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“Many people are deeply hurt by the gap between fantasy and reality.” This is another expression of the harm or non-benefit I was referring to you having said.

I agree public perception of a field lags behind reality, but it’s only a lag. Medicine has been a tough job for awhile. There are students who understand this well enough to handle the adjustment (since they don’t have first-hand experience yet.) It’s not a failure of “passion” if it’s crystalized into tangible goals, and better developed motivations and principles, as the student matures. It’s also not fair to equate surprise at some of the reality of a job with regret.

Finally, I know people who pursued medicine from childhood and are doing well in it. Granted, most of them had doctors for parents, but they were still quite excited.