10 Good Reasons Why You Should Study Medicine
Good Reasons Why You Should Study Medicine – People study medicine for a variety of reasons, ranging from a genuine calling to planned financial benefit. Studying medicine overseas, whether as a first choice or as a backup plan, is a long-term commitment and should not be taken lightly. In this article, I will take you through some of the reasons you should consider studying medicine and why it is very rewarding.
Why study medicine?
Diverse areas of specialization
This is sometimes ignored, yet it is one of the most compelling. After graduation, you will have a wide range of options for future employment in the field of medicine. You’ll be spoiled for choice with over 60 specialities to pick from. You can work in hospitals or other healthcare institutions, research labs, or other professional disciplines’ medical departments. Medical graduates work in economic sectors to manage health care expenses or in legal work to check medical mistakes and protect patients’ rights.
Don’t be anxious if you don’t picture yourself as a pediatrician, surgeon, or therapist in the future. As a medical student, you have six years to figure out what you want to do.
Because medicine is such a large area, you might specialize in research or management. We require novel cures and treatments for chronic illnesses, and healthcare organizations require leaders who grasp the fundamental ideals and principles of medicine. You can also work in education if you want to improve your pedagogical abilities.
High Demand
Medicine is a career that is required worldwide, regardless of the person’s major. This benefit is not available to many other academic specialties. The world requires more doctors than medical schools can produce. The most intriguing aspect of the need for physicians is that nations such as the United Kingdom and the United States are also in need of them. This does not change the reality that the majority of these specialists are needed in middle-income nations in Africa and Asia. When you look at the majority of these European nations that solely hire their citizens, you will notice that medicine is not usually on the list. This is to say that medical experts are in great demand.
Job Stability
Another compelling incentive to choose a profession in medicine is the employment security you will have after graduation. This is especially true in nations where the recession is still a concern and young people are struggling to find work.
We should also consider the exorbitant wages of healthcare experts. While this should not be the main reason you study medicine, it cannot be overlooked. Medical workers get paid more than average because their jobs are important and there is a high demand for skilled specialists.
In well-developed countries, salaries are much higher, so you shouldn’t be surprised if you are underpaid in a country where the economy is unstable or growing slowly.
Passion for discovering cures for ailments.
Many students choose medical courses because the human body fascinates them. We do a lot of amazing things without even realizing it, like sending information at 400 km/h down our nerves or giving off a small amount of light that our eyes can’t see.
It’s understandable that someone might fall in love and want to learn everything there is to know about our organs, tissues, and how we work.
That is why medical courses are more than just learning practical skills and working in a hospital. You can get a medical degree that focuses on research and spend your time in labs looking at cells, doing tests, and finding new ways to improve our health and well-being.
What’s more amazing is that when we learn more about the human body, we realize how much we still don’t know. We have no idea what we don’t know! Can you get your mind around it?
A group of researchers from New York University’s School of Medicine, for example, might have identified a new organ hidden beneath our skin. That is the allure of scientific and medical research. It enables you to look where others have looked and uncover something they missed or didn’t grasp at the time.
This type of research and discovery helps us understand our bodies and the immune system better. We can learn about disease transmission and produce better remedies and preventative medication. This is why medical research is such a vital part of medicine.
Avenue to meet a diverse set of people.
If working behind a screen or in a solitary setting is your worst fear, then medicine may be the perfect job for you. You will encounter a variety of people, each with their own set of symptoms and problems. No two days are alike since each day brings fresh experiences.
Continuous learning
Learning is one of the most interesting aspects of medicine. Though a difficult profession, if you are inherently interested in life, you may find happiness in medicine, and there is always something new to learn. To care for patients in your field, you will require critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. If you loved science topics as a student and have strong intellectual abilities, you may find a rewarding job in medicine.
Chance to relieve people’s pain and suffering.
Have you ever been to a hospital and witnessed how painful some people’s conditions are? Have you ever had to be a patient? Then you can imagine how awful those difficult moments were for people who were yearning to get healed and survive.
An excellent doctor uses empathy and people skills to make a difference here. It makes a difference when you are honest with them while also encouraging and giving them hope. When your patient opens up to you, you will be tremendously moved. Those moments will bring you into the area of viewing your career from a human perspective, as well as recognizing reasons to assist more individuals. Nothing makes a medical practitioner happier than this. Knowing that you are a part of why other people live has been a turning point in some people’s lives, which led them to become doctors.
Must-have skills for doctors
Ability to work with diverse teams
The capacity to cooperate and work as part of a larger team is one of the most important qualities for any medical practitioner. This could happen in an emergency setting like a trauma team or outside of a hospital, or it could happen as part of a larger treatment system where you give and get advice from other specialists like psychiatrists or oncologists.
In any case, the capacity to connect with and create relationships with peers and colleagues is essential, not only for patient care but also to maintain a happy working environment on a daily basis. It is true that no doctor can do anything without good nurses, and vice versa, so it is critical to always be a team player.
Resilience
Even though resilience is more of a “quality” than a “skill,” you can still teach yourself to be more resilient. You will need to because, as a doctor, you will be exposed to things that will change your worldview and how sensitive you are.
From the beginning of your career, you will witness things that will disturb and alter you, and while you will be given all the help you need to understand and deal with this, it is a fact that some individuals react better than others. If you are easily disturbed or shaken by things, this isn’t always a bad feature—it indicates that you are sympathetic, after all—but you will need to learn to manage it so that it doesn’t interfere with your professionalism, judgment, or ability to treat.
Ability to lead
As previously said, you will become the go-to person for clinical calls at some point. This might be in the midst of a volatile and highly heated acute emergency, or it could be related to a very complicated continuing case. People will turn to you for direction and answers in any case, so you must stand up to the plate.
Later in your career, you will most likely be in charge of teaching and mentoring junior physicians and medical students. Your leadership abilities must be up to par. This includes not just imparting morsels of information to impressionable minds, but also leading by example and being there for people when things don’t go as planned.
Emotional intelligence (EQ)
Another important quality is the capacity to show tact and empathy, especially when dealing with patients.
Unfortunately, it is a hard fact of work that you will have to break unpleasant news to patients or their close family on occasion. Often, it’s information that the person doesn’t want to hear, and you have to be emotionally mature enough to stay professional and level-headed while explaining what to do.
You may be notifying a complete stranger that their wife or spouse has been in a life-changing accident, or you could be advising a patient that they have a fatal disease. These are really challenging topics that need sensitivity, professionalism, and comprehension.
Detail-orientedness
When dealing with medicine dosages, patient histories, allergies, physiological variances, cultural norms, and every other component of a busy hospital ward, it’s normal to overlook the minor details. To put it another way, attention to detail is a necessary talent for every medical practitioner.
It’s not only about getting the doses correct or being mindful of drug contraindications; it’s also about recognizing red flags and leaving no stone unturned in your early patient contacts. For example, if a patient continues to appear with fresh injuries every few months, it may be due to carelessness—or it could be something more serious. The point is that competent physicians notice everything, even at the conclusion of a long and hectic day, and they don’t let anything go by.
Decision-making abilities
When it comes to patient care, doctors make all final clinical choices; consequently, you’ll need to be comfortable accepting responsibility and making difficult judgments. This means coordinating and overseeing treatment plans for patients and explaining and defending them to their families, which can be hard if they don’t want to hear your ideas.
It also implies the ability to make quick judgments. If you work in an emergency department, for example, you might have a patient who is well one minute and then collapses the next. The ability to stay cool, serene, and professional under pressure—yet make solid clinical decisions—is the mark of a successful doctor.
Professionalism
Dealing with the public is difficult at the best of times, but when people are worried, unwell, emotional, or all three, things can quickly become chaotic. It is very important that you keep a professional attitude and don’t put yourself in a position where you might not be able to treat.
Of course, there are several types of professionalism; on a daily basis, these are likely to include:
- Providing excellent care to all patients, regardless of socioeconomic status.
- Making sure that high standards of care and correct clinical procedures are always followed;
- Being tactful and emotionally mature when dealing with patients; and
- Having strong skills for resolving conflicts.
Problem-solving abilities
People say that a lot of clinical diagnosis is just detective work. They say that doctors look for clues and data and then try to figure out what’s wrong and how to fix it.
Your education will give you the technical knowledge you need to understand such situations, but you also need to learn how to break problems down and come up with an internal algorithm that uses that knowledge.
You must also be able to think beyond the box. In fact, not every patient’s symptoms are clear, and test results may contradict what you thought. When this happens, don’t be afraid to channel your inner Gregory House and look at the situation from a different angle.
Communication skills
Communication is essential in many professions, but none more so than in medicine.
Engaging with patients and coworkers will be an important part of your daily routine, and if you lack communication skills, it will not only make your job more difficult, but it may also endanger people’s lives.
Communication, for example, is an important aspect of the first diagnostic. Tests and scans can confirm or rule out certain possibilities, but understanding what is going on with a patient requires the ability to ask the proper questions, read between the lines in their replies, and communicate your opinions to them in simple words. In the same way, you need to be able to understand what other experts (like nurses, paramedics, or pharmacists) are saying and give clear instructions back.
Keep in mind that you can be the most brilliant scholar or the most talented physician in the world, but if you can’t successfully communicate and listen to others, you and your patients will suffer.
Learning capability
Human bodies are so complicated that it’s nearly impossible for one person to know everything about them; physicians, on the other hand, have to get quite close.
Of course, you don’t have to be a walking encyclopedia; you can always seek the advice of professionals and, well, genuine medical encyclopedias. However, you will be taking on and assimilating vast volumes of technical material throughout medical school and, indeed, the remainder of your career. If you’re not very “book smart,” it’s likely that it will catch up with you at some point and you will go by the wayside.
You’ll also never completely leave the classroom. Medical knowledge and technology change quickly, so even if you are a very skilled expert, you will need to keep up with new treatments and trends.
Conclusion
Medicine is one of the most prestigious careers globally, and it has remained one of the most sought-after professions in the world. If you have a passion for caring for sick people, the resilience to withstand tough situations, and the capability to consistently learn all your life, then you should consider taking up a medical profession. It’s a fantastic and rewarding way to spend your time on Earth!
References
https://www.careeraddict.com/doctor-skills
https://www.umultirank.org/study/medicine/
https://www.mastersportal.com/articles/422/top-7-reasons-to-study-a-medicine-degree-in-2022.html
https://www.afterschoolafrica.com/52403/10-reasons-why-you-should-study-medicine/
https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/doctors/why-study-medicine
