The hardest pill to swallow if you want to do fellowship

There is one big thing you will lose if you choose to do fellowship. And that is attending salary. I just finished four years of OBGYN residency and doing an additional three years of an infertility fellowship. Meanwhile, my friends are going straight into attending. And it's really not just about the money. It's like everything that comes with it. For example, my parents are getting near retirement. And if you're a South Asian first generation immigrant, you will resonate with this. I am the retirement plan. Like they want to retire so bad, but they can't because I'm going into fellowship. That burden falls on me. And it's not just that. You spend decades of your life, right, like in medical training. Meanwhile, your other friends who are not in medicine are getting married, buying houses, starting families, doing all of these other things that like, you know, you've been putting off for so long because of your education. And if you choose to do fellowship, you put it off for even longer. So while your friends are going to finally be paying off their student loans and moving on with their lives, you will still be in training. And that's the pill that you have to swallow if you want to do fellowship. I chose fellowship for a number of different reasons, but one of the big reasons is I never wanted to live my life with a what if. And I knew that if I became an attending first, then lived that life already, it would be tremendously difficult for me to go back into fellowship and go back into studying and go back into being a trainee. Like it's a whole different mindset change. So yeah, um, I decided one day, I'm gonna do this. And I never wanted to have any regrets. And I still don't to this day. But fellowship obviously hasn't started. It starts August 1st. So we'll see.