The day I became a surgeon, I quit
emmabruns.substack.comBecoming a doctor is a privilege, staying one is becoming increasingly more frustrating.
To see a human for a fraction of their lifetime, deliver a precise outcome, and then wrestle with paperwork, billing, and software.
The post is just about doctors, but I hear similar arguments about professors (in the US, at least). These two fields attract the greatest minds and most dedicated souls to do actually important work for society (compared to those great minds going to Silicon Valley or Wall Street), and we pile all kinds of extra busy-work on to their plates that could be done by any replacable wage employee.
It enrages me to think that a single second of Terry Tao's ~80 years on our planet is wasted to bureaucratic nonsense rather than teaching and researching.