I was a premed in undergrad, and I graduated with a molecular biology degree. I got a job in a research lab, which I stayed in for almost two years. I still have a stack of MCAT books sitting in my storage unit.<p>Want to know a huge reason why I left that whole world and decided to write software for a living instead?<p>It's pretty simple - all of the younger doctors that I talked to told me that it was my last chance to avoid making a huge mistake. That medicine has become a gilded cage for them. Doctors have far less autonomy than they used to, that they have to work for twenty or more years to pay back their enormous student loans, and that they'd quit on the spot if they could afford to do so.<p>I was also told that my future pay prospects would dwindle further.<p>So given the prospect of being trapped in a job that I'd hate, which will at some point start to pay less and less each year, is it any wonder that I decided to do something else with my life?<p>What comes next isn't pretty. In the words of my doctor friend, "Don't get sick."