Surfers, doctors?

[norfolksurferdude]

Hi, just out of interest, are there any surfers on here who are also doctors. Im curious because im thinking of being one myself. Do you get much time in the water? Once a week is enough for me, aswell as a few good holidays a year. Cheers

[pkbum]

once you become a med student you won't even have time to surf "one" time each week. you'll be piled up with work everyday. you can probably surf during the holiday but not during the schooltimes.

Source: my friend is a med student

[norfolksurferdude]

Im not too worried about med school. I want to go to UCL which is in London anyway. But at Uni you get loads of holiday time so i should be able to scrape some money to go on a trip or two if i do some bartending work while im at uni. I posted this on magicseaweed and most people reckon that being a doctor is a great job for a surfer cus you get good pay, and if you want you can just take loads of time of a year (obviously unpaid) but you can just go to Indo or whatever for a month etc. Also you can do stuff like 6 months working in New Zealand, 6 months in Aus, Barbados, etc (I only speak English, my French is appauling). So.....

[norfolksurferdude]

also im taking a year off before med school (gap year) and im just gonna be surfing flat out for about 8 months, gonna be amazing. So i will probably be all surfed out when i get to med school, if thats possible.

[drowningbitbybit]

I want to go to UCL which is in London anyway. But at Uni you get loads of holiday tim.

Sadly not.
After the first year, you'll get a bit of a holiday, but once you start doing rotations etc, its basically full time.

Im in a middle ground - a PhD in a medical field, so I work (partially) in a hospital, and I work with a lot of medics. In Sydney. The medics dont surf.

Once you're qualified and experienced, you do have good options for travel (although, perhaps, not as good as you imagine - Australia for instance prefers IT professionals and engineers) and you'll earn a good living. But you'll do it at the sacrifice of free time for a good ten years.

And if you're doing it in London, you basically wont surf.

[billie_morini]

I don't know about all this talk about medical doctors not having time to surf. Watch that movie, I think it is Endless Summer II. One of the surfing guys that is interviewed for Mavericks is a doctor! norfolksurferdude, you should find this doctor and phone him. I know from my own engineering field, there are guys (like me) that get too involved in work and miss their wife's birthday, work on weekends, and don't surf enough. There are other guys down the hallway that have way more fun because they don't get so engaged in a stupid job. I believe doctors run the full spectrum, too. I'll bet those that live in small towns and don't work all the time have time for surf.

[tomcat360]

I know Riding Giants they have a doctor interviewed for Mavericks, is that the one you are thinking of? Grey bearded guy taking about how cancer patients cut the crap?

[billie_morini]

Yes, tomcat360. It's the movie, Riding Giants. I don't have the best of memories. It's a medical thing, not old age. Thank you.

[Ged]

Someone told me that at Scripps they call everything off if the surfs up. No lectures, no meetings etc. Go do a PhD at Scripps, UCLA or somewhere like that.

[billie_morini]

I've got some friends with research positions at Scripps in San Diego. When visiting them, I see surfing men and women carrying boards to the beach all day long. Sometimes I've encountered them in the hallways. Lots of surf goes on there. That is pretty cool.

[tree4]

when you qualify , you'll have time but getting there is going to kill you through the immense amount of study and the long shifts. At least in the UK.
IMHO. Wife is an A&E nurse.

[Hang11]

If you want to surf a lot you're better off just not working very much - it's basically an economic decision, not a career one IMO.

[crepuscular]

sleep early, get up early for those dawn waves

[The Fafenator]

I'm a qualified doctor, and I do Accident and emergency so when Its quiet I go surfing

Just chose a hospital where there arent many accidents or emergencies

[mowflow]

One of my friends from way back went to medical school here in Glasgow (Scotland). He used to get just as much surf in as friends who were doing Architecture, Engeneering, working in factories etc and me (i went to art school so had tons of free time). As people got near the final years of their degrees no matter what they were doing everyone got less and less free time if they wanted to get a degree at a mark worth anything. My friend that became a doctor hardly gets any free time to go surf now we are all working (we've all been out of uni for at least 10 years), he works crazy hours doing antisocial shifts where as most of the rest of us work the usual 9 to 5 5 days a week.

From what he says being a doctor is one of the most time demanding jobs you can do plus the wages are actually pretty crap for the first while. If you want to be a doctor then don't let surfing stop you but if you want a more regular job that pays really well, has regular hours and gives you the option of loads of holidays then become a dentist.

[Ged]

Do a PhD, go to Scripps.