Medicine worth $300k of debt?

Absolutely Not!!!.....as I've said before, if offered a free ride I still wouldn't go back and do medicine over again. Give me a bible and let me put my hand on it and I will swear this is so. It is not just the massive debt, it is the lost time that you can never get back that kills me more.

This is a very interesting and increasingly relevant discussion topic.

At some point, the cost of medical school is not going to make economic sense. That magic number varies for each individual. Some factors that are in play include... married or single... does your spouse have a job... kids or no kids... what is your net worth before starting med school... do you have an inheritance to look forward to... what field of medicine do you plan on entering... what other debts do you have (credit card, mortgage, etc)...

My magic number was $200,000, which is exactly how much med school debt I accumulated. Anything over that I would have pursued a different career.

I think once average med school debt in this country eclipses $300,000 that it won't make financial sense for most people to pursue a career in medicine.

Unfortunately, I think that day is arriving sooner rather than later.

I agree w/above comment. The answer is "it depends".
You say that you can't imagine yourself doing anything else, so that might make it worth it for you, as long as you have some understanding of what you are getting in to. I would say that "what you are getting in to" in your case is a situation in which you are either going to have to work in an underserved area to get loan repayment, join the military to get loan repayment, or be in debt for many years after residency (such as most of your working life). I'm not sure we have enough info to help you. You don't say how old you are, whether you are married (with or without a working spouse), whether you have any savings at all, whether you have any prospects of being able to go to a cheaper (i.e. state sponsored) med school and/or get some help from your parents or other family members with med school costs. You also don't saw whether you have any kids yet.

You also don't say what lifestyle you are willing to accept. For example, I'm a 30-something fellow trainee still living in rental housing and driving a 10 year old car, and buying most of my clothes at Target or Marshalls, even though I graduated from med school 5 years ago. Is that something you'd be OK with? I think with the level of debt you're going to have, what you have to realize is that you'll be living a middle-middle class, not rich person or upper middle class, lifestyle likely for quite a long time after you finish school. Then again, if you end up doing private practice dermatology, radiology or plastic surgery, you could still potentially pay off your debt within a few years. Let's say someone has 300k debt which balloons up to 450k with interest...if you're making 500k/year as an interventional cardiologist or plastic surgeon, you can pay that off pretty easily. If you're making 90k as a pediatrician, not so much.

The personal life ? is a totally separate question.
I think "destroy your personal life" is probably an overstatement, but it will definitely change your personal life in big ways, and not all of them positive most likely, especially when you are a trainee.

DrRobert said:

This is a very interesting and increasingly relevant discussion topic.

At some point, the cost of medical school is not going to make economic sense. That magic number varies for each individual. Some factors that are in play include... married or single... does your spouse have a job... kids or no kids... what is your net worth before starting med school... do you have an inheritance to look forward to... what field of medicine do you plan on entering... what other debts do you have (credit card, mortgage, etc)...

My magic number was $200,000, which is exactly how much med school debt I accumulated. Anything over that I would have pursued a different career.

I think once average med school debt in this country eclipses $300,000 that it won't make financial sense for most people to pursue a career in medicine.

Unfortunately, I think that day is arriving sooner rather than later.

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This is why most ppl are going to NP/PA school. I personally know a girl that failed out of a Carib med-school 2nd semester and she busted over to PA school and is acing the classes (per her updates on FB, I see every now and then). Also bumped into another girl, who told me she'd rather be a PA and move to Oregon where she can write her own scripts instead of go through "ALL THAT TIME" in medical school...What does this say about our health care system in this country? Less education, comparable pay to PCP's...infuriating, saddening...

just go to public schools for hs, college, and med school, that should help reduce your debt.

jdwmont said:

Hopefully a state school will become an option. I am actually 27, which makes these questions a bit more pressing. I made a career change and did a post-bacc that ate up my savings. No wife or kids, nor any chance of any appreciable inherintance. I am not naive enough to tell myself, "oh well, I guess I'll just do plastic surgery."

DrRobert, I like your magic number theory. 300 is mine, and I honestly hadn't factored in interest. And I am not willing to be "middle-middle class" until I am fourty.

However, I still can't picture myself doing anything but medicine. PA is out, because I want to be at the top in whatever field I dedicate my life to. Love research, but that is an even more doleful path than medicine.

Anyway, I really appreciate all of your comments. Extremely helpful. I wish more people would have this conversation before entering into medical school. I really feel that most premeds walk around wearing a kool-aid smile.

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I think there's a 10-20 year lag before the general population becomes aware of the intricate problems newly facing a profession. People are still applying to law school droves, although law is way past its prime (declining in the 1990s or even before) and most law schools are just money-snatching diploma mills. You will not be making the six figure salary coming out that you expected!

As for medicine, the situation is getting worse, but is still on the cusp, unlike law. Nearly all MDs are getting into residencies (not necessarily ones they like). Nearly all are making at least 100k, so they should be able to pay off their loans, if they live frugally, in a decade or less. Doctors' salaries are a major target of health care reformers. If it reaches a point where most physicians are not *able* to pay off their loans (assuming they live frugally), by 5-10 years after they complete residency, it will no longer be an attractive field.

Is medicine worth $300K?

HELL NO. This is just a job. Some days, it's a crappy job.

You say you can't "imagine" another career? Time to become more imaginative. Seriously.

jdwmont said:

With medical school tuition/fees/living expenses along with undergrad debt I will likely be around $300k in debt. So, as a rational person I am begining to question the feasibility of medicine. Especially with the hits medicine is likely to take with healthcare "reform."

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My Feelings On Medicine as a Career are:

1. The debt is bad, especially if you don't like living knowing that you have huge amounts of debt and that you must work to pay off the debt, not out of a love of caring for patients. If there were lower physicians salaries, but no debt, I think that doctors would be happier as you could focus on patient care without massive debt hanging over your head.

Who knows what will happen with healthcare reform, a public option would be great for a lot of patients, but it will also likely mean smaller fees for doctors. There will likely be a period in which high tuition coupled with lower reimbursements will mean that only those who are really dedicated to staying in medicine will survive.

2. Medicine tolerates a lot of abuse of subordinates, even if you are an attending with ten plus years experience the department head can make you life a living hell if he/she doesn't like you. A lot of politics and not a lot of human decency when it comes to treating people nicely. If you could stomach being in the military for decades, then you would probably be able to stomach medicine. But don't go into medicine if you want to have nice colleagues and a good working environment. There are a lot of hysteric people in medicine who running around losing their head and enjoy making other people lives miserable. Medical students should be taught that you will have to give up a lot of self respect as well as dignity and that you could become cold and callous if you continue in medicine. Some residency programs have great team spirit, but at other places you have to be careful as someone is always wanting to stab a knife in your back. Its ridiculous, residents who want to make students look bad, students who hate other students, attendings who harass students. Just read this General Residency discussion and you will see how many people get trapped into destructive and mean working relationships with attendings who are upset they choose medicine . . .

3. Less choice of residency for future American Grads, this is because med schools are ramping up their enrollments to squeeze out IMGs/FMGs so that ALL, or the majority of IM, Peds, and Family Practice Residencies are filled with American grads. It is just a matter of time, less than a decade, before this happens.

4. You really need to love patient care and love being in the hospital/clinic, at least for 85% of the residencies out there. Realize that the personal sacrifice can be huge, and that in coming decades you may need to work the same, or more, hours to pay off high debt, especially if health care reform axes doctor's salaries. This might mean 60+ hour work weeks for most doctors with one day off, maybe every week or every other week.

5. You really need to be dedicated with staying up to date with current literature. A lot of doctors are getting reported to medical boards for poor decision making, and if you aren't up to date then you could lose your medical career after practicing for only a couple years. This means really loving the science of medicine.

6. The nature of medicine has changed. When I applied for medical school people wanted to give back to the community and have a intellectually demanding job which made a difference in people's lives.

This may still be the case for some students, but a lot of medical students are focused (perhaps justly??) on future salaries, starting families, and figuring out how to make medicine number two in their lives and regain back some of the personal life that physicians in decades prior have lost. Just look at how plastic surgery and dermatology have become the most coveted medical professions for some, or a lot, of students.

If you want to be a old fashion country doc and care for underserved people in a rural setting, then you won't find a lot of similar company in medical school. Medicine has become a business for a lot of attendings/residents/students and it has become less about caring for people.

DarthNeurology said:

My Feelings On Medicine as a Career are:

1. The debt is bad, especially if you don't like living knowing that you have huge amounts of debt and that you must work to pay off the debt, not out of a love of caring for patients. If there were lower physicians salaries, but no debt, I think that doctors would be happier as you could focus on patient care without massive debt hanging over your head.

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1. Financially you pass a point in medical school after which the only escape is to finish and work as a doctor, hit the powerball, or drop dead. If you love medicine enough to be comfortable with that knowing that this point occurs fairly soon, go for it.

Who knows what will happen with healthcare reform, a public option would be great for a lot of patients, but it will also likely mean smaller fees for doctors.

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2. There are only two groups that will be helped by health care reform as it is currently structured: lawyers, and government bureaucrats.

There will likely be a period in which high tuition coupled with lower reimbursements will mean that only those who are really dedicated to staying in medicine will survive.

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See #1, above.

Medicine tolerates a lot of abuse of subordinates, even if you are an attending with ten plus years experience the department head can make you life a living hell if he/she doesn't like you. A lot of politics and not a lot of human decency when it comes to treating people nicely. If you could stomach being in the military for decades, then you would probably be able to stomach medicine. But don't go into medicine if you want to have nice colleagues and a good working environment. There are a lot of hysteric people in medicine who running around losing their head and enjoy making other people lives miserable. Medical students should be taught that you will have to give up a lot of self respect as well as dignity and that you could become cold and callous if you continue in medicine. Some residency programs have great team spirit, but at other places you have to be careful as someone is always wanting to stab a knife in your back. Its ridiculous, residents who want to make students look bad, students who hate other students, attendings who harass students.

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Yes - this is actually one of the worst aspects of it.

in coming decades you may need to work the same, or more, hours to pay off high debt, especially if health care reform axes doctor's salaries. This might mean 60+ hour work weeks for most doctors with one day off, maybe every week or every other week.

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Yes.

If you want to be a old fashion country doc and care for underserved people in a rural setting, then you won't find a lot of similar company in medical school. Medicine has become a business for a lot of attendings/residents/students and it has become less about caring for people.

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Even if you start out wanting to do this, you rapidly come to the conclusion that the number of residency programs that will actually position you to do this are extremely small in number. Medicine residencies don't involve peds training. FM residencies are too OB heavy and light on inpatient experience. Med-Peds would be a good option, but it's a longer program with two intern years and they are few and far between.

jdwmont said:

With medical school tuition/fees/living expenses along with undergrad debt I will likely be around $300k in debt. So, as a rational person I am begining to question the feasibility of medicine.

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You are being very rational to question your future, but only you can answer this question for yourself.

For some, the mere chance to bring someone back to life on the brink of collaps, the chance to touch someone's life in a positive way, having the ablility to operate, or being able to deliver a human life at birth is worth the investment of time. For others, medicine is seen as expensive to train, with a lack of personal time, there is the fighting with insurance companies, and being up at 4am away from family.


Ultimately, whether the sacrifies are worth the rewards will totally depend on your perspective, and the choices you wish to make with your life. My opinion as a 4th year med student is that medicine is neither the romantisized version nor the jaded version but somewhere in between. What tips the scales in favor of medicine for me is that I enjoy the lifestyle and work that goes into medicine. If I had to do it over again, I'd make the same choice, but I have met lots who do not share the same zest to be a physician as I do, which I think leads to a more pessimistic 'glass is half empty' point of view. To really enjoy medicine, and any career for that matter, you really have to enjoy what you do, and not just the rewards that are derived from your career.

Personally, I think a private medical school education is the only advanced degree which is financially unsound.
A private law degree allows one access to partner in a lucrative firm.
A private MD degree does not mean you are paid more by insurance/medicare, etc.
I can't understand how private medical schools continue to fill their classes.

jdwmont said:

Got a good laugh out of this! So true...

However, if you can think of a job in science with as much stability and income as medicine, let me know.

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Everyone talks about the "stability" of medicine. I laugh to myself when I hear this. I equate this to flying a 757 in a terrible thunderstorm with severe turbulence. Sure the plane is stable and will remain up in the air but the bumpy nauseating ride will have you wishing you walked to your destination instead.

OP,
I agree with Darth's comments - I'd read them and then reread them if I were in your shoes.

Your comment about not wanting to live a middle-middle class life until you are 40 worries me. I think that you will be likely to be doing that if you choose medicine, given that you are already 27. Suppose you enter med school at 29, finish at 33, then with the shortest possible residency you will finish at 36. With any IM or pediatric subspecialty you would finish at 38-40 (2-4 extra years, generally 2-3 but can be 4). With general surgery or other surgical specialties, it's a 5-7 year residency, so that puts you at age 38-40 even if you do no further fellowship. Anesthesiology and some other fields are 4+ years (5 for anesthesiology if you do a 1 year fellowship, 4 for the straight residency). You won't be paying off much of your loan money while you are a resident or fellow...probably just the interest, or maybe even less than the interest if you really borrow 300k. You need to understand the financial realities of what you are doing.

dragonfly99 said:

OP,
I agree with Darth's comments - I'd read them and then reread them if I were in your shoes.

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Wow DF, I was hoping for a "some people are really hanging out the black crepe paper" type comment!

I think medicine is OK even if you are in your thirties if you know that you will want to be working for at least three or more decades and are in good health.

It is not only the tuition that doctors gripe about, believe me, there are a lot of doctors who buy overly expensive houses, and feel that they need to have yearly expensive vacations as well as expensive cars. These things cost money, but people get caught up trying to live beyond their means.

Look at that Conrad Murray guy who gave Michael Jackson Diprivan, he still had medical school debt and he is a cardiologist and around 56 years old . . . and he still had trouble paying off medical school debts and other debts. He will probably lose his house, (besides perhaps going to jail), and may never be able to pay of his medical school debts completely.

The morale of the story is to pay off your medical school debt as fast as you can, and don't collect any other debt or make expensive purchases.

Personally, I had aimed to do a large amount of charity work, internationally and the U.S., and my goal was to break even, besides having some saved for retirement. I estimated that a Peds residency plus a possible neuro or ID fellowship + 2 year MSF work or charity work, and then half academic half charity work I would be lucky to earn around $60,000 a year, if that. Which for me is OK, but others apparently want to be compensated more I guess. It all depends on your goals.

I would say if you love working in a hospital then go to medical school, but if the debt is a hindrance then go into something that doesn't take as much time as with changes in health care you will see more self-sacrificing people in medicine who maybe want to wait until their forties to start a family and who can live with being in debt up to their eyeballs in their fifties.

I recommend reading the six points in the post above by DarthNeurology regarding medicine as a career at least 5 times. Excellent points in that post.

My comment:
I think the med school equation has totally changed. I graduated with less than 50K in debt and had deferment through residency and then paid it off in less than 2 years. There is no way I would have gone to med school if it cost a million a year. The cost of med school has skyrocketed which has totally changed things. It now costs more for one year of tuition and fees at my school than I paid during my entire 4 years.

The loss of the blanket ability to get deferment for your entire residency is another hit. Forebearance sucks because the interest just keeps piling on.

No, not worth 300K. Educational debt is the other shoe of the current crisis that hasnt dropped. Soon it will be in the wave of defaults that are taking over residential and commericial RE.

Educational debt circa 2009, the big white elephant no politician is willing to discuss.....

Between student loans, mortgages, car loans, and credit cards, the banks own us all.


It's not going to end well. Might as well be a doctor when the house of cards comes down. Maybe we'll get 1000% inflation and you'll be able to pay off your debt in a year. That'd be swell.

To me it would not be worth $300k of debt. Under $100k would be manageable but still a burden. If I couldn't see being anything other than a doctor, I would try to graduate with the smallest amount of debt possible. This means going to the least expensive school (not buying into the prestige bit), doing residency in a less expensive area, and not spending your entire paycheck on alcohol and electronics during residency.

300k is a mortgage. That's a lot of money. The payments will probably take up half of your salary if you make $120k. Of course, if your alternative career would lead you to be making $60k a year without loans, then it's a wash, isn't it? I tell you what though, it's tough to see what your paycheck would be before you start writing all of these checks.

And another thing - no one (in the general public) is going to have ANY sympathy for you.

Ultimately it comes down to what is most important to you. Some people truly don't care much about money and get by on a lot less.

I'd just like to point out -- for the pre-meds following along at home -- that no one who's responded to this thread thinks a career in medicine is worth a $300K pricetag. Think about that, folks.

300K is not worth it.

I went to a PUBLIC school and still graduated with close to 200K. The incoming class has a $53,000 budget!!! With increases over the next three years, they will be around $220,000, and that is not counting interest accrued on unsub/private loans. And lets not forget how much they have in undergrad loans.

The American secondary and post-graduate education system is broken.

where does all this tuition money go to? Obviously the majority of it doesnt go towards the day to day running of the school. Is it in some account on the schools books earning interest?

yaah said:

To me it would not be worth $300k of debt. Under $100k would be manageable but still a burden. If I couldn't see being anything other than a doctor, I would try to graduate with the smallest amount of debt possible. This means going to the least expensive school (not buying into the prestige bit), doing residency in a less expensive area, and not spending your entire paycheck on alcohol and electronics during residency.

300k is a mortgage. That's a lot of money. The payments will probably take up half of your salary if you make $120k. Of course, if your alternative career would lead you to be making $60k a year without loans, then it's a wash, isn't it? I tell you what though, it's tough to see what your paycheck would be before you start writing all of these checks.

And another thing - no one (in the general public) is going to have ANY sympathy for you.

Ultimately it comes down to what is most important to you. Some people truly don't care much about money and get by on a lot less.

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The best way to put it

I guess I don't know what all the whining is about. I mean yeah, $300K is a lot of debt to take on, and yeah it's probably not "worth" it in that you get sure don't $300K of teaching out of it, but I mean comon people. Over the course or your careers, even if your take home pay is only $150K/yr, you'll be making 4.5 million dollars (not counting inflation of course). I mean, what's the big deal with taking $50K of that per year, and paying off your loans, and getting rid of them in <10 years? You'll still have $100K/yr to live off of, which is nothing to laugh at.

Maybe it doesn't matter to me 'cause I don't plan on going into Peds or anything, but I plan on living like a resident for 2-3 years after I get my attending salary, and applying that $125K/yr pay bump towards my loans, and getting them all out of the way in 3 years. Loans go bye bye.

daveyjwin said:

I guess I don't know what all the whining is about. I mean yeah, $300K is a lot of debt to take on, and yeah it's probably not "worth" it in that you get sure don't $300K of teaching out of it, but I mean comon people. Over the course or your careers, even if your take home pay is only $150K/yr, you'll be making 4.5 million dollars (not counting inflation of course). I mean, what's the big deal with taking $50K of that per year, and paying off your loans, and getting rid of them in <10 years? You'll still have $100K/yr to live off of, which is nothing to laugh at.

Maybe it doesn't matter to me 'cause I don't plan on going into Peds or anything, but I plan on living like a resident for 2-3 years after I get my attending salary, and applying that $125K/yr pay bump towards my loans, and getting them all out of the way in 3 years. Loans go bye bye.

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Why should I have to "live like a resident" 2-3 years as an attending? This would put me at 30, and I am fairly young in my residency class. Most will be 33-35. I guess I don't understand all this "delayed gratification" we go through. For christ sake's I have friends who, in different fields, are working up the corporate ladder, enjoying all the success which comes with it (house, new car, vacations, etc). And here I am working twice as much for significantly less money. They don't understand when I cannot afford a vacation, why I cannot pay down my medical school loans, why I am driving a 12 year old car. They don't understand how a nurse just fresh out of school is making more than I, and I work 6 days a week, not 3 (3 12hr shifts). Frankly, I don't understand it either.

So, I am against any measure that decreases the "real income" for physicians because it only screws the future students/residents as they will carry a much higher debt burden then their predecessors. And, I'm against any increase in medical school tuition given the current payment schemes because, again, it is the future students/residents who carry a significant burden. 200-300K debt is laughable.

I shouldn't be 40 and finally about to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Yes, I enjoy medicine, I enjoy taking care of patients. But, by golly, money is important too!

not many physicians will be able to pay back $125k/yr no matter how frugally they live. after taxes, the pay of the average new physician is much less than this. it's easy for someone to say who is going into one of the more lucrative fields, but this simply is not possible for everyone else.
(though i do agree that people spend way to much money when they first start out and should focus on paying off loans rather than buying fancy cars, etc....)

it also depends on where you live. A $150,000/yr salary goes a lot farther in rural Iowa than NYC or California.

daveyjwin said:

I guess I don't know what all the whining is about. I mean yeah, $300K is a lot of debt to take on, and yeah it's probably not "worth" it in that you get sure don't $300K of teaching out of it, but I mean comon people. Over the course or your careers, even if your take home pay is only $150K/yr, you'll be making 4.5 million dollars (not counting inflation of course). I mean, what's the big deal with taking $50K of that per year, and paying off your loans, and getting rid of them in <10 years? You'll still have $100K/yr to live off of, which is nothing to laugh at.

Maybe it doesn't matter to me 'cause I don't plan on going into Peds or anything, but I plan on living like a resident for 2-3 years after I get my attending salary, and applying that $125K/yr pay bump towards my loans, and getting them all out of the way in 3 years. Loans go bye bye.

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Seriously? Have you ever paid taxes? Take home pay for $150K/year is around $85K/year depending on your state/local taxes. And you want to use $50K/year to pay off loans. That gives you $35K/year to live, which is less than residency pay.

DrRobert said:

Seriously? Have you ever paid taxes? Take home pay for $150K/year is around $85K/year depending on your state/local taxes. And you want to use $50K/year to pay off loans. That gives you $35K/year to live, which is less than residency pay.

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When I take the average of my specialty from here, and plug it and my stats into here, it comes out with a tax rate of about 28%, making my take home pay roughly $3000/wk or $150K/yr. Add in state and local taxes, and it may be a little less. Add some more deductibles, maybe a little more. Throw a couple hundred bucks to an accountant, and you might do better.

Now, if you can't live off of $3000/wk and pay off your loans, you deserve a kick in the pants. What's so hard about $1000/wk for loans, $1000/wk for bills, and $1000/wk for everything else? Then, once you get your loans paid off, you can take your loan money and invest it. I mean geeze, I've been living off of $500/wk total for the last 8 years. This is SIX TIMES that much.

Another way to look at it is how much net worth you will have vs your friends / colleagues at age 40, 50, and beyond. The difference is astounding.

lol, in order to keep under $200k total (which was my goal going in), I need to make it until July of next year on $5000 total living expenses, otherwise I'll have to take out more loans. Awesome; big baller right here ladies..

r.e. one of the comments above, I don't think I ever said it's not worth it for the OP to spend $300k on a medical education. I said it depends on many factors...and also said that I was concerned about him doing it if he doesn't want to accept a very middle class life until his 40's, because in his situation (already being age 27, and presumably planning to borrow the entire amount he needs for school) that would be very, very likely. If someone has a working spouse with a pretty good job available to pay for housing, health insurance and most other living expenses, or comes from a family with money, then doing med school with <200k debt might be quite possible. There are still some lucky people who get scholarships, too. You can also sign your life away to the military, which I wouldn't personally do but might be a good alternative for many people if the other choice is 300k + debt.

I wonder what the effects of a significant portion of grads defaulting on their loans would have on the banks and the economy in general?

Good stuff here. I need to get off the pre-med forum and come here more often where people actually know what they're talking about when it comes to real medicine, not the rainbows and unicorns pre-meds think being a doctor is made of.

How many jobs don't require a significant period of training/education, don't require encurring debt (or start-up costs), earn six figures, and offers a life-style that allows plenty of time for family and/or vacation. You may be considering turning down such a job in favor of medicine, in which case all the teeth gnashing on this thread would be useful. If you're honest with yourself, most of you don't have an opportunity to obtain the job mentioned above. It's fine to pretend that you as a middle of the road med student/resident would be in the top 1/10 of 1% of wage earners if you went into a different field. But that's what it is, pretending.

True, but recent and upcoming graduates are put at an increasingly widening disadvantage from the standpoint of debt (as compared to older physicians who did not have nearly this amount of debt but enjoyed high salaries). Even new attendings today in general did not have close to the debt levels realized by todays graduating students. I graduated with 200K not counting interest whereas 3/4th year residents at that time only had about 120-150K.

What we have is medical school cost of living budgets ballooning every year. Without any change from the current increase in budgets, can you imagine what debt levels will be in 10 years? 250K? 300K? 350K? Some today hit 250K-300K. When interest is figured in throughout school and residency, these debt levels are sickening. Will physician pay levels increase accordingly?

This is not just special to medicine, but all postgraduate education.

Arcan57 said:

How many jobs don't require a significant period of training/education, don't require encurring debt (or start-up costs), earn six figures, and offers a life-style that allows plenty of time for family and/or vacation. You may be considering turning down such a job in favor of medicine, in which case all the teeth gnashing on this thread would be useful. If you're honest with yourself, most of you don't have an opportunity to obtain the job mentioned above. It's fine to pretend that you as a middle of the road med student/resident would be in the top 1/10 of 1% of wage earners if you went into a different field. But that's what it is, pretending.

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FloatOn said:

Good stuff here. I need to get off the pre-med forum and come here more often where people actually know what they're talking about when it comes to real medicine, not the rainbows and unicorns pre-meds think being a doctor is made of.

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No kidding. Me too. Other careers are starting to look more attractive.

First a question. What if NP's manage to "take over" primary care, given the concerns about costs. Where does that leave the physicians who trained in family medicine? I am guessing they could retrain in another residency, right? (or make jewelry if they feel like it)

gudog said:

Personally, I think a private medical school education is the only advanced degree which is financially unsound.
A private law degree allows one access to partner in a lucrative firm.
A private MD degree does not mean you are paid more by insurance/medicare, etc.
I can't understand how private medical schools continue to fill their classes.

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It sounds like it is not a good idea to go into medicine for the money, unless one is really great at science, even compared to other medical students and is confident one can get into derm. Am I right?

From what I gather about each, getting into a lucrative firm is much like getting into a derm residency, except getting in the firm relies more heavily upon your social connections and which school you went to. I'd rather rely upon my human capital than my social capital.

And it's better to be in 300k of debt than be a blood-sucking lawyer who is not necessary to society as we have too many of them and they subsist by destroying physicians' lives or getting scumbags off the hook. I also hate our legal system. I would hate myself and every minute of my working life as a lawyer, even if I was good at it and made a lot of money.

yadayadadude said:

I'd just like to point out -- for the pre-meds following along at home -- that no one who's responded to this thread thinks a career in medicine is worth a $300K pricetag. Think about that, folks.

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Yeah I honestly don't get it. I believe I would want to do it even if we made as much as a teacher after paying for loans. I know it's like that initially but I mean permanently. I guess it comes from how I was so much less happy when I was not a poor student, and now a poor low-level wiping butts. It's not that I like being poor, it's just how much money I have doesn't seem to affect my happiness provided I feel like I have enough. I'd rather feel good about myself. I know that won't feed me, but do you honestly have that much trouble getting by? Was it because you expected more?

It sounds like it is not a good idea to go into medicine for the money, unless one is really great at science, even compared to other medical students and is confident one can get into derm. Am I right?

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The problem with this is you're not going to know if you're derm-material until you're past Step I and up to your eyeballs in debt.

And it's better to be in 300k of debt than be a blood-sucking lawyer who is not necessary to society as we have too many of them and they subsist by destroying physicians' lives or getting scumbags off the hook. I also hate our legal system. I would hate myself and every minute of my working life as a lawyer, even if I was good at it and made a lot of money.

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Lol. Look at some of the healthcare reform articles out there. There are a good number of people who think doctors are banking off the suffering of the common folk...

To the OP: I personally wouldn't go over 200k, i don't even know if I'd go over 175k (half of what you're talking about).

DrYoda said:

The problem with this is you're not going to know if you're derm-material until you're past Step I and up to your eyeballs in debt.


Lol. Look at some of the healthcare reform articles out there. There are a good number of people who think doctors are banking off the suffering of the common folk...

To the OP: I personally wouldn't go over 200k, i don't even know if I'd go over 175k (half of what you're talking about).

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Exactly. Everyone's gunning for derm and only few make it.

Not to mention that derm's status as a holy grail only makes sense in a good economy. Skin ailments, while bothersome and socially uncomfortable, are rarely life-threatening to the degree that the ailments dealt with by medical subspecialties and surgery are.

DrYoda said:

Lol. Look at some of the healthcare reform articles out there. There are a good number of people who think doctors are banking off the suffering of the common folk...

To the OP: I personally wouldn't go over 200k, i don't even know if I'd go over 175k (half of what you're talking about).

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Last I checked, more than a couple of years ago, being a doctor was the most respected line of work. I suppose that may have changed? If so, when and why and who is on top?

LiveUninhibited said:

And it's better to be in 300k of debt than be a blood-sucking lawyer who is not necessary to society as we have too many of them and they subsist by destroying physicians' lives or getting scumbags off the hook. I also hate our legal system. I would hate myself and every minute of my working life as a lawyer, even if I was good at it and made a lot of money.

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Wow! Thanks so much for opening my eyes to what terrible people ALL lawyers are! I had no idea that every single lawyer in the world practiced plaintiff side medmal or criminal defense! Man, here I was thinking that lawyers also did things like prosecute criminals, defend doctors, defend hospitals, write contracts, help companies comply with SEC regulations they don't understand, deal with complicated tax issues, help you when you get audited by the IRS, sue big corporations for poisoning whole towns for no money up front, defend those same corporations for a LOT of money up front, write the documents that allow companies to merge and spin off and buy and sell from each other (basically, make the economy function), sue companies that mistreat their employees, defend companies that mistreat their employees, and so on and so on. So, thanks! Thank you so much for opening my eyes to what a limited and scummy scope of work my profession has.

AttyHubby said:

Wow! Thanks so much for opening my eyes to what terrible people ALL lawyers are! ... defend doctors, defend hospitals, Thank you so much for opening my eyes to what a limited and scummy scope of work my profession has.

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so lawyers are good because they defend doctors and hospitals from other lawyers???

That's like saying guns are good because some homeowners use guns to protect themselves from burgurlars with guns.

michaelrack said:

so lawyers are good because they defend doctors and hospitals from other lawyers???

That's like saying guns are good because some homeowners use guns to protect themselves from burgurlars with guns.

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Good point. I think next time we should just let you try to defend yourself without one. Good luck with that, let me know how it works out for you.

You don't think it's good that you have lawyers available to help you in those kinds of situations? Or are you trying to say that injured plaintiffs should have NO method of recovery after being wronged? Surely you aren't trying to say that there has never been a legitimate case of medical malpractice in the history of medicine?

Are you seriously trying to say that the world could function without attorneys? If so, you're a fool.

lol, most of the things you listed as reasons to hire a lawyer directly relate to another lawyer causing trouble. It would be like having 80% of all physician visits being related to second opinions or correcting problems that other physicians cause. The ideal medical malpractice solution would be to have lawyers involved as little as possible - because lawyers tend to make the case about everything other than the actual pertinent facts (by doing things like having witnesses cry on the stand, having children testify about how much they miss their mother, etc). These are all sad things and important social phenomena, but they have nothing to do with whether Dr X killed the patient by not taking her gallbladder out in time. The main reason to hire a lawyer these days is to make sure another lawyer doesn't screw you. That's a sad statement about the legal profession.

And way to go, take a statement and imply that he/she meant that all lawyers suck and there is never any need for one. Just because 20% of what lawyers do isn't redundant or unnecessary or overly expensive doesn't mean the other 80% doesn't matter. By your logic, all physicians would suck because there are some who do procedures only for profit or who are untruthful to their patients. Good for you that you do some probono work (although "no money up front" doesn't really count). Unlike lawyers, doctors can get sued for refusing to do probono work.