 years of being a medical student/resident/fellow (4+3+3), the 80-hour work week, the night calls without a minute of sleep, and "the art of medical pimping", just to name a few other reasons...

FatDoctor still remembers how she slept 26 hours straight at the end of her night float month: "No waking up to pee, no waking up to eat, all I needed was sleep."

According to Newsweek, every year, between 300 and 400 doctors take their own lives—roughly one a day. No other profession has a higher suicide rate.

According to MarketWatch, physicians' income fell 7% after adjusting for inflation between 1995 and 2003. Primary care doctors income fell even more than 10% in that time.

During the same period, lawyers and engineers had a 7% inflation-adjusted gain. In a nutshell, while doctors lost 10%, lawyers made 7%...

References:
Why I don't want my daughter to become a doctor. The Patient's Doctor.
Young Doctors Learn Quickly in the Hot Seat. NYTimes.
Sleep. Fat Doctor.
Doctors' income falls over eight years. MarketWatch.
It is July and I love to pimp. DB’s Medical Rants.
Et tu, Radagast? Respectful Insolence.
Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Related:
The process...how long does it take to become an emergency medicine doctor? EM Physician - Backstage Pass, 11/2007.
Primary Care or Engineer? And the Winner is... The Happy Hospitalist, 12/2007.
Who’s Cuddly Now? Law Firms. NYTimes, 01/2008.
Doctors Who Kill Themselves. Newsweek, 04/2008.
Eyes Bloodshot, Doctors Vent Their Discontent. NYTimes, 06/2008.
Reasons Not To Become A Doctor. Forbes.com.

Updated: 06/24/2008