How many hoops must I jump through?

You know, it occurs to me as I sit here and read a history chapter in preparation to write a paper that I really don't give a shit about that...well, how many hoops must I jump through? I see so many flaws in the path that a pre-med must go through in order to get into medical school that it becomes hard for me to take a step forward at time because I don't want to step in one of the many piles of shit.

Ok, let's review the process. You have to have a bachelor's degree, or in some cases, 90+ units. Ok, that's not too unreasonable. You have to shadow a physician. Quite the challenge to find a doctor who is both 1) not an asshole and 2) willing to let you shadow him/her, but it's possible. I have no yet found a doctor to shadow but perhaps before I apply to medical school I will. You have to volunteer and have clinical experience. Well, I fail to see where volunteering shows what kind of person you are since I see doctors who are assholes everytime I /do/ volunteer at the hospital, but hey what's four hours of my life per week? Nevermind the fact that I have to deal with atleast several patients everytime I volunteer who range from irritating to imbecillic. Now then, that is simply what you have to do to be able to /apply/ to medical school. I am unaware of what comes afterwards but I'm starting to get a clearer picture, unfortunately.

When you want to do a professional school that costs $160,000 total if not more, you want to know that the money was well-spent. After reading countless blogs, newspaper articles, first-hand accounts, etc. of residents and doctors who claim that their costs keep rising and their financial reimbursement continues to plummet, and the fact I won't even be applying to medical school for five years so the problem will be considerably worse by then, I wonder sometimes as to the feasibility of this. Medicine is a high-speed profession...let's face it, it's one of the fastest-growing fields and one of the most stable. However, I am simply interested in becoming an elite professional. Helping people is a nice perk of the job, but if those people aren't going to even pay you for your time, are they really that grateful?