Life lessons Did you work in the service industry before becoming a physician? Working in nonmedical service industry jobs before medical school helps prepare us for the realities of practicing medicine, writes Daniel J. Waters, DO, MA. March 2, 2026MondayMarch 2026 issue Daniel J. Waters, DO, MA Dr. Waters retired in 2019 after three decades as a cardiothoracic surgeon and medical educator. He graduated from Rowan-VirtuaSOM and earned his advanced writing degree from Lenoir-Rhyne University. He is the author of eight novels and numerous published scientific papers, stories, essays, poems and opinion pieces spanning more than 40 years. Connect with him on LinkedIn. Contact Dr. Waters Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Topics DO & student voicesjobs Here’s a fun fact: A parent can hire a “medical school application advisor” for their child as early as eighth grade. It’s true—both inclusive packages and hourly rates are available. Let’s think about that. Before an adolescent sets foot in high school, an adult will carefully plot out exactly which subjects they need to take and in which order they need to take them to maximize their medical school acceptance chances. Not to mention which PSAT and SAT prep courses they’ll need. Advanced Placement (AP) courses appear to be de rigueur—the more the merrier. Why waste time in college on non-required courses like English, history, philosophy or any of those pesky humanities? They can also get advice on which summertime activities they must start lining up and which extracurricular activities they will definitely need to participate in. Also, it appears it’s never too early to start logging the “clinical hours” that are supposedly near and dear to every med school admissions committee member’s heart. You know, I get it. I really do. We live in a world that boasts elite travel leagues for every youth sport and a ranking service for the country’s best 9U (9-years-old-and-under) baseball players. There are private academies and personal coaches for the motivated parents of preternaturally athletic children. Why should the aspirations and preparations for a career in medicine be any different? How long will it be, do you think, before some wily entrepreneur starts ranking the top 9U med school candidates? Breaking the traditional physician mold I was a hospital director of medical education (DME) for a long time. I worked with trainees from newbie clerks to advanced specialty fellows. I watched one of my children successfully navigate the admissions process. I evaluated candidates for residency slots. And I want to be clear about something: I think we’re getting it wrong. At least part of it. Related We’re laser-focused on accepting the best resumes. But these resumes don’t necessarily correspond with the best future physicians. And we seem to be forcing younger and younger aspirants into a tightly constrained and ultimately unhealthy mold that runs counter to what a practicing doctor’s life is all about. One of my routines as DME was meeting with every new class of third-year med students when they arrived for their very first hospital rotations. I’d inquire a little about their backgrounds—finding out what their hometowns, undergrad colleges, majors and outside interests were. I always asked two seemingly throwaway questions: Had they ever participated in a team sport or activity in high school or college (including band, choir, drama, dance, debate, etc.) What was the worst/hardest job they ever worked? Here is what 20 years of close but admittedly anecdotal observation taught me: Students who had been part of a team and those who had worked non-medical service industry jobs typically had a noticeably easier time adjusting to the stark realities of patient care, the training hierarchy and the general vagaries of the human condition. Intrigued, I began informally asking the same two questions of residents, fellows and colleagues. Those who appeared to be the most well-adjusted tended strongly to also have experience being on a team and working a service job. The more problematic and outright worrisome ones almost always hadn’t done either of these things. Highly unscientific? Absolutely. Ridiculously consistent, in my experience? You bet. I’ll admit there might be some confirmational bias. Before I started med school, I never had a job or outside activity that had the slightest connection to medicine. My summers and vacations in high school and college were taken up with mostly minimum-wage positions that included restaurant dishwasher, busboy, waiter, asphalt paving tamper/shoveler, dump truck driver, garbage man, stock boy and government file clerk. None of these jobs made me academically superior or burnished my resume. None of them had any direct bearing on my acceptance to medical school. But I believe every single one, eventually and often obliquely, contributed to making me a better practitioner. There’s something to gain no matter how small the job Being the smartest person on the back of a trash truck doesn’t count for much. But the jobs, the other summer helpers and the “lifers” I worked with all had something to teach me. Hard-case bosses and coworkers who had no time for a spoiled suburban kid leavened my sense of self-importance. So did the local citizenry, who saw a dirty, sweat-stained laborer, not someone who might someday be their doctor. I picked up dozens of small but useful tips and skills from mechanics, carpenters, waitresses and short-order chefs. A blue-collar education is still an education. Fixing a leaking drainage pipe, I came to appreciate, has a lot in common with fixing a leaking aorta. Medicine is the ultimate service profession. So where are checkboxes for “Worked in a service job” or “Worked with the general public?” And more than ever, it’s a team sport. Perhaps we should be encouraging applicants to experience humanity—raw, unfiltered and unvarnished—and give out points for that. Finding that our fellow hominids are messy and difficult (not to mention sometimes snarky and non-compliant) shouldn’t come as a late shock. In 1933, a Polish philosopher named Alfred Korzybski published a book called “Science and Sanity.” It was a treatise on general semantics and has remained continuously in print to this day. One of its most-quoted lines is “The map is not the terrain.” I would adjust that to “The application is not the individual.” If you sit on an admissions committee, I’d ask you to look beyond the “map”—the sterility of mean MCAT scores, the carefully curated CVs and the masterfully manipulated GPAs. Ask your applicants if they’ve ever stood behind a serving line or a retail counter, worn a hairnet or a hard hat or engaged a non-science major in a non-scientific debate. Ask them what lessons being on a team taught them. If we select our future physicians from the experiential equivalent of a petting zoo, what do we really expect to happen when they’re released into the wild of training and practice? Medical students arrive to learn the science. They have to possess the inherent intellectual abilities required to do that. But unless they plan to spend their lives in a lab, I’d argue that something more than a passing familiarity with the “real world” and the people who inhabit it may be the key to providing some much-needed sanity. Coach Curt Cignetti took the Indiana football team to a decisive national championship without a single “Five Star” recruit. His mantra was “Performance over potential.” He valued actual playing experience over metrics like wingspan and vertical leap. I think there’s a lesson in that. The map is not the terrain. Editor’s note: The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of The DO or the AOA. 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Motorsports medicine: An emerging subspecialty ripe for growth Motorsports medicine is a growing subspecialty addressing the extreme physical and cognitive demands faced by racecar drivers, with osteopathic physicians uniquely positioned to enhance safety, recovery and performance through OMM.
Beyond the Hill: Making the most of DO Day in Washington, D.C. Connect with lawmakers and explore D.C.’s landmarks, museums and local gems during DO Day.
On my medical school application, I had fourteen jobs listed. Those were only the pretty ones that I felt were directly applicable to my application. While mostly out of necessity as a first-generation college student, I now tell people all the time that medicine is the ultimate service industry based off of my experiences. All fourteen that I listed, and all of the ones I didn’t, have impacted for the better how I learn and interact with my patients and peers to this day. Thank you for writing this thoughtful and well-articulated piece. Mar. 5, 2026, at 9:59 am Reply
I really enjoyed your article and feel it is spot on. Being in Family Practice your bedside manner is graded on a daily basis. I too feel as being a clerk in a Men’s Suite shop plus being an orderly at a local hospital build character and teaches you to get along with people. In a way, as a physician, you are selling yourself to your patients with every visit. Mar. 8, 2026, at 9:28 am Reply
Dr. Waters – thank you for this thoughtful, relatable article. Among my non-medicine related jobs, the one that stood out most was as a gas station attendant. I actually mentioned it in my med school personal statement and how it improved my communication skills. I’d like to think it helped me get in :) Mar. 16, 2026, at 1:40 pm Reply
There’s a thread that runs through every job, not matter how menial or sophisticated that serves the public. If you’ve never worked one, you don’t see it. Mar. 17, 2026, at 6:39 pm Reply
Waitressing starting with being a carhop taught me so many skills – how to organize my tasks, how to interact with the public good and bad, how to anticipate the customer needs and how to work hard and keep up with the rush of mealtimes. I have so much respect for the wait staff after my experiences and always tip well knowing a little bit of the rigors of the job. Mar. 19, 2026, at 7:21 am Reply
Right! Everything I learned about bedside manner came from waiting tables. Each unhappy table is unhappy in its own way – apologies to Tolstoy. Mar. 25, 2026, at 9:23 am Reply
One day in my first year med school anatomy class our teacher commented that “they are now letting car salesmen into med school” That was me at the age of 32. After becoming a volunteer medic, and going back to undergrad to add my pre-med requirements to my Sociology degree, along with some high motivation after my father died young, I was accepted. From there I graduated in the top half of my class and subsequently became Chief Resident in Family Medicine. Now retired after 35 years in Emergency Medicine, I see, as you do in your great article, that many life experiences are just as important for candidates. And credit to my alma mater, PCOM. There were 20 students in my graduating class older than me with all kinds of real world experiences. Thank you, Dr Waters. Mar. 19, 2026, at 11:36 am Reply
Starting at age 16, I worked as a dishwasher, bus boy, lifeguard, guitar teacher, telephone pollster, inventory clerk, laborer, installer for telephone company all good prep for dealing with fellow humans. Mar. 23, 2026, at 8:09 pm Reply
Couldn’t agree more. So many medical school aspirants are raised in bubbles where they rarely interact with people who are not upper middle class or wealthier. At a minimum, working in a service job forces these kids to learn to interact with people who are different than they are. It’s tough to provide adequate medical care to people you are unable to relate to. Mar. 23, 2026, at 10:06 pm Reply
100% agree. Working retail at a busy coffeeshop or, even better, reception at a busy medical office will teach you far more about people, empathy, and navigating difficult situations than a simulated patient in some cheesy medical school class. Thank you for saying it! Mar. 24, 2026, at 7:09 am Reply
My humble roots have made me a better physician. I come from a family where my father was an auto mechanic who never graduated high school. I was the first in my family to go to college, let alone medical school. I worked a number of non-medical related jobs putting myself through college and medical school and find that I can relate to patients of any social status. I was also quite athletic and played sports constantly through middle school, high school and intramurals in college. I understand hierarchy and the necessity of every member of the team to be functioning optimally for success. I make sure I thank everyone involved in patient care in our clinic, from my fellow physicians, to the nurses and MA’s, to the housekeeper. All are important. Mar. 24, 2026, at 8:46 am Reply
In high school I worked as a dishwasher at a truck stop restaurant (10 hours per day 6 days per week) and sold shoes at a discount women’s shoe store. In college I worked part-time at the Social Work library. My first medical related job was as a retractor holder in the OR the summer before starting medical school. These jobs taught me the importance of budgeting, limiting expenses, and people skills. Mar. 25, 2026, at 11:11 am Reply