I am slightly older than you, and a physician working at a academic center in the US. Going into the field has placed me in close contact with persons from all walks of life, which I doubt I would have been exposed to had I picked another profession. I am grateful for how much it has taught me about life, death, families, and human resiliency.

With that in mind, I still advise NOT going into the field if you already have a stable career with above average income. It will take at minimum 10 years, of doing little else, before you will become a fully independent physician. Although some of this time can be shortened if you choose to become a PA/NP (sorry I don't know their equivalent in Europe, they are essentially clinicians with shortened training with some but limited individual practice autonomy).

If you work in a hospital every day is stressful. It is increasingly thankless although you still bear the brunt of responsibility and liability. You are also interchangeable.

I don't know if this helps explain my perspective of it's just a weird analogy, but being in a hospital feels like working in a grocery store now. You're told the margins are slim and you need to move produce (patients) faster out the door so that more produce can come in. A lot of the times the produce is not safe to sell but the managers pressure you to do it anyways. You could ask the managers (who were mostly at one point produce managers) to sell it but they would never. But if that apple you sold was mealy or at a rotten core its going to be on you.

The path to board-certified MD is long and I know my share of people who decided to get the MD but skip the residency and go into startups.

There are a large number of healthcare related jobs, such as nursing, psychotherapy, physical therapy and such that you can get into with less training and that you might even like better.

Medicine is a very satisfying profession but the road to it is long and winding, and not always fun. I'm an MD and data science major and at this point I would never do medicine again (although I'm obviously not neutral). Also because life changes and you get different responsibilities (e.g. mortgage, kids, partner etc). I agree with PaulHoule that healthcare-adjacent professions may be more in reach and equally satisfying. Psychotherapy, if you like the idea of it, is a beautifully deep and endlessly fascinating profession that is very far out of reach of anything AI.

Consider starting smaller, perhaps? I got my BLS and later EMT just to dip my toes into medicine and it was a great overall experience without having to commit to the serious investment of an MD.

For me, discovering new cool Python APIs gives me the same rush as learning C++ and AJAX did many decades ago. If it doesn't for you then maybe you should get out. Memorizing Latin names of bones, dealing with death, and having direct responsibility for other people's health is not for me, but if it is for you, go for it.

> Alt account for obvious reasons. [...] I have to be realistic about my age, [...] For the sake of my privacy and well-being,

These comments give room for pause. It's not obvious why you need to safeguard your privacy. They suggest that you may be dealing with feelings of shame or even guilt. You will be the oldest guy (or girl) in the class, your colleagues will be younger than you, and people will question your choices. Can you deal with it or is it too shameful? Only you can answer this question.

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