I was recently invited to be a speaker by the “National Youth Leadership Forum – Medicine” on the University of Chicago campus for their Orthopaedic section.
This was a two hour talk along with orthopaedic surgery video to introduce these high school students to a career in medicine as part of a nine day immersive experience. Although it required taking a half day off from my busy practice, I was happy to do it to try to give something back to the community by speaking to these enthusiastic young high school students. More than half of the session was answering questions, and they had many good ones. Particularly with the complexities of the health care industry generally today, it can be quite difficult for those contemplating a career in medicine to understand what the field is really like. In particular the accumulation of debt, which was quite limited many years ago when I attended medical school, can be crushing; and I felt it important to talk to them not only about the ideals of the field, but also the practicalities of what is required to enter medicine today. It is also important to point that there are many more non physician opportunities today than existed in the past that can provide very rewarding healthcare careers.
