Reyna Nguyen is planning to return to medicine and train as a dermatologist, swapping a chaotic 10- to 14-hour-a-day online workload for a more stable career
Adult content creator Reyna Nguyen has revealed that she plans to return to medicine and pursue a career as a dermatologist, despite potentially taking a significant pay cut.
Reyna has always wanted to become a doctor. At university, she studied bioengineering with a pre-med concentration and previously prepared to sit the MCAT.
But after deciding to pursue adult content, Reyna put her medical ambitions on hold, believing she had found a faster route to financial independence. Now, after several years building a successful online career, she says she is ready to return to the career she originally wanted, even if it means giving up the flexibility and potentially the income she has today.
“I think being an [adult content] creator is harder than being a doctor,” Reyna said. “It’s a different type of work, but I think they’re both really hard.”
Reyna (@rocketreyna) says she currently works between 10 and 14 hours a day, juggling content creation, social media, business administration, management and the day-to-day demands of running her online career. Her workload can include producing dozens of TikTok videos, communicating with assistants and management teams, planning content, organising shoots and spending hours creating paid content.
“Every day is so different,” she said. “Last week, I had to fly my assistant over because we just had so much to do.”
She added: “I would wake up, get ready and then I have to make 20 TikTok videos, and they all have to be new. Then it’s admin work, checking emails, talking to assistants and management.
“Then planning the content day and actually setting up for each piece of content.” For Reyna, the biggest difference between her current career and medicine isn’t necessarily the workload, it is the lack of stability.
“I don’t think [being a doctor] is going to be more relaxing, but I think it’ll be more stable, which is something I don’t really have right now,” she said. Reyna says the unpredictability of entrepreneurship has made long-term financial planning particularly difficult.
“We have months where we do really well and months where we don’t do really well,” she explains. “One of the most frustrating things for me is financial planning because I don’t know how much longer I can do this job for.”
“You’re stuck in this phase of being in panic constantly because you’re like, ‘Okay, I don’t know when this money is going to run out. How can I make sure I have enough to live a stable life?’”
That uncertainty has made the prospect of medicine increasingly appealing. She specifically wants to pursue dermatology, combining her interest in skin with the science and technology that originally attracted her to engineering.
“I’ve always wanted to be a doctor because I really like helping people,” she said. “I wanted to specifically go into dermatology because I love skin and I love how it incorporates science and technology, which is what I was studying in college anyway.”
She has also previously shadowed doctors and said the experience confirmed that medicine was something she genuinely enjoyed. “I shadowed doctors and I loved it,” she said.
“It was great.” While returning to medicine would mean years of further study, residency and potentially a dramatic change in lifestyle, Reyna says the intensity does not scare her.
“I’m already working so much nowadays that the residency and fellowships won’t be an issue for me,” she said. “I’m already working 12 to 14 hour days.”
Reyna also believes the more structured nature of medicine could ultimately suit her better than the unpredictable world of online entrepreneurship. “My life now is so chaotic.
“Every day is a new day. Something else is going on,” she said.
“As a doctor, you take the knowledge you already have and apply it every single day. It’s more routine.”
Financially, Reyna acknowledges that the decision could be difficult. She says she currently earns around $1 million USD (£747,800) a year, meaning medicine would likely be a significant reduction in income depending on where she ultimately practices.
However, she points out that some medical specialties in the US can eventually generate comparable incomes. “If I practice in Australia, I’d definitely take a pay cut, but if I practice in America, it could probably be about the same, honestly.”
For Reyna, though, money isn’t the main motivation for returning to medicine. She says one of the things she looks forward to most is being able to be open with her family about what she does for a living and feeling that her work has a more direct impact on other people’s lives.
“I look forward to being able to be entirely open about what I do with my family,” she said. She also wants to feel that she is contributing in a more meaningful way.
“It would be nice to contribute more meaningfully and change people’s lives,” she said. “Do some good in the world.”
Reyna admits she has thought about whether her past as an adult content creator could affect her future career in medicine, particularly if patients or colleagues discovered her online history. But after speaking with doctors involved in interviewing medical applicants, she says she has been reassured that her previous career does not necessarily need to define her professional future.
“I talked to some of my doctor friends who have hosted interviews for applicants, and I was talking about what angle I should use,” she said. “They just said, ‘Ignore it.
“Talk about the startups, talk about how you own the business.’” Ultimately, Reyna says her long-term ambition may be to combine medicine with entrepreneurship rather than simply becoming a traditional doctor.
“If I own my own practice, my plan wouldn’t be to work there every single day,” she said. “It would be to open up a business and then come in two or three times a week to help and manage.”
After years of building an unconventional career, Reyna says the prospect of starting over in medicine isn’t about escaping hard work, it is about building a life that feels more stable, purposeful and sustainable. “I don’t think it’s going to be more relaxing,” she said.
“But I think it’ll be more stable.”
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