Roupen Odabashian, Hematology/Oncology Fellow at Karmanos Cancer Institute, and Podcast Host at OncoDaily, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“To my younger self (or physicians earlier in their career )
Your goals are shaped by who’s around you.
In medical school, everyone’s chasing publications. Not because you care about the research, you barely understand what it is. You just need lines on your CV because that’s what gets you respect.
In residency, it’s all about grinding. Stay late. Discharge more patients. Work harder than the person next to you. That’s what your attendings value, so that’s what you chase.
Then you become an attending and realize none of that mattered.
What matters? Time with your family. Financial stability. Actually living your life. (could be different for you)
I spent 16 years becoming an oncologist. I could’ve done three PhDs in that time.
And here’s what I realized: I’m really good at matching the right treatment to the right condition. That’s what medical training taught me.
But it didn’t teach me to create. To invent. To think, ‘What if we tried this instead?’
Medical school teaches you to follow guidelines. Memorize protocols. Apply what’s proven.
It doesn’t teach you to explore. To question. To look at the physiology and think, ‘Maybe there’s a better way.’
We’re trained to be excellent executors, not innovators.
And that’s the gap nobody talks about.”
More posts featuring Roupen Odabashian.