College students don’t want to be lawyers — but do want to be doctors

If doctors enjoy their day jobs, you certainly wouldn’t know it from talking to them. A survey of 24,000 doctors published last week found just 54 percent would pursue the same career path if they got a second chance. They griped about growing piles of paperwork, cuts in reimbursements and all the changes introduced by Obamacare.

That’s what practicing physicians said, at least. When you look at a slightly younger generation of aspiring physicians, you get a pretty different picture: Lots of college kids still do, in fact, want to be doctors.

The Association of American Medical Colleges is out with new data projecting that first-year medical school enrollment will steadily increase in coming years, increasing by 29 percent over the course of 15 years:

Part of that has to do with supply: Twelve new medical schools have opened since 2002, increasing capacity for training. But there also looks to be growing demand, as competition for residency slots by medical students has become increasingly fierce in recent years.

It’s worth noting this is in contrast to other professional graduate schools, such as law school, which actually saw declining applications (and in some states, double-digit declines in enrollment) in recent years.