The Negative Aspects of Medicine

Deciding to apply to medicine is something you need to give serious consideration. Not only do you need to be aware about the negative sides of medicine to confirm whether you want to study medicine, it's also something that is often asked at medical school interviews.

Here we provide a summary of the main negative aspects of medicine and provide you with a practice question for you to try out yourself.

Objectives

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Negative Aspects

1. Financial - No one does medicine for the money; it doesn’t pay nearly as well as some other careers

2. Burnout - Overwhelming condition of feeling helpless and an inability to do anything

3. Hours - It is well known that the hours can be bad, given that the NHS runs a 24hr service. This can get better or worse with progression

4. Emotional Burden- Frequent contact with death, which can be draining or make you desensitised

Negative Aspects Continued

5. Responsibility- being a respected professional which comes with a 24/7 reputation and responsibility to uphold

6. Lack of autonomy - it can seem as though a doctor is forever checking guidelines, this can feel restraining and annoying

7. Frustration - any doctors can become frustrated with ‘the system’ and feel as though it is broken, and that they can’t do anything to fix it

8. Junior - being a junior doctor is notoriously tough, this is unfortunately an unavoidable part of the training

Practice Question

What aspects of medicine, as a career, concern you?

Why do you think students drop out of medical school?

Why do you think the profession has higher rates of burnout?