If you were unaware to the growing unhappiness of lawyers and doctors before, you can now rest assured you have been informed. There is a growing discontent in prestigious professions that aspiring students used to claw their way into.

Looking at figures released by the Law School Admission Council, you can see a pretty apparent trend with applications declining by about 11.8 percent. The Admission Council states that applications were 100,600 in 2004. Just in 2006 the application figures rang in around 88,700. In a world where Law School is still said to be a smart move with a promising career, why would less students be interested?

Potential law students may be listening closely to practicing lawyers and their feelings about the current state of their profession. A recent survey done by the American Bar Association found that only 40 percent of practicing lawyers would recommend a legal career to others. Even though 80 percent of participants in the survey felt proud to be attorneys, they also seemed to be unsatisfied with their careers. A mere 55 percent of participants in the survey were satisfied with their career as a lawyer. If you would like to delve more into the details of this study you can find a more in depth view at the ABA Journal here.

Taking a look at the medical profession, the picture is a little brighter on the medical school admissions trend. Applicants to medical school have dipped to 42,000 from 46,000 in 1997. This comes in at about 8.6 percent of a decline of admissions. What is certainly more troubling for the medical profession is the desire many doctors have to leave their profession.

A glaring survey was released by the American College of Physician Executives that said 60 percent of doctors have considered leaving medicine because they are unhappy with the health care system. The list went on to include morale, burnout and depression. The actual percentages of doctors claiming these problems in their lives and careers were 67 percent emotional burnout, 77 percent were fatigued and 33 percent faced depression.

While doctors are vocally admitting they are unhappy now, hurdles in their profession are only getting more complicated in an ever changing landscape of government red tape. With laws and regulations constantly evolving and being created, doctors almost find it a part-time job to deal with all of the new changes. Besides trying to keep on top of all the regulations, there is a barrage of medical information swirling into people’s living rooms every day. Breakthroughs can be found every day and it is not a realistic option that doctors can always be on top of every bit of emerging information and research.

Another missing piece of the pie that was once there for doctors, says The American College of Physician Executives survey is respect. A recent article in Time magazine you can read here, touches on the issue when sometimes, there is such a thing as too much information. Respect can go out the door when a patient approaches you with stacks of information and a detailed account of who you are down to your university affiliation. One doctor said, “she had researched my education, read a paper I had written, determined my university affiliation and knew where I lived.”

They always say the grass is greener on the other side and lawyers and doctors are looking at the grass and seeing a new way of business being developed. Cocktail parties and social events are sprinkled with a new way of life. This new mindset has been coined as the “creative class.”

The man who has written extensively about this new way of career and life is Richard Florida. You can find a group website he has created for people to learn more about the creative class here. Dr. Florida is a professor and head of the Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Dr. Florida released a book called “The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life.” Dr. Florida says that doctors and lawyers feel “they’ve lost their allure, their status.” The money is still okay but their careers are not the fashionable career that was once so highly reveled.

The creative class is essentially a group of people that are viewed as an integral part of growing and developing economic progression in post-industrial cities in the United States. A consolidated view of the class has a display of careers that fall into categories like professors, scientists, engineers, web professionals and artists. Although doctors and lawyers have in some instances been included in this creative class, a subset of this class still has a flashy appeal.

The Facebook and YouTube generation is a developing subset of the creative class that gleams of success, free thinking and entrepreneurialism that puts the sky as the limit. A top 20 list you can read here of Internet millionaires under 30 years old is a good example of the new subset of the creative class. With a great idea and some hard work these young entrepreneurs have created as much as $700 million in as little as 17 years of life.

The appeal is not only jackpots but an allure of fame and worldwide accomplishment. With the development of these careers and ideas, people all over the world find themselves using things like Wordpress, YouTube, Digg and PopCap Games. This subset of the creative class truly builds on the starving artist model, where one day you can break out and have the creation live on it’s own.

While lawyers find themselves rarely satisfied with their jobs and doctors dream of jumping ship, it’s easy to wonder whether they could have had a different life without the hierarchy of progression in their careers. A web professional future could be anyone’s and the creative class is opening this way of free thinking into many careers. The cities that will grow and prosper are more often than not, built on the foundation of the spreading creative class.

Are you seeing the effect of the creative class in your city or your career? If you’re a doctor or lawyer and you’re feeling the crunch, we want to know about it. If you have a gripe or extra information and research on this subject we’d like to hear from you at our submission form. If you want to speak your mind or you are involved in the medical profession, law profession or you’re a rising Internet star or you just want to speak your mind we want to hear from you. Tell us your story and thoughts at our submission form. If nothing else, tell us what you think in a quick comment below.