I think the suggestion of CNA/EMT/hospice isn’t that it tells you what it’s like to be a physician (it does not). But to dispel the notion that every baby is adorable and cooing; every dying person is 95 years old surrounded by loved ones saying “grandma, it’s ok to let go”; every homeless person is just waiting for someone to prescribe the right dosage of insulin so they can transform into the clean and well kept and vivacious professional they used to be.
Bit of necromancy here, but iI’m the spouse of a long-practicing physician (internal medicine.)
One thing that’s often missing in these discussions is just how broad “medicine” is. There’s a wide gulf between being a radiologist and being a pediatrician. It’s arguably even wider once you talk surgical specialties.
Shadowing a hospitalist might tell you that you hate the idea of rounding in the ICU, but it sure ain’t going to tell you if you’d like derm.
I suspect after a decade married to a physician that this is part of burnout in medicine too. Lots of folks had no idea what they were really getting into with med school, let alone a specialty and/or sub-specialty.
The best advice I can offer from my position of close observation is watch a lot of Dr Glaumcomflecken on YouTube and ask yourself if you want to be any of them. Sure, they’re all parodies, but he’s pretty dang observant with the life of the specialties he pokes fun at.