Any doctors who are happy?

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premed7151985

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I apologize if this is not the right place for this post, but I was wondering if there are any actual doctors who graduated who are happy with their jobs. I have recently (in the past year) decided to go to medical school. I have a degree in business and have been in the work field for the past few years, but recently I have decided to go to medical school for a number of different reasons. Since I don't have any friends who are doctors I started doing a lot of research online to find out what the job is really like. I understand all the downsides of the job (or I think I do).. the crazy hours, all the bureaucracy, the faulty system, peer unfriendliness, ungrateful patients, insurance companies, etc.. Actually about 95% percent of what I read online is from doctors who hate their lives, hate their jobs, and feel like they are stuck in a career that is the only one that will pay for their immense loans. I've just started getting so depressed reading all these negative comments on the internet! My question is.. are there any doctors out there who actually love their job and are happy with their decision of going to medical school??? If so, what field are you in and how long have you been out of medical school for?

Thank you!!
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I'm moving this to the Non-Trad forum as I think you'll find some kindred spirits there. And, yes, I am happy with my decision. Even on the rough days; in the end I still love my job. Finishing up my pediatric cardiology fellowship. 6 years out from med school.
 
No, not a single doctor is happy with their carrier choice. This is also exactly why it is so competitive to get into medical school.
 
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Seriously, I was too lazy to read your post. Sorry. But I heard it cited that 60% of physicians would not recommend medicine as a career choice. This does not surprise me.
 
Guillemot said:
Seriously, I was too lazy to read your post. Sorry. But I heard it cited that 60% of physicians would not recommend medicine as a career choice. This does not surprise me.
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I actually bought the survey that this was a part of. It said 60% wouldn't recommend it to their own children, but the majority of respondents were from primary care, so that tells you more about those fields than any specialist fields.

Anyways, anecdotally I've shadowed a few physicians of various specialties and all but one of them was happy (ironically one of the most specialized ones was the least happy). I recommend you do some shadowing. I don't know any docs personally so I just cold called practices in my area. Medicine is much different in the real world than Internet postings may make it seem.
 
OP, please do not post the same thread in multiple forums. Choose one forum and only post it once.

In answer to your question, you have to realize that what you read on the internet is biased. People who are unhappy with being a physician are much more likely to come online and wax eloquent about it than people who are neutral or even positive.

Where the person is in their career matters too. Right now, as a new intern, I have to say that no, I'm not especially enjoying being in medicine. I'm in an unfamiliar hospital where I don't have a good grasp yet of how to do my job, and it gets pretty overwhelming trying to handle patient care at the same time that I'm still learning my way around the system. All I can do right now is bumble along as best I can. But ask me again in a few weeks when things have settled down and I have a small idea of what I'm doing, and my outlook won't be quite as bad. Of course, I'll still be making a crappy salary for the hours I'm working while I'm in training, but that can't be helped. :hungover:
 
bucks2010 said:
I actually bought the survey that this was a part of. It said 60% wouldn't recommend it to their own children, but the majority of respondents were from primary care, so that tells you more about those fields than any specialist fields.
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I have a few surgeons in the family (my dad's a third-generation surgeon; aunt, two uncles, a cousin. . . my mom got into med school but instead she moved out of town for dad's residency choice, and became a nurse instead). It was a point of great shame and estrangement to my father when I did not immediately follow in his footsteps and go pre-med as an undergraduate. It's cool now, eight years later--only because now I am pre-med. I didn't realize those 60% were out there. All the docs I know are obsessed with and beyond proud of the job.
 
I am a psychiatry resident (now a PGY-2). More often than not I am happy with my job. I think a big factor in that is because psychiatrists in most settings have more control over their lifestyles than some other specialties do.
Working yourself to death, neglecting your family, interests, your own health, etc. is no way to live - but unfortunately there ARE specialties where that is the norm, and there is a lot of pressure to work that way.
If you go to the residency forum right now you might see the discussion taking place on the phenomenon in some residency programs of some residents working even when they're sick enough to need IV fluids because taking a sick day is considered unacceptable. I feel extremely fortunate to be in a residency program where we actually are allowed to take sick days if needed and where there is support of female residents taking maternity leave, etc.
Medicine is not like most other jobs. It does require more sacrifices and a bigger commitment. It is a riskier career path in some ways (like the huge debt you have to undertake with the hope that you will be able to see things through to the end). But yes, it can be rewarding, interesting, and fun. There are days when I feel very fortunate to get to see and do the things a doctor gets to be involved with.
 
alwaysaangel said:
Read this: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/abinaz...go-to-medical-school-a-gleefully-biased-rant/

My new favorite link courtesy of CodeBlu. Very clear and honest explanation of medicine.
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Thanks alwaysaangel. Some of the derps in pre-allo just hate on me for that link.

Unfortunately, they still idealize everything. Everythings milk and honey to them. But to the OP... if you want medicine, read this blog. If you still want medicine. You can do anything you set your mind to.
 
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I think lot of doctors being unhappy has to do with expectations. Your typical pre-med has no real life experiences or real sense of how the world works. Most of them are too idealistic and set high expectations for what they will achieve - prestige, power, and money.

The reality is that even though doctors have that "respect" factor automatically associated with it; it still doesn't mean that they will be treated like kings by their patients and non-physician staff. Power isn't solely up to doctors anymore because we live in a society that encourages "taking charge of your own situation" hence many patients are independent and would prefer that they make the final decisions.

And money? Well when you have mountain of debt combined with being underpaid for 3-5 years WHILE that debt is accumulating, and add in the fact that majority of us have put our personal lives on hold and would rather get on with buying a house and settling down instead of worrying about how much interest I can knock off my debt the next month...well money, all of a sudden, isn't growing on trees anymore.

So yeah, lot of doctors aren't happy BECAUSE they expected way too much out of this profession before they entered it.

The cure is to realize that life won't be heavenly just because you decided to enter medical school. In fact, it might feel like the opposite of that more often than you might have expected.
 
Senior EM resident here, very happy with my job/life/career.

A few thoughts:

1. Look at the people who are telling you they are unhappy: were they happy in college? Med school? Residency? If you are a negative person then getting a long white coat doesn't magically change that.

2. Med school is hard, residency is hard, being a doc is hard. You know what else is hard? Subsistence farming, working in a sweatshop in Laos, fleeing war zones, or being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery - hundreds of millions of people live like this right now as you sit in your AC'ed living room with your MacBook Pro. Get over yourself.

3. This loan/salary ratio stuff is such BS. You will make plenty of money. The people who cannot manage their loans on an attending salary would not manage their loans if you doubled their salary because they consistently spend more than they make. Understand that for the VAST majority of physicians this "hardship" is the difference between a 2011 BMW vs a 2008 Civic, not some more fundamental issue.

4. I don't know a single person who has had a relationship fail only because of their medical training. I am surrounded by people with happy marriages and lives outside of medicine.

5. If you want to spend your life looking for ways the world is out to get you, you will find them - no matter what career you chose.

6. If you want to use the fact that you work harder than your college friends who became engineers as an excuse to be an a**hole, go right ahead.

7. If you want to delude yourself into thinking that your college friends who now have desk/office jobs are in some nirvana of professional satisfaction, have a beer with them an ask them about it.

8. If you want to view medicine as a job instead of as a career, calling, and privilege you will be miserable.

Sorry for the rant but SDN is such toxic waste as far as these conversations go. Med students reading these forums probably get the idea that medicine is just terrible, nothing could be further from the truth.
 
AmoryBlaine said:
Senior EM resident here, very happy with my job/life/career.

A few thoughts:

1. Look at the people who are telling you they are unhappy: were they happy in college? Med school? Residency? If you are a negative person then getting a long white coat doesn't magically change that.

2. Med school is hard, residency is hard, being a doc is hard. You know what else is hard? Subsistence farming, working in a sweatshop in Laos, fleeing war zones, or being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery - hundreds of millions of people live like this right now as you sit in your AC'ed living room with your MacBook Pro. Get over yourself.

3. This loan/salary ratio stuff is such BS. You will make plenty of money. The people who cannot manage their loans on an attending salary would not manage their loans if you doubled their salary because they consistently spend more than they make. Understand that for the VAST majority of physicians this "hardship" is the difference between a 2011 BMW vs a 2008 Civic, not some more fundamental issue.

4. I don't know a single person who has had a relationship fail only because of their medical training. I am surrounded by people with happy marriages and lives outside of medicine.

5. If you want to spend your life looking for ways the world is out to get you, you will find them - no matter what career you chose.

6. If you want to use the fact that you work harder than your college friends who became engineers as an excuse to be an a**hole, go right ahead.

7. If you want to delude yourself into thinking that your college friends who now have desk/office jobs are in some nirvana of professional satisfaction, have a beer with them an ask them about it.

8. If you want to view medicine as a job instead of as a career, calling, and privilege you will be miserable.

Sorry for the rant but SDN is such toxic waste as far as these conversations go. Med students reading these forums probably get the idea that medicine is just terrible, nothing could be further from the truth.
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I could not have said it better. People who are going to be miserable about their career choice will always be miserable about it, regardless of what specialty they go into or how much money they make.

I love medicine, I enjoy doing it every day, and I love the intellectual stimulation that it brings.
 
AmoryBlaine said:
Senior EM resident here, very happy with my job/life/career.

A few thoughts:

1. Look at the people who are telling you they are unhappy: were they happy in college? Med school? Residency? If you are a negative person then getting a long white coat doesn't magically change that.

2. Med school is hard, residency is hard, being a doc is hard. You know what else is hard? Subsistence farming, working in a sweatshop in Laos, fleeing war zones, or being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery - hundreds of millions of people live like this right now as you sit in your AC'ed living room with your MacBook Pro. Get over yourself.

3. This loan/salary ratio stuff is such BS. You will make plenty of money. The people who cannot manage their loans on an attending salary would not manage their loans if you doubled their salary because they consistently spend more than they make. Understand that for the VAST majority of physicians this "hardship" is the difference between a 2011 BMW vs a 2008 Civic, not some more fundamental issue.

4. I don't know a single person who has had a relationship fail only because of their medical training. I am surrounded by people with happy marriages and lives outside of medicine.

5. If you want to spend your life looking for ways the world is out to get you, you will find them - no matter what career you chose.

6. If you want to use the fact that you work harder than your college friends who became engineers as an excuse to be an a**hole, go right ahead.

7. If you want to delude yourself into thinking that your college friends who now have desk/office jobs are in some nirvana of professional satisfaction, have a beer with them an ask them about it.

8. If you want to view medicine as a job instead of as a career, calling, and privilege you will be miserable.

Sorry for the rant but SDN is such toxic waste as far as these conversations go. Med students reading these forums probably get the idea that medicine is just terrible, nothing could be further from the truth.
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Glad to hear you say this.

Also, reading all the negative posts about how bad medicine is career wise/etc was starting to make me nervous. I am going into because I don't really want to do anything else. I do like the challenge I think being a doctor would present with interesting cases (i.e. Infectious Diseases specialty), and would lean more towards Critical Care/EM to feel like I was actually making a difference as a physician saving lives type thing (rather than say giving someone a breast enlargement as a plastic surgeon - this is not to disparage people that do like this, it's just not for me).

I wasn't really worried about the loan to salary ratio until people around me started telling me how hard my life would be if I went into medicine, and that I would be in debt for the rest of my life. I expect to have around 400-500$k in debt (inc money I borrowed for grad school), and was planning to start paying it off as a resident (guessing I will make around 40-60k a year). I am not really sure about how much an attending makes (I've heard on the low end 100k for a family doc, and 250ish for Critical Care/EM which is what I'm interested in atm), but I figured even if I made 100k a year, I would pay off the loans within 6-7 years max if I put all my extra money towards that.

I wasn't sure if I was missing something due to all the negative things I've heard from coworkers/family/friends about the debt.
 
my family doctor seems pretty happy.

his patients love him. his family life is great. he loves his work. he travels and goes on mission trips with his family. he seems to be living the dream, and has been, for as long as Ive known him
 
AmoryBlaine said:
Senior EM resident here, very happy with my job/life/career.

A few thoughts:

1. Look at the people who are telling you they are unhappy: were they happy in college? Med school? Residency? If you are a negative person then getting a long white coat doesn't magically change that.

2. Med school is hard, residency is hard, being a doc is hard. You know what else is hard? Subsistence farming, working in a sweatshop in Laos, fleeing war zones, or being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery - hundreds of millions of people live like this right now as you sit in your AC'ed living room with your MacBook Pro. Get over yourself.

3. This loan/salary ratio stuff is such BS. You will make plenty of money. The people who cannot manage their loans on an attending salary would not manage their loans if you doubled their salary because they consistently spend more than they make. Understand that for the VAST majority of physicians this "hardship" is the difference between a 2011 BMW vs a 2008 Civic, not some more fundamental issue.

4. I don't know a single person who has had a relationship fail only because of their medical training. I am surrounded by people with happy marriages and lives outside of medicine.

5. If you want to spend your life looking for ways the world is out to get you, you will find them - no matter what career you chose.

6. If you want to use the fact that you work harder than your college friends who became engineers as an excuse to be an a**hole, go right ahead.

7. If you want to delude yourself into thinking that your college friends who now have desk/office jobs are in some nirvana of professional satisfaction, have a beer with them an ask them about it.

8. If you want to view medicine as a job instead of as a career, calling, and privilege you will be miserable.

Sorry for the rant but SDN is such toxic waste as far as these conversations go. Med students reading these forums probably get the idea that medicine is just terrible, nothing could be further from the truth.
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:thumbup: :thumbup:
 
AmoryBlaine said:
2. Med school is hard, residency is hard, being a doc is hard. You know what else is hard? Subsistence farming, working in a sweatshop in Laos, fleeing war zones, or being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery - hundreds of millions of people live like this right now as you sit in your AC'ed living room with your MacBook Pro. Get over yourself.
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I also agree entirely with AmoryBlaine's response, especially the above ones. I see too much negativity in these SDN forums every single time I log in. I hope they are not my doctors or colleagues in the future, THAT would really be depressing.
 
CodeBlu said:
Thanks alwaysaangel. Some of the derps in pre-allo just hate on me for that link.

Unfortunately, they still idealize everything. Everythings milk and honey to them. But to the OP... if you want medicine, read this blog. If you still want medicine. You can do anything you set your mind to.
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Disagreeing with that post makes you a derp? Awesome.

In my experience, the majority of physicians love their job. Do they say it's easy? No. Does it come without sacrifice? Of course not. But that one blog post is ridiculous. The author clearly comes across as a whiner that had wild and/or incorrect expectations of medicine, and was disappointed when those errant expectations didn't materialize.

I agree it's important to get a realistic view of medicine, and anyone interested in the field should know what they're getting themselves into. But that post is just weak.
 
AmoryBlaine said:
Senior EM resident here, very happy with my job/life/career.

A few thoughts:

1. Look at the people who are telling you they are unhappy: were they happy in college? Med school? Residency? If you are a negative person then getting a long white coat doesn't magically change that.

2. Med school is hard, residency is hard, being a doc is hard. You know what else is hard? Subsistence farming, working in a sweatshop in Laos, fleeing war zones, or being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery - hundreds of millions of people live like this right now as you sit in your AC'ed living room with your MacBook Pro. Get over yourself.

3. This loan/salary ratio stuff is such BS. You will make plenty of money. The people who cannot manage their loans on an attending salary would not manage their loans if you doubled their salary because they consistently spend more than they make. Understand that for the VAST majority of physicians this "hardship" is the difference between a 2011 BMW vs a 2008 Civic, not some more fundamental issue.

4. I don't know a single person who has had a relationship fail only because of their medical training. I am surrounded by people with happy marriages and lives outside of medicine.

5. If you want to spend your life looking for ways the world is out to get you, you will find them - no matter what career you chose.

6. If you want to use the fact that you work harder than your college friends who became engineers as an excuse to be an a**hole, go right ahead.

7. If you want to delude yourself into thinking that your college friends who now have desk/office jobs are in some nirvana of professional satisfaction, have a beer with them an ask them about it.

8. If you want to view medicine as a job instead of as a career, calling, and privilege you will be miserable.

Sorry for the rant but SDN is such toxic waste as far as these conversations go. Med students reading these forums probably get the idea that medicine is just terrible, nothing could be further from the truth.
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This is a great post that illustrates just how important perspective and disposition are in life.

Before people jump my ass, I don't expect that this is everyone's experience or even most people's experience. But the fact is that there are a million other factors that are infinitely more important than being a medical professional that determines one's happiness with his/her life and job. Blaming financial and personal failure solely on medicine is ridiculous and egotistical because of the implication that something is wrong with the field rather than you.
 
I'll admit I'm only a few days into the doctor part, but I just spent the past 2 nights in the ED getting my butt kicked... my sleep schedule is whacked. I'm at the pinnacle of scut with just under a year to go before I get to start doing the stuff I really want to do.

And I'm still happy. (might be worth checking back in Feb or so when they say the burnout kicks in)

My take is that he people who are complainers will complain no matter what. They're not going to be happy MS1-MS3 (they might let up the second half of MS4), but they're not going to be happy, even if they match their first choice. I expect they'll complain all through residency too (I had classmates like this).

Conversely, if you're the type of person that doesn't sweat the small stuff. Med school is a challenge, but can be overcome without significant drama. Plenty of people get through residency and practice medicine happily... I suspect they're the same.

It's an attitude issue.


That said, please don't discount the cathartic nature of ranting anonymously. People need to get things off their chests sometimes. It's a coping mechanism. The internet can paint a grim picture if you're only reading people's rants. Try to talk to some live practicing physicians and do some shadowing if you're seriously considering the field.
 
alwaysaangel said:
Read this: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/abinaz...go-to-medical-school-a-gleefully-biased-rant/

My new favorite link courtesy of CodeBlu. Very clear and honest explanation of medicine.
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Clear and honest from this person's perspective. He sounds like he was forced into the profession and is essentially just miserable about the grass being greener on the other side. I have so many issues with his (admittedly biased) article.

His point about never seeing old friends... not true for everyone

His point about people not maintaining their health as doctors... well yeah if you don't take out the half hour a day to job or whatever yes you will be in poor health

My biggest issue is that he has problems with the fact that when he's a student, other people will be making more money than him in other jobs, namely i-banking, wall street, etc. That's a very narrow selection of people if that's literally all he knows (granted he's writing from Harvard but still). Want to know what my peers and classmates and friends from high school and college are doing?

- having trouble finding a job or getting downsized from their jobs
- joining the military just to put food on the table for their kids
- in constant fear of being fired from their 50k jobs... it's VERY hard to get fired from residency and when you're a doctor your job security is 1000x better than most jobs around

etc.

And on principle I refuse to do i-banking. It involves gambling with peoples' money. Same with lawyering... you're either defending people who might be guilty or prosecuting people who might be innocent. It blows and my conscience couldn't take that. Sure as a doctor there's plenty of stuff that you do which doesn't always work but your intent is always a good one - help the patient, heal the patient.
 
ArcGurren said:
Clear and honest from this person's perspective. He sounds like he was forced into the profession and is essentially just miserable about the grass being greener on the other side. I have so many issues with his (admittedly biased) article.

His point about never seeing old friends... not true for everyone

His point about people not maintaining their health as doctors... well yeah if you don't take out the half hour a day to job or whatever yes you will be in poor health

My biggest issue is that he has problems with the fact that when he's a student, other people will be making more money than him in other jobs, namely i-banking, wall street, etc. That's a very narrow selection of people if that's literally all he knows (granted he's writing from Harvard but still). Want to know what my peers and classmates and friends from high school and college are doing?

- having trouble finding a job or getting downsized from their jobs
- joining the military just to put food on the table for their kids
- in constant fear of being fired from their 50k jobs... it's VERY hard to get fired from residency and when you're a doctor your job security is 1000x better than most jobs around

etc.

And on principle I refuse to do i-banking. It involves gambling with peoples' money. Same with lawyering... you're either defending people who might be guilty or prosecuting people who might be innocent. It blows and my conscience couldn't take that. Sure as a doctor there's plenty of stuff that you do which doesn't always work but your intent is always a good one - help the patient, heal the patient.
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Unless you're an administrator. Then it's all about dollars and cents.
 
Most of the doctors I've met love their job. That said, I know an attending in what's perceived to be one of the cushiest, well-compensated fields in the business. The guy works all hours and complains incessantly. He tells med students they should've gone into nursing. But the funny thing is, when I ask him why he doesn't change careers, he admits that he actually likes his job. Anyway, I agree with other folks here - some people just like to complain.
 
AmoryBlaine said:
7. If you want to delude yourself into thinking that your college friends who now have desk/office jobs are in some nirvana of professional satisfaction, have a beer with them an ask them about it.
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This. Everyone hates their job, and the grass is never green anywhere. Ever.
 
AmoryBlaine said:
Senior EM resident here, very happy with my job/life/career.

A few thoughts:

1. Look at the people who are telling you they are unhappy: were they happy in college? Med school? Residency? If you are a negative person then getting a long white coat doesn't magically change that.

2. Med school is hard, residency is hard, being a doc is hard. You know what else is hard? Subsistence farming, working in a sweatshop in Laos, fleeing war zones, or being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery - hundreds of millions of people live like this right now as you sit in your AC'ed living room with your MacBook Pro. Get over yourself.

3. This loan/salary ratio stuff is such BS. You will make plenty of money. The people who cannot manage their loans on an attending salary would not manage their loans if you doubled their salary because they consistently spend more than they make. Understand that for the VAST majority of physicians this "hardship" is the difference between a 2011 BMW vs a 2008 Civic, not some more fundamental issue.

4. I don't know a single person who has had a relationship fail only because of their medical training. I am surrounded by people with happy marriages and lives outside of medicine.

5. If you want to spend your life looking for ways the world is out to get you, you will find them - no matter what career you chose.

6. If you want to use the fact that you work harder than your college friends who became engineers as an excuse to be an a**hole, go right ahead.

7. If you want to delude yourself into thinking that your college friends who now have desk/office jobs are in some nirvana of professional satisfaction, have a beer with them an ask them about it.

8. If you want to view medicine as a job instead of as a career, calling, and privilege you will be miserable.

Sorry for the rant but SDN is such toxic waste as far as these conversations go. Med students reading these forums probably get the idea that medicine is just terrible, nothing could be further from the truth.
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I feel like this post should just be linked too every week this question comes up in the pre-allo/allo forums.
 
Guillemot said:
Seriously, I was too lazy to read your post. Sorry. But I heard it cited that 60% of physicians would not recommend medicine as a career choice. This does not surprise me.
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ya its funny they say that, but they willingly pay full tuition out of pocket for their own sons and daughters to go to med school.

those people are full of ****. also if it is so bad, they should leave it. they wont though.
 
cowme said:
Doctor happiness is inversely correlated to time spent on SDN
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This.

So much with the bitching on SDN. I find that if you ask a lot of the people that have grass-is-greener syndrome how many other careers (not part time work in undergrad, careers) they have had I'm guessing it'll be a short list. No guarantees in life, but there are people that are enjoying their medical career. Usually no one comes on here to say "I had an awesome day in clinic today" although it has been known to happen.
 
courtnes said:
But your avatar already has the prerequisite bowtie. Such a shame. :laugh:
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It's cool. Bowties are cool. As is the fez.

(Freaking Yanks, watch moar Doctor Who).
 
Lbgem said:
Glad to hear you say this.

I wasn't really worried about the loan to salary ratio until people around me started telling me how hard my life would be if I went into medicine, and that I would be in debt for the rest of my life. I expect to have around 400-500$k in debt (inc money I borrowed for grad school), and was planning to start paying it off as a resident (guessing I will make around 40-60k a year). I am not really sure about how much an attending makes (I've heard on the low end 100k for a family doc, and 250ish for Critical Care/EM which is what I'm interested in atm), but I figured even if I made 100k a year, I would pay off the loans within 6-7 years max if I put all my extra money towards that.
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Dude, that is a crapload of debt you are carrying. I don't think you actually have done the proper math if you think you can pay that much debt off with a salary of $100k a year just 6 years after residency. In fact it tells me you can't balance a checkbook if your life depended on it.

The naivete shown in your post above is EXACTLY what some of the more "cynical" posters here are warning against. This has nothing to do about "bitching" or SDN being a "toxic waste." If you and others don't get that, you're hopelessly clueless and will have no one to blame in the future but yourself.

And at least two of the posters further above who are all rainbows and unicorns about going into medicine are being a little disingenuous since they're going to Pritzker, which gives a ton of full-ride scholarships, so they're likely in a far different position as you mate and everyone else reading this thread.
 
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naus said:
Dude, that is a crapload of debt you are carrying. I don't think you actually have done the proper math if you think you can pay that much debt off with a salary of $100k a year just 6 years after residency. In fact it tells me you can't balance a checkbook if your life depended on it.

The naivete showed in your post above is EXACTLY what some of the more "cynical" posters here are warning against. This has nothing to do about "bitching" or SDN being a "toxic waste." If you and others don't get that, you're hopelessly clueless and will have no one to blame in the future but yourself.

And at least two of the posters further above who are all rainbows and unicorns about going into medicine are being a little disingenuous since they're going to Pritzker, which gives a ton of full-ride scholarships, so they're likely in a far different position as you mate and everyone else reading this thread.
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The person who said they would pay off 500k in debt on 100k salary in 6-7 years doesn't understand finance or budgeting or anything really.
 
Why would you want to pay off low interest loans early? Obviously 8% is not low, but I know people who pay off 3% loans early...which is crazy.

It's like people who have all their money in a savings account.
 
naus said:
And at least two of the posters further above who are all rainbows and unicorns about going into medicine are being a little disingenuous since they're going to Pritzker, which gives a ton of full-ride scholarships, so they're likely in a far different position as you mate and everyone else reading this thread.
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First, please point me to where I said medicine is all rainbows and butterflies. I said the exact opposite. My point was that people's perceptions of and feelings toward their career have much more to do with their own personal dispositions and personalities than the fact that medicine is some God awful wasteland that everyone must avoid because it's impossible to be happy in.

Second, the quoted part of your post has nothing to do with anything that I said.
 
NickNaylor said:
First, please point me to where I said medicine is all rainbows and butterflies. I said the exact opposite. My point was that people's perceptions of and feelings toward their career have much more to do with their own personal dispositions and personalities than the fact that medicine is some God awful wasteland that everyone must avoid because it's impossible to be happy in.

Second, the quoted part of your post has nothing to do with anything that I said.
Click to expand...

Let me spell it out for you since you seem like the anal type who likes to be right at all times:

People's perceptions of and feelings toward their career may also have a lot to do with their financial circumstances, such as $400k in debt versus $30k in debt. No one is saying that medicine is a God awful wasteland that *everyone* must avoid, but you have to admit that your getting an almost free ride is a little different in outlook than just about everyone else. If you can't admit that, well....
 
naus said:
Dude, that is a crapload of debt you are carrying. I don't think you actually have done the proper math if you think you can pay that much debt off with a salary of $100k a year just 6 years after residency. In fact it tells me you can't balance a checkbook if your life depended on it.

The naivete shown in your post above is EXACTLY what some of the more "cynical" posters here are warning against. This has nothing to do about "bitching" or SDN being a "toxic waste." If you and others don't get that, you're hopelessly clueless and will have no one to blame in the future but yourself.

And at least two of the posters further above who are all rainbows and unicorns about going into medicine are being a little disingenuous since they're going to Pritzker, which gives a ton of full-ride scholarships, so they're likely in a far different position as you mate and everyone else reading this thread.
Click to expand...

Actually I've been balancing my checkbook just fine since I was in high school (my mom works as a teller) :p. I graduated college debt free (scholarships/etc) paid off my car loans/etc early and tend to be pretty financially responsible overall.

I do appreciate the warning. But what am I missing exactly, 6-7 years of 100K after taxes/etc = 600-700k, which should cover that 400-500k debt. That's not even counting the money I will put towards it during residency. I've lived off very little income before, so most of the money I'd make would go towards the loans. Maybe I'm a n00b and missing something...
 
Lbgem said:
what am I missing exactly, 6-7 years of 100K after taxes/etc = 600-700k, which should cover that 400-500k debt. That's not even counting the money I will put towards it during residency. I've lived off very little income before, so most of the money I'd make would go towards the loans. Maybe I'm a n00b and missing something...
Click to expand...

using your own numbers:

$600k over 6 years applied to $400k of debt leaves you $200k to live off of for the entire 6 years... avg of $33k/yr. I can make that now as a nursing aide.

Do you want to live the lifestyle of a nursing aide into your late-30's (or later, assuming you're somewhat of a non-trad)?




No, seriously. Think about that.

Please avoid any comebacks about the math not being right, because it's clear you haven't figured out precise figures for your debt yet. Regardless, this is something you need to give serious consideration to.
 
AmoryBlaine said:
Senior EM resident here, very happy with my job/life/career.

A few thoughts:

1. Look at the people who are telling you they are unhappy: were they happy in college? Med school? Residency? If you are a negative person then getting a long white coat doesn't magically change that.

2. Med school is hard, residency is hard, being a doc is hard. You know what else is hard? Subsistence farming, working in a sweatshop in Laos, fleeing war zones, or being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery - hundreds of millions of people live like this right now as you sit in your AC'ed living room with your MacBook Pro. Get over yourself.

3. This loan/salary ratio stuff is such BS. You will make plenty of money. The people who cannot manage their loans on an attending salary would not manage their loans if you doubled their salary because they consistently spend more than they make. Understand that for the VAST majority of physicians this "hardship" is the difference between a 2011 BMW vs a 2008 Civic, not some more fundamental issue.

4. I don't know a single person who has had a relationship fail only because of their medical training. I am surrounded by people with happy marriages and lives outside of medicine.

5. If you want to spend your life looking for ways the world is out to get you, you will find them - no matter what career you chose.

6. If you want to use the fact that you work harder than your college friends who became engineers as an excuse to be an a**hole, go right ahead.

7. If you want to delude yourself into thinking that your college friends who now have desk/office jobs are in some nirvana of professional satisfaction, have a beer with them an ask them about it.

8. If you want to view medicine as a job instead of as a career, calling, and privilege you will be miserable.

Sorry for the rant but SDN is such toxic waste as far as these conversations go. Med students reading these forums probably get the idea that medicine is just terrible, nothing could be further from the truth.
Click to expand...

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: I know others have commented on this post, but since this is one of the best post I've read I couldn't go without showing my support! I couldn't find a single point that I didn't agree with!
 
bucks2010 said:
using your own numbers:

$600k over 6 years applied to $400k of debt leaves you $200k to live off of for the entire 6 years... avg of $33k/yr. I can make that now as a nursing aide.

Do you want to live the lifestyle of a nursing aide into your late-30's (or later, assuming you're somewhat of a non-trad)?




No, seriously. Think about that.

Please avoid any comebacks about the math not being right, because it's clear you haven't figured out precise figures for your debt yet. Regardless, this is something you need to give serious consideration to.
Click to expand...

Don't forget that by the time we finish residency we can all expect to be ~30+. I doubt the poster you quoted really wants to wait an additional 6-7 years to start a family/pay for high end hookers. Living off very little is easy when you're young and only taking care of yourself. Sure you can support a family on < $30k, but no one with a choice to do otherwise would. Just more proof that the poster you quoted isn't being realistic.
 
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lrkoehle said:
Don't forget that by the time we finish residency we can all expect to be ~30+. I doubt the poster you quoted really wants to wait an additional 6-7 years to start a family/pay for high end hookers. Living off very little is easy when you're young and only taking care of yourself. Sure you can support a family on < $30k, but no one with a choice to do otherwise would. Just more proof that the poster you quoted isn't being realistic.
Click to expand...

Actually :p that was about the number I figured. I don't want the white picket fence and 2.5 kids. I have had time to figure out what I wanted and medicine was the goal. I love the medical field and like they say if you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life.

Living in Texas at one point, I had a nice place, did things I liked, had money to spare, contributed to my roth IRA, and made about 25k a year.

This is assuming too that you're using a majority of the money for the loan. If I *wanted* to I could spread it out for double that time, and be around 50-60k a year, which is more than plenty for me, as I am not really into the whole high price ..ahem..commodities you suggested.

Thank you for the responses.
 
naus said:
Let me spell it out for you since you seem like the anal type who likes to be right at all times:

People's perceptions of and feelings toward their career may also have a lot to do with their financial circumstances, such as $400k in debt versus $30k in debt. No one is saying that medicine is a God awful wasteland that *everyone* must avoid, but you have to admit that your getting an almost free ride is a little different in outlook than just about everyone else. If you can't admit that, well....
Click to expand...

I'm still going into six figure debt. Not really sure where this idea of a "free ride" comes from.
 
Lbgem said:
Actually I've been balancing my checkbook just fine since I was in high school (my mom works as a teller) :p. I graduated college debt free (scholarships/etc) paid off my car loans/etc early and tend to be pretty financially responsible overall.

I do appreciate the warning. But what am I missing exactly, 6-7 years of 100K after taxes/etc = 600-700k, which should cover that 400-500k debt. That's not even counting the money I will put towards it during residency. I've lived off very little income before, so most of the money I'd make would go towards the loans. Maybe I'm a n00b and missing something...
Click to expand...

Your post unwittingly validated all the naysayers' points in this thread.

You do realize that $500k in student debt at 7% (or 8% for GradPlus) interest rate is about the equivalent of a $1 million home in an upper crust neighborhood at the prevailing 3.5-4% fixed mortgage interest rate? and that you won't start making a dent into the principle until a decade after you signed your promissory notes? Over half of your loans are also private GradPlus loans which carry additional risks to the cosigner as well as bearing higher interest rates.

If that doesn't make you sweat some Texas-sized hail pellets, I don't know what to say.

And do you not plan to get married? Have children? Buy a house in a good school district? Since you've done grad school already, you can' t be that young. Even if you prefer the monastic lifestyle, you can't possibly expect others to feel the same way when they're mid-30s and making the equivalent of a McDonald's assistant manager after paying their monthly loan bills.

Medical school interviews should be required to ask more financial literacy questions. If I were you, I would be praying for QE3, QE4, QE5, etc
 
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