You'll Be 43 Anyway, So You Might As Well Become a Doctor
A 36-year-old thought seven years of training was too long, until one sentence reframed what waiting really costs.
Curiosity Chronicle · How Old Will You Be If You Don't?After the author of a piece about reinventing life at any age, one reader wrote back about a newspaper advice column that had stuck in the reader's memory for more than 20 years. The author tracked it down. It was dated Jan. 19, 2000.
The letter came from a man who called himself Unfulfilled in Philly. He was 36, a college dropout with a good job selling pharmaceutical supplies. His lifelong ambition, the letter writer wrote, was to be a physician, and, in his words, his "heart is still in the practice of medicine." On his time off he did volunteer work at a local hospital, where, he wrote, people told him he "would have made a wonderful doctor."
If he went back to college to earn his degree, then went to medical school, completed his internship, and finally entered practice, he calculated it would take seven years. But, as he asked, "But Abby, in seven years I will be 43 years old. What do you think?"
The columnist Dear Abby answered in one line. "Dear Unfulfilled, and how old will you be in seven years if you don't go to medical school?"
Her point was simple. He would reach 43 either way. The difference was what he would be doing by then, practicing medicine or still selling supplies and volunteering on his time off and wondering.
That is how the author uses the exchange now. He turns Abby's reply into a question he puts to his own readers: "that thing you want to do, how old will you be in 10 years if you don't do it?"
Questions people ask
How long does it really take to become a doctor?
The path is long. In the United States, becoming a doctor typically requires four years of college, four years of medical school, and three to seven years of residency training, or roughly 11 to 15 years in total. The letter doesn't explain how he got to seven years, which is shorter than that standard path.
Can you actually start medical school in your late 30s?
U.S. medical schools regularly admit students in their 30s, 40s, and sometimes older, and many value prior work and life experience. The bigger hurdles are usually the cost, the time for prerequisites and exams, and fitting training around family and work.
Who was Dear Abby?
Dear Abby was a widely read American newspaper advice column written under that pen name, first by Pauline Phillips and later by her daughter Jeanne Phillips. Readers sent in personal dilemmas, and Abby answered with short, blunt, often moral advice.