...I talk the talk but don't walk the walk

Within the next 60 days, I will have to make the hardest decision of my life. Ultimately, this decision will affect where I go in life, who I meet, and what I do. It will challenge the foundations of my beliefs and ideals, and if I survive, it will show me who I truly am.

I am talking about the decision I must make between which medical school to attend next year. I have narrowed down my selection to two schools of roughly similar repute, but which could not be more different. The Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University is in the very heart of Chicago. It's campus is located in one of Chicago's most prestigious neighborhoods and its medical centers are home to first-class research and patient care. Despite its almost exorbitant cost of attendance (nearly $70,000 /year), I believe the connections I have already established as an undergraduate there there will help me find a high-paying position as an orthopaedic specialist (an average salary of $400k).

The University of Massachusetts Medical School is located in Worcester, Massachusetts. Worcester is the second largest city in MA next to Boston, and was once thought of as the center of the industrial revolution. Surrounding it are many low-income areas home to a medically under-served population. The cost of attendance is estimated at roughly $45000 /year tho-thirds of which will be forgiven with a promise to practice primary care for 4 years in an under-served area. The average primary care physician makes about $150k /year, and probably less in lower-income areas.

I hope you can see why this decision is so hard for me to make. When I first decided to pursue medicine, I swore to help people regardless of the money. Indeed, if the choice was between helping people and getting paid nothing, or not helping people and getting paid a ton, perhaps the choice would be easier. But in my case, I would be helping people in both scenarios (though in different ways); one scenario simply pays better than the other. And when one considers the amount of added debt (on top of undergraduate loans), the desire to raise a family, buy a house eventually etc., it seems that any rational person would opt for the higher paying option. (It is no wonder that there is a primary care physician shortage in this country. In fact, it is no wonder that we have a shortage of good public primary and secondary school teachers.) So why am I hesitating? My fear is that taking the higher paying path will become a slippery slope to the extreme mentality of not helping and getting paid a ton.

Quotes from C.G. Jung's "Memories, Dreams, Reflections"

"Several times my father had a serious talk with me. I was free to study anything I liked, he said, but if I wanted his advice I should keep away from theology. 'Be anything you like except a theologian,' he said emphatically. By this time there was a tacit agreement between us that certain things could be said or done without comment. He had never taken me to task for cutting church as often as possible and for not going to Communion any more. The father away I was from church, the better I felt. The only things I missed were the organ and the choral music, but certainly not the 'religious community.' The phrase meant nothing to me at all, for the habitual churchgoers struck me as being far less of a community than the 'worldly' folk. The latter may have been less virtuous, but on the other hand they were much nicer people, with natural emotions, more sociable and cheerful, warmer-hearted and more sincere."

-pg. 75

"About this time I had a dream which both frightened and encouraged me. It was night in some unknown place, and I was making slow and painful headway against a mighty wind. Dense fog was flying along everywhere. I had my hands cupped around a tiny light which threatened to go out at any moment. Everything depended on my keeping this little light alive. suddenly I had the feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back, and saw a gigantic black figure following me. But at the same moment I was conscious, in spite of my terror, that I must keep my little light going through night and wind, regardless of all dangers. When I awoke I realized at once that the figure was a 'specter of the Brocken,' my own shadow on the swirling mists, brought into being by the little light I was carrying. I knew, too , that this little light was my consciousness, the only light I have. My own understanding is the sole treasure I possess, and the greatest. Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light."