Careers Exposed: Medical Student

Medical student Lindsey Stannard follows her passion with determination. Lindsey answers eleven questions to enlighten potential future medical students about the pros and cons of her career path.

1. Did you always plan to have this job?

In a sense, yes. I have wanted to be a physician since I was thirteen. I was captivated by what they did, and how they were able to heal incredibly debilitating conditions. I wanted to speak the way they spoke, do the work that they were doing, and take it to the next level. I did not specifically feel called to Osteopathic medicine until quite recently. In fact, I never knew the profession existed until Spring 2007. Once I understood how they worked, I felt like I’d come home.

2. Scale of one to ten, how much do you love your job? Why do you rate that way?

I’d give it an 8 or a 9. I can’t believe that I’m saying it, but I love medical school. Does that mean that it’s all butterflies and flowers all the time? Oh, hell no. It’s hard (that’s why it doesn’t get a 10). But this is the first time in my adult life that I can say with complete conviction that I am happy and satisfied with what I’m doing every day. I adore being amongst my fellow nerds.

3. Does your job require formal education, or would it benefit from formal education, what is your education background?

This is about as formal education as you can get. Even after I get the degree (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, or D.O.) the education is still ongoing for the rest of my life. It’s stunning how quickly technology changes what we know about disease and wellness–genetics especially. You can walk down the street for a cup of coffee and a newspaper and by the time you get back, the whole genetics picture is different. As a practitioner I have to keep up, or risk my patients’ well beings.

I earned a Bachelors in Broadcasting and Psychology at Gonzaga University, and worked in TV for some time. I went back to school to do the pre-med coursework.

4. Do you take your work home with you, for better or worse?

Do I internalize what’s happening to people? Oh you bet. You can’t see someone in excruciating pain or living with an embarrassing condition and not feel on some level what that has to be like for them. Every day.

5. Is your job family friendly?

Some branches of medicine are more friendly than others. Dermatology is generally a comfortable situation: good pay, good hours, minimal on-call time. Whereas family practitioners have a much bigger burden and lower pay. Osteopathic med I think has somewhat of a reputation for being more family-friendly because it has more holistic central tenets than allopathic med.  Does that mean you can take your kid to the clinic or on rounds with you? Of course not. There’s HIPAA to consider, and it would interfere with your colleagues’ work. Does it mean if your kid is home sick from school that you can just not go to work that day? Oh no. You’ve got a full day’s worth of patients waiting for your help. I think that even though we are a more humanistic profession, when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, patients will come first.

6. Are there health benefits/risks associated with your job?

Of course. I have to be prepared to be exposed to a number of pathogens of varying severity with any patient. I have to be prepared to work with HIV positive or TB patients. Or, I might be working with violent, combative people–regardless of the risk, I also have to be prepared to offer the same respect and quality of care to each patient. Sometimes diagnostic tests or procedures can involve exposure to radiation of a variety of types. As far as health benefits, I do say that I will enjoy the peace of mind that comes with being trained in an area of expertise that is in high demand all over this country. I fantasize about the day when I finally can have health, dental, vision and prescription insurance included with my pay!

7. What personality traits go well with this job?

Type As tend do do well here. You have to enjoy learning for the sake of learning. To do well in most branches of medicine, you have to enjoy interacting with people (pathologists and radiologists can control this quite a bit), and you need to have a professional air about you. This is not just an hourly job. People pay a lot of money to see their doctors and they deserve the highest quality care, a pleasant interaction, up-to-date knowledge base, a clear ethical compass and a real desire to always do better.

8. What are the three most important tasks or roles you play in you job?

1. Listening. Patients want you to listen to them, so that they know you’re fully present to their problem. Anybody can read a lab report. If that was all there is to it, we’d have robot doctors by now. Don’t get me wrong. This is in no way easy when you have 8 billion different disease possibilities swirling around in your head AND you’re trying to maintain pleasant and sensitive conversation WHILE building trust.
2. Supporting my colleagues. None of us would succeed without our fellow students’ support.
3. Documentation is key. Any future interaction with a patient relies heavily on how good I am at note-taking, asking questions, and being thorough (what if you forget to take the blood pressure? You can’t just make one up in the chart!). If I were to blow off any portion of this, the patient is at increased risk of erroneous care down the road.

9. Can you do this job anywhere, or do you have to be in a certain area, region, climate, etc?

What I love most about medicine is that you can go anywhere and practice. I don’t want to be pigeon-holed by my specialty/sub-specialty into a certain area. This will be a major factor in choosing my specialty.

10. What advice can you give to someone interested in doing your job or a job like yours?

You have to love medicine for your own reasons. You can’t go into it because your dad did, or you family wants you to, or you think it’ll make you rich. You’ll never survive the workload if your heart isn’t in it.

Don’t worry a ton about the expense. It costs about a quarter of a million dollars to go to medical school at most institutions, but the future is bright for medicine, and if you don’t want to just pay off student loans, there are many options with the military, Indian reservations and other organizations to help you.

11. Do you want to do this job until you retire?

I better. It took a lot of work to get here and I can’t imagine not loving it like I do now.