Ingram said:
It is possible to view male and female genitalia in a nonsexual way. I’m sure people that enter this field have a general interest in helping people, rather than an obsession with dirty cooters and Gonorrhea infested penises.
Thank you.
By the responses it sounds like the author really wasn't looking for a real answer.
But if you want it, here it is:
1. It cannot be the money or you'd never keep doing it. Would anyone work 100+ hours/week, be on call 24/7, up at 3AM several times a week for $400-$500,000/year? Consider the opportunity cost: 4 years med school (after 4 years at a top college or very top of your class at a mediocre college), 4 years Residency at 110+ hours weekly for $30K/year, $100,000+ in tuition and expenses... shit. Law school is 3 years, MBA only 2 years- how much do you think your average MD would be making on Wall Street after 8 years? Selling real estate makes more for the hours!
Not to mention the endless fighting with insurance companies and the diminshing payments/reimbursements for the same procedures while ALL costs (staff, insurance, rent, etc...) continue to go UP UP UP.
The true reason is the opportunity to make and see a real difference in the quality of your patient's lives. Ob/Gyn is perhaps the ONLY specialty in medicine where one can take an active role in acute (emergency, surgery, etc...) AND preventative AND chronic medicine. When I see a 13, 14, maybe 15 year-old for her first visit, that may be the most important moment of her life. If I screw it up and she leaves the office scared or thinking that the doctor didn't care about her as a person, she may never trust a doctor again or seek necessary medical attention. If I do my job right, I am rewarded by seeing that patient again and again for the rest of her life as well as her children and other family members- that is POSITIVE FEEDBACK. I have attended deliveries where there were 7 or 8 kids in the room with the family afterwards and I had delivered all of the kids and cared for all of the mothers! Now that's cool and is what makes the job and the hours and the fighting with insurance companies worthwhile.
While there's no denying that the money is nice and essentially guaranteed to be there through retirement, (no matter what age you chose), if you hate your job no amount of money will make you keep doing it- look at all those poor professional atheletes! Seriously, think about how many doctors you see practicing well into their 70's. My first partner was 82 when he died. He had survived throat cancer and finally died this year from complications after bypass surgery...he delivered his last baby the day before he went into the hospital for his open heart surgery.... something to think about.