What I would have done instead is a bit of a loaded question, it's a long story in my case and unimportant. But I wouldn't go near medicine, even though I always wanted to be a doctor even as a little kid. The reality is so far from what I imagined, and moreso as a PA. I am no doubt different than most and my personality, which is both creative and goal oriented, is not suited at all to medicine even though I wanted it and I am good at it. There is no goal, there is no product for all that work except more work. "Helping people" matters for, like, maybe the first 10,000 patients and rapidly dissipates after that.
That said, medicine in general isn't totally terrible in itself if you're in the right spots and avoid things you don't like. I wasn't fortunate enough to land in my preferred field by the time $2k in loan payments each month came due (before consolidating). And now I just loathe medicine so much I have no interest in changing, only leaving. The problems that I do see with it are deep, the politics are just getting so terrible and will only get worse. The money has long since dried up in primary care, it's hitting ER and hospitalists and will hit the specialties too someday. It's hard to explain until you're here, but this is unlike no other business in America, it's already socialized yet still capitalistic. The paperwork is frigging endless. It's not illegal to shut off someone's power and let them freeze but we can't abandon patients if they can't pay. Harsh example, but it's true. It's so strange.
As a PA specifically, I just truly believe that to become a PA is too long and expensive, and when you do get there, the amount of energy it takes to actually be good (there are a lot of bad midlevels, and docs but less so), winds up being so close to just being a doc after a decade that it's just a total waste of time to me. We have to take pretty much all the ongoing courses and recerts and so on, a couple more years early on would easily, EASILY be worth an extra $100,000/year. It's hard to see that until the point I'm at I think, deep into the career. Most of my colleagues feel the same though they're not as vocal or vehement about it. If I had to do medicine, I would be a doc.
To me, I'm just too limited by the PA-C. People always say they don't want to run the business, etc, but for me that's just stupid and shortsighted. If theres money to be made in medicine, I can't do any them because I need an MD to be part owner and sign off, and at this point in my career it's like ramming your head on a concrete ceiling. You'll hear stories about PA's getting cools docs to start a business, but its super rare. I do brazilian jiu jitsu and I liken it to actually choosing to only ever be a brown belt, never a black, never the instructor, never the owner. It makes no sense, at some point the energy input is pretty much exactly the same.