Career pivot

I have some other news…I have decided to take another year off before my last year of med school. I applied for both a bioengineering masters program called bioinnovate and the joint MD/MBA program and I got into both! After much thought and soul-searching, I have decided to pursue an MBA. This means I will have to study for the GMAT after I take Step 2 this summer but then off to something totally different from medicine and science!

The truth is I have always thought I would get an MBA. Ever since I learned how important business is in the art of medicine, I’ve wanted to get more training. I am thinking about doing more and more administrative type work as I grow older and having an MBA will definitely help. I just didn’t know I would do it so soon.

I primarily wanted a year off because I can’t decide what field to go into, I feel burnt out from this year, and I just needed some time to rediscover why I loved medicine. I looked around for programs to do so I wouldn’t get bored and the engineering program was the first thing that came to mind. I participated in a lot of device development competitions and I am interested in learning how to take a provisional patent further so it would have been a good fit. However, when I learnt of the new MD/MBA program at my school, I immediate felt it was more fitting for me. The program is fairly new but it is geared towards students who want to go into healthcare administration like me. It only takes 1 year but I will only be the second student to ever go through it.  Scary but I feel up for the adventure.


I think the path to being a doctor is challenging and full of hard work, dedication, and self-sacrifice. I just wanted time to make sure whatever field I enter is one I would enjoy. This year, I haven’t had time to do a lot of research into each field. Having a glimpse of everything has only made me realize I am ill-prepared to imagine what my life would be like when I become an attending. I don’t want to enter one residency only to switch to another or worse, change fields. I understand this may be inevitable because there is no way to truly know you will like something unless you try but I just wanted some time to evaluate what I think I would be good at and what I want from my life overall. In addition, I am excited to learn about economics, finance, management, etc and to interact with another cohort of students. I think there is more to life then putting yourself in a box so as scary as this is, I think it is the right choice for me. Afterall, I doubt I will look back on my life and wish I had worked one more year. Haha.

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