"Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be doctors . . . "

Justin here. I found this nugget today in a Financial Planning article on serving clients in the medical field.

" . . . a recent survey of 3,016 physicians by healthcare consulting firm Merritt, Hawkins & Associates found that roughly 40% of doctors would not choose to enter the medical profession if they were deciding on a career again, up from less than 15% two decades ago. An even larger percentage would actively steer their children away from the medical field as a possible career choice."

If any of these doctors want to get out while they still can, author Frederick Buechner gives some great advice on finding the right vocation in Wishful Thinking, A Seeker's ABC.

Vocation - It comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a person is called to by God.

. . . By and large a good rule for finding out is this: the kind of work [you should do] is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you've missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you're bored or depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a), but probably aren't helping your patients much either.

[Your vocation should be] the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

My translation: "It's more than money."