Hey Sito.

What you are describing is normal. As for women finding it easier, I don't think so. Women often have to have a career that works around their husband's, or they have to leave their careers and re-train after having a family.

There are far, far more careers out there than what most of us are aware of.

What drew you to medicine? Was it your interest or were you pushed to enter the field? What parts of it did you like or dislike? You say you are working in IT now. Are there possibilities of working in medical database administration, where you would be able to speak both I.T. language and medical language?

I see you are in Canada. Is there a possibility of looking into work in medical imaging technology? What about companies that provide service to HR departments for major corporations around drug and alcohol testing? Those policies have to be backed by research so that if the person is dismissed from a job, the employer can say, "Yeah. We fired him. His actions were unsafe because his decision making was impaired by taking drug xyz during work hours, and we have the research documented to back that up."

What about clinical research? Is there something to build off from your undergrad (biology, chem, physics)??

If you made it to the end of med school, you are crazy smart.... Smarter than most. There are different measures of intelligence but that level of education means you can read, write, analyze, plan, see things visual-spatial, and do more math than 95% of the population, AND you can turn all of that into action... Not just a deep thinker. And, it means you can f**cking work!! Med school and engineers f**king work! Do you know how many young people today don't know how to work???

You need to breathe... I think you are tearing yourself up for not finishing med school. You know what? Everyone reaches a limit. Yours could have been because you didn't like it and pushed through for years, or you had a bad loss at work, or life forces outside you affected you, or the crazy shift rotations wore you down, or you sacrificed a relationship to keep going in school.

All that means you're human! We can ALL be broken, and most of us are at some point.

Successful people take credit for their wins, and blame their losses on things outside their control. That behavior ensures their "self" is protected. You can adopt some of that attitude to shrug of med school, perhaps.

Sito, you live in a good country. You have a job that pays OK for now. You have a ton of additional education that maybe you can build off for something else. You're OK, and you can be even better. You're smart and hardworking. You can end up doing pretty near anything you want, and in the meantime, you still have a job that is paying the bills.

You have a long working life ahead of you... You have time to figure out what works for you in your career.

You're going to be great.