Why do doctors run in families?

[Beafortea]

Why do doctors' kids often all end up being doctors? You seem to find that doctors are usually from families of multiple generations of doctors. Why is that?

Curious because you'd think with the state of things for junior doctors, parents would be encouraging their kids to pick another career?

I think this is true of a lot of professions. Children grow up exposed to the job and with the contacts and insider knowledge to pursue it if they want to. Plus there might be a hefty dose of parental pressure.

Mind you, virtually no one I know with parents for doctors went into the job. They generally got top class educations which gave them a lot of choices though.

Both my generation and my parents’ have a preponderance of medics. My children and their cousins are well qualified in other professions - architecture, engineering, science, IT. None have considered medicine - parents advised against it.

(I was the only one out of four siblings who didn’t become a doctor, but that was because I wasn’t particularly caring and didn’t want to be around people who were unwell. However my childhood was spent in and around hospitals - we lived on site until I was eight, and my father used to take me to clinics in the holidays - I chatted to staff and patients and played outside. I grew up reading the BMJ. It’s this sort of immersive experience that would have made me go into medicine had I been so inclined.)

My elder son is a doctor, there are no doctors in our family in fact he was the first in our family to go to university. Among his friends from medical school I can’t think of one whose parent/s are or were doctors. My son married a lovely girl whose father was a GP, none of his three children went into medicine. I’m not sure you are correct.

Both my parents are teachers. Not once have I ever been tempted to go into teaching!

Income is not irrelevant, and pretty bloody good for many, surgeons especially but also gps. I will reasonably often hear conversations like 4/ 6/8 kids and all private school?? How do they do it?! Or, a recent one- that renovation is costing more than the actual house value. Are they medical?
answers are very often Ah, orthopaedic surgeon. Dermatologist. Urologist. Etc.

@explainthistomeplease Thank you. That's a very kind thing to say.

I think the whole subject of how you level playing fields and how much you can level them is really interesting. We will be throwing the resources we have behind our DD, and we're lucky that those resources are relatively considerable. It would be unimaginable not to do so. Yet I believe in equality of opportunity and would like to see fields like medicine, and others, open to the best candidates, regardless of their advantages and background.

I think a lot of it, as others have commented, is what you grow up with and are exposed to. DH's family has a strong public service ethos - they are all doctors, teachers, civil servants etc.

Incidentally, while medicine is eventually a high earning profession, it's perhaps less so among the peer group with the academic ability to become doctors. Of the people I went to Oxford with, DH and the two doctors are among the less well paid (I'm on a whole different level with my part time arts sector job😂). We couldn't have put our (three) kids through private school on a consultant-equivalent salary, for example.

This.

If you wanted a more cynical view, possibly children of doctors are chasing approval and attention of the parents they didn't see because they were working 12+ hour shift? Or emulating them chasing after the buzz/fulfillment

I'm A doctor . No one else in my family had been , and my kids are not. I think in some medical families it get pushed as the greatest career ever. It's not. I love it, but I chose it for myself and my children have different passions

My work is linked to a Medical School. Where it is sometimes hard is when you see a student being pushed into this career by their doctor parents, but their heart really isn't in it. It can be difficult for them to find parental support to pursue another career path.

Daughter is a vet. Many of her vet friends have doctors/consultants for parents. It seems they wanted to go down the medicine route but have chosen one that has a better work/life balance.

This certainly used to be the case but I don't think it is anywhere near as common now.
I went to medical school in the 80s and amongst my peer group I was fairly unusual in being from a completely non medical family - no doctors, nurses, allied medical professionals of any kind in my family ever. I would say at least 70% of my friends had one or more parents or a grandparent who was a doctor and quite a few others had other medically connected relatives.
Now most of us have children in late teens/early 20s and I only have one close friend and two colleagues that I know of whose children have followed in their footsteps. Obviously I don't know every doctor in the country or even the county, but between friends and colleagues I do know quite a lot and I would imagine we have proprtionately less of our offspring going into medicine than other similarly able children. None of mine have shown any real interest in medicine fortunately but I would have discouraged them if they had.

Summed it up perfectly.

I'm the first doctor in our family.

It's paid well, it seems like a noble calling, and despite reading 'house of god' seemed like a good idea.

I'm currently telling my kids that if its money they want, there are far easier ways to make it, and that nothing really prepared me for the reality of 14 year of training, moving house, exams and hoop jumping.

Despite that, one is still determined to pursue medicine as a career.

I have two medic DC. No other medics in our family. In their peer groups many are like them although there are a few who have one or both parents who are doctors. You certainly don't need to have a medic parent to get into med school. Mine got lots of offers. You just need to be bright, good at sciences, hardworking, proactive, personable and know the drill with the process. It certainly helps to have parents who can help with funding though and I'm sure many very suitable DC are put off by that aspect.

I'm the first doctor in my family. My school encouraged it as I was bright and having a guaranteed career at the end was attractive to me coming from a background where I saw my parents struggle at times. There were plenty of fellow students from medic families, some had been really pushed. My best friend dropped out and her dad (4th generation doctor) still struggles. Even though she has an amazing career with 4x the earnings I make!

I love my own job and in principle it's a great profession- getting to meaningfully help people while having opportunities to do scientific research, stretch your knowledge etc. But quality of life has really diminished and I won't be encouraging my kids (young primary age) into it. Most Millenial doctors I know say similar. It feels like the current crop of students/FYs whose parents are maybe in their 50s and had a different junior doc experience are possibly the last ones of the dynasty families.

I'm seeing the opposite - I'm the child of a doctor married to another doctor's kid. We both come from large families - and not a single one of us has gone anywhere near medicine.

That said, if doctor's kids want to be doctors then medical schools should grab them quick - they're up for it despite knowing all the downsides.

I would anticipate the hurdles for getting into med school are not as great, academic prowess aside, and even that can be tutored. Parents to help with the personal statement, work experience etc must be a big boon.

@TooOldForThisNonsense I think the hurdles are very similar for DC of medics and non-medics. The UCAT clinical entrance exam is probably one of the biggest hurdles in the whole process and that is a beast of an exam that you can practice but tutoring would be a waste of time and money for this one. Personal statements are largely ignored by medical schools for precisely the reason you say ie unfair advantage for DC of insiders. Medical work experience is not valued any more (possibly less) than a paid job in a customer facing environment. You can get plenty of examples for interview answers from that type of experience and silver spoon work experience could even act against you relative to grittier volunteering. A lot has been done to level things out for DC with non-medical backgrounds.

Lots of Trusts no longer provide work experience anyway. Ours hasn't for years. It runs weekend "insight" courses for aspiring medical students which are open to everyone and widely advertised to local 6th forms. It certainly was common to shadow a patent or one of their friends in the past, but even the CEO's kid wouldn't get anywhere near a patient in our local hospitals these days.

Its the same in lots of professions most of the academics I know have at least one parent who was also an academic. It's just how it goes, expectations, belief that you can do it as opposed to someone who has no family background in that area.