waxachasee

Anki is used a lot in medical education. There's a lot of small details, and you can string them along to form the big picture. An example is going from symptoms -> diagnosis -> treatment options -> drug side effects. You can't just memorize use drug X for Y, but you incorporate information that you know to formulate the best plan. Suppose the patient has kidney disease - you've memorized X is nephrotoxic so you find another treatment.

I will say this is easier for some and harder for others. I've noticed some people have a lot of difficulty recalling facts without a specific cue when using Anki. It's best used with traditional learning, but you can focus more on the why.

It was always on the radar for me so I just worked for a few years and applied.

I do know people who were engineers for a decade plus, and they had to do a year of coursework (special medicine program) before applying to med school.

If it's something you personally are interested in, happy to talk more.

I meant 2 weeks a month! I wish in a year :)

People also bring up malpractice but a good employment contract will include that with tail coverage.

Pay may go down a bit. I don't have a source off hand but a huge portion of medical expense are due to administrator bloat, doc pay is much smaller. Ideally the regulations and billing gets simpler cutting that bloat. Regardless many docs advocate for better healthcare despite lower pay. I don't have data to say most, but my experience has been that in a conservative part of the US.

The NP/PA practice is also a growing concern amongst doctors. Those groups are advocating for independent practice despite reduced training.

I'll admit, I'm a fairly stereotypical introvert tech guy and tend to judge people more than I should. Talking to patients has a way of shifting your views. I used (and I suppose still do a bit) to judge alcoholics, drug users, and other preventable conditions. But you realize how they really are a result of social or medical circumstance and I think for that reason many doctors are willing to sacrifice some pay. Hell I went into medicine for the security and money (mostly, plus more academic stimulation than software), as taboo as that is, and I'd be ok with it.

That said I think specialty medicine pay is fairly safe. Fact is supply is limited, right thing or not.

I left FANG for medicine. I think this is not a good argument for 2 main reasons.

1) People tend to compare FANG to family medicine. It wouldn't be more apt to compare the average tech worker making 100-200k to family medicine, or compare to some of the more competitive specialties.

2) Salaries are underestimated by many people. The best source is the MGMA is is often used to negotiate salaries by the hiring side. Unfortunately the data is expensive to access so few have it - there's an older screenshot someone took [1]. Further, these are biased lower since academic medicine and part time researchers tend to make less. You can also tailor you're career with more flexibility. Want to make $1M? Go for it. Want to work 2 weeks a year and still bring in 2-300k? Go for it.

Now if you want to live in NY or SF tech will pay more as medicine pays more as you get more rural.

[1] : https://imgur.com/gallery/ZQo6aKo