thanks all for replies so far. lot of good insight.
what i was getting most at, though, was — and this is where i might (and in fact hope to) be wrong — that the day-to-day work of being a doctor involves a lot of "sensing" information, ie. physical symptoms, reading of charts and whatnot, and listening to stetoscopes and counting heartbeats (as was mentioned). im actually afraid to get bored! i mean, if it's like that all day—from one stetoscope to the next—i might feel frustrated for not having room to get into ... i dont know what, the spiritual side (?) or emotional side of it? dont get me wrong (i know it's hard—highly confused individual speaking), but i dont want to become a psychologist or anything like that. i'm interested in studying medicine because of the "human" side of it, the "healing" (as someone put it) or the caring about others. // incurably idealistic, i was long thinking to write—ie. write screenplays, meddle in art in general—but i have (nearly) come to the conclusion that there will be the direct element of caring/helping others missing. (does anyone else identify with this? on a sidenote, that is.) // so all that sounds well and good, the only thing that's "wrong" with the picture, is the appearantly inordinate amount of "sensing" work...
would love to get some (more) feedback from a physician (and others!). the more i talk about it, the more i'm suspecting that i might be mistaken and that, being who i am (in this case, INFJ), i'll simply have my own approach to practicing medicine. but i still have to listen to stetocopes!!
see my paradoxical confusion?! any input—on point or besides it—is highly appreciated.
to whatusername: i'm thinking about pediatrics myself. just love children and want to work worldwide. in my thinking, trauma medicine will be rather hardcore "sensing," do you agree? all direct, immediate sensory information, and little of — whatever it is that intuition has to do with medicine (comfort, emotional understanding, longer vision of patients, etc.) what do you think? thanks for joining the general discussion and your insights! =)