Why I won’t go back to Medical School even if I am given 1 million dollars.
1 Million dollars – a life changing amount?
It started as a simple reply to a tweet: “If you could be a teenager again would you be?”
And my reply?: “Yes, if I would be handed my degree at 21 without reading.”
I went further to say this:” Wouldn’t go through med school again even if I was given a million dollars.”
This sparked some reactions, my friend @StNaija replied she would go through medical school again twice! if she was given 1 million dollars. She went further to ask this important question:
“People,Do you know what N165 M (165 million naira or 1 million dollars) can do?
This got me thinking and I decided to do some research; from straight dope.com I got this:
.
How Big (small) is 1 million dollars?
1. 1 million dollars in $100 bills is 10,000 bills, a bill is 0.010922 cm in thickness. That would be 109.2cm.That would be a stack of bills about 3 and a half feet high.
2. $1m is about 696,500 Euros, if they gave that to you in 500 Euro notes, it would be 1393 notes, when stacked, it would be under 6 inches.
3. $1m in $100 dollar bills would fit into a normal grocery bag.
So, I carried my research further:
How long would it take to spend $1 million if you spent $100 daily?
The answer from Wiki answers.com is about 27 years. Wow, tempting!
So some facts about Medical School (In Nigeria).
1. It would cost you at least 7 years of your life.
2. If there are strikes in between you may do about 9 or 10 years.
3. You need to have a high JAMB score to be admitted or else you would be given some other courses like soil science.
4. Out of 100 people that start a class, about 60 would become doctors, the remaining 40, well….
5. If you fail any course in your first year, you would be asked to leave medicine.
6. If you fail in your third year, you can repeat the class, if you fail again, you may be asked to leave medicine.
7. When in clinicals, you may pass your written exams but fail the whole exam if you displease your clinical examiner, a situation known as “FAILED CLINICALS”.
8. With two repeats you may be asked to leave medical school.
9. You are deemed to have passed only when you “satisfy the examiners”. Thus an examiner can “sit” on your pass.
10. People have been known to spend up to 13 years in med school.
11. There is always a life determining exam before you; you eat, drink, play with this threat over you.
12. When you finally become a doctor, you have to scour the length and breadth of Nigeria (on your parents money) to find a place to do your housemanship.
13. Your salary for the first 5 years after you graduate won’t be enough to buy you a brand new car or a house.
So when I think of putting at least 14 years of my life (medical school twice) to get 1 million dollars, you can guess my reply.
If you were me, what would you do?
(P.s this post was initially written on Sept 19, 2013, now 1million dollars is equivalent to 364 million naira)
Been thinking about this for a while now but I've come too far to go back. There is a lot of frustration there if you don't know what you are doing. When I was in high school I wold hear that somebody spent 13 years unschooled and I would be like "why can't the person leave?" but now I know better. After yoiu've told everybody in your village that you are a dr, you can't just get up one day and leave. My colleagues in the main campus are now sending convocation invites and the likes for me to attend. They will start working and making money long before I get into the market. The rewards may be better appreciated in long term but as at now I'm not very impressed. I may go back because of the money but when I think of the stress and frustration I would just do any 4yrs course and get it done with.
Sounds even more frustrating and infuriating than the US med school system!
I can see why you wouldn't!
Anna :o]
Thank you Anonymous, what more can I say? I recently met a former medical school clssmate of mine who just started her housemanship – about 7 years after I left med school!
I'm sure it is!
Definitely wouldn't!