Focus
Student Scene
June 26, 2000
Time Out: Why Some Students Take Time Off from Med School
By Catherine ChuWhat do a 24-year-old computer science major from Princeton and a 22-year-old biology major from the University of Pennsylvania have in common? They have both decided not to return to HMS for their second year, at least for the time being.
"I want to take time off and get this 'start-up vibe' out of me before I figure out what I really want to do," says Joe Corkery, who completed his first year at HMS in June. After graduating from college, Joe took a year to work for Vertex Pharmaceuticals (the company that designed Amprenavir, a successful HIV protease inhibitor) and was never sure that he was ready to go back to school. Coworkers and others have been trying to recruit him since early fall, but he decided to focus on his medical education—at least in the beginning. "I decided to do anatomy first, so I didn't do anything else during that first block. But, once we hit biochem later in the fall, I decided I needed something else to do." He has been averaging about 20 hours a week ever since at OpenEye Scientific Software.
Uneasy Decision
The decision not to return to medical school next fall has been difficult. "I waver back and forth every week about whether or not I should go back," Joe confesses. On the downside, if he decided to return after a year or two's hiatus, he would need to relearn the material both in preparation for the second-year curriculum and for Step I of the Medical Licensing Exam, which covers material from the first two years. And feelings of uncertainty about an education that can cost up to $50,000 a year helped to tip the scale. "I see a lot of physicians now that spend 60 percent of their time doing paperwork and 40 percent of their time seeing twice as many patients as they used to—and that worries me," he says. "I've decided to take the time now to explore things before I've really racked up a lot of debt. Medicine as a profession really does interest me, but I have some concerns." Members of Joe's family, including his physician father, give Joe's plan to explore the alternatives a big "thumbs up."Coincidentally, Joe's anatomy lab partner, Rachel Dubroff, has also decided not to return to HMS in the fall. Rachel's decision to take time off is firmer than her classmate's, though her plans for next year are not as concrete. "I knew as soon as I started medical school, and maybe even before, that I shouldn't have come," Rachel says.
Following the fast track since preschool, Rachel has never taken an extended break from school. "I wish in retrospect that I had taken time off earlier," she says. But pressed for a decision during the especially intense time of spring of her senior year, Rachel, like many top seniors facing an open future while tying up loose ends prior to graduation, was overwhelmed. Rachel says, "I was working on my thesis, and a lot of other stuff was going on. I just couldn't pull it together to make a plan." Rachel decided to come to medical school and "see what happened."
Now, she is not so sure about that decision. Although she was a science major, she also earned a minor degree in art history and completed an English thesis in college. Her liberal arts interests have not died. During the past year, for example, she cofounded and led a student book club. "I wasn't prepared for a vocational school. It only becomes more and more narrow from here," she explains. Not ready to "sacrifice" her twenties "to the hospital," Rachel wants some time to explore other options before taking on this commitment.
As with Joe, changes in the field of medicine have weighed into her decision. "I still think that being a doctor is a wonderful thing. It's an amazing thing to change people's lives. But there is a lot of stuff that goes along with it now. Paperwork takes up a lot of your time, and that's not fun and that's not helping anyone," she says.
A Clean Break
With her decision behind her, next year is an open book. "I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing in the fall," Rachel says. Possibilities include traveling to Israel, doing wildlife conservation work in Hawaii, or tutoring and bartending in Boston. "It's really scary to me, but so exciting. I'm looking to have some normalizing experiences."How has the administration responded to their decisions to leave? According to Joe and Rachel, Harvard is completely supportive. Joe remembers, "That was a piece of cake. Harvard has no problem letting you go for a year. You have to finish your MD degree within 10 years of starting—the only catch is that you have to be in another degree program to take more than two years off." In fact, Joe and Rachel aren't the first students to request a leave of absence this year; at least two other students in the first-year class opted to leave earlier in the year. Approximately half of students at HMS typically take at least a year off during their medical studies, though most use the year to do research or community service projects related to medicine.
Neither Joe nor Rachel knows for sure what the future holds for them. But even if they do not return to medical school, neither regrets coming to HMS for this year. A year of medical school gives Joe some new insights into the medical and pharmaceutical industries, and, he emphasizes, "I definitely enjoyed medical school, and if nothing else, I've made a lot of friends and met a lot of really cool people here." Rachel agrees, adding, "I think that this has been the most valuable thing about Harvard—the students. I've met a lot of completely phenomenal and amazing people here."
Catherine Chu just completed her first year at HMS.