mfree1

RedHead,
Your fears are perfectly normal for someone in your shoes. It can be scary to weigh the pros and cons of different career options. It's good that you're asking questions and taking many opinions into consideration.

Medicine is indeed time-consuming. If you want to become a pediatrician and not take any time off, you're looking at 4 years of college, 4 years of med school, and 3-4 of internship and residency. So if you're a "striaght arrow," you'll have your life back at about age 32. But many medical residents take time to go have children--they don't finish their residency as quickly, but they need a family.

There aren't really "part time" pediatricians. Pretty much any job in pediatrics requires an on-call schedule, rounds at the hospital, and so on.

Again, I endorse the nurse practitioner plan. I'm one year away from getting my onw NP licensure and it's perfect for me. I like the fact that I don't have to be on call and I didn't have to spend years living in the hospital.

Also, it depends on if you like inpatient or outpatient medicine. I don't especially like the hospital, so I'm happy as an NP. Pediatricians--like other doctors--have to devote the majority of their time in training to hospitalized patients. In pediatrics, this often means medically complex cases: kids with mental retardation/developmental disability in addition to another chronic illness. It's not my cup of tea, but many people love it.

Finally, there's the financial issue. And it's scary. Med school is $120-$150,000 just for tuition. By the time you're able to pay back loans, it will cost about double that amount. Unfortunately, pediatrics tends to be one of the lowest-paying specialties, so it's even harder to pay back the loans.

Best of luck and don't hesitate to ask if you have other questions.

Mats.