Medicine has a draw like riding a bicycle up a mountain. Most people admire it, far fewer want to try it, and even less actually go through with it. Both require so much drive and unseen sacrifice. Both are essentially unnatural. Most of all, both feats offer in return very little material gain relative to the work required. The top cyclists in the world are paid a pittance compared to Shaq or Roger Clemens, for that matter compared to the last man on the NY Giants 2007 team. For the amount of years and dollars spent, it is not difficult to argue that physicians are also relatively underpaid (said the med student). One of the most challenging aspects of training to be a physician is the very accurate perception that everyone around you is moving in a different direction in life, and with considerable more ease. The pace seems totally incongruous. Our contemporaries settle into families and homes, and we borrow to buy groceries and rent (and a mountainous tuition). This is where the cyclist reminds us that we can't afford to look at challenges in life as mere obstacles to rewards. We must climb for the sake of climbing. Lance Armstrong, while he made a handsome sum from endorsements, never needed a salary to push him through The Tour (it has been reported that he gave his salary to his teammates for their crucial support - an act from which several lessons can be drawn). I fully believe that he would have climbed without pay, that it is his nature to climb.
The question therefore becomes not whether to climb, but which mountain?
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