Youth ask themselves: “Do I Still Have a Future in Pursuing Medicine?” #TeenTuesday

Contributing article by Teens Against Mandates

As many of us know, navigating the college application process is an extremely stressful period in every high school student (and parents’) lives. Between all the deadlines, stressors, and exigencies, a new group of students face this exact stress every year. 

And college mandates certainly haven’t made this process easier. Young adults across the nation who have been considering a career in medicine and other majors have had to rethink their entire futures. If these young adults are anything like me, they’re finding themselves at a dead-end when it comes to their vocational desire to pursue medicine. As someone who has been interested in the medical field all my life, I now feel that that career path has been closed off due to the mandates. The prerequisite vaccinations for most medical schools include the COVID-19 vaccine, despite the concerns many students have surrounding its efficacy and safety. Even if I managed to get passed all the university mandates—which, alone, seems insurmountable—there are mandates for clinical sites that I would need to overcome, too. 

Due to the stress of uncertainty, many students are succumbing to this pressure. From making last-minute college major switches to reconstructing their entire college lists based on where they could realistically attend, the very process is forcing people to give up on life-long dreams. Personally, having discussed this very topic with a few close friends in the graduating class, all of whom are extremely motivated, driven, and bright, I know the decision of what to major in has been particularly challenging to navigate. 

My generation will become the future doctors. And COVID-19 hesitancy, in my eyes, is a sign of a good future medical student: a sign of someone who does not follow the herd when it comes to medicine and who engages with the scientific method. However, these very people who would make exceptional doctors are being excluded from pursuing the field.  

If all future doctors are forced to comply with an unconstitutional mandate in order to even study medicine, what message does this send them? If students are unable to even pursue medicine because they cannot overcome any mandates, how will they help restore the public’s trust in the medical system?  

As teens and young adults, we are starting to individuate and develop our own set of principles. Even though our value systems are becoming more sophisticated, however, most of us experience social pressure and a desire to fit in. No one wants to be stigmatized. No one wants to be an outcast. At the same time, most mature people, even teenagers, do not consider the vaccine a trivial intervention anymore. In fact, many of my own friends who have gotten vaccinated express their regret, after still experiencing the vaccine’s “side effects.” 

This fight has truly been, fundamentally speaking, a test of our own moral courage and allegiance to certain principles. As Dr. Kheriaty and Laura Sextro articulated in our previous podcast together, “Moral courage is not doing what is most dangerous. It is doing the right thing even when it’s not popular.” 

This is only just the beginning of the government continuing to encroach on our rights and violate our bodily autonomy. Just because we manage to navigate these mandates, it does not mean that the state will not try to legislate more medical interventions in the future.