How Being a Doctor Became the Most Miserable Profession

[studentp0x]

I don't know if I'd say it's not what I expected, because I knew what I was getting in to, but I'd say it's just different than I expected. It's harder than I expected, or it affects me more than I was anticipating.

My intention was just to initiate a conversation. It's something I've recently experienced and thought I'd share. When you said you appreciated it, I was wondering why. Maybe your parent is a physician and you found it to be interesting. I don't know. I enjoy it when people find my opinion interesting, so I thought I'd try to find out why you felt that way.

Wasn't trying to really dig in to your personal life or anything. I just felt it was a perspective maybe some future parents would like to hear so when the time comes they might know what to expect.

so what would you rather do?

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[EngineerPreMD]

Well, I think you have a good point. Like I mentioned up there with my friend and his dad, his dad's net influence on his son was largely positive. We'll provide so much for our kids through our jobs, ultimately it's a huge net positive for our family, kids, etc... assuming it doesn't lead to a divorce. My huge complaints are personal sacrifice. Like I said, my kid won't know I missed her first steps, but I'll remember. If I miss her first steps but can afford to raise her comfortably, give her a good education, make her future financially stable, is it worth my misery? Probably so.

A large reason I went in to medicine was to give my kids a better future. They'll have that, but it's going to cost me some of my sanity to do so. I'm sure it's overall worth it, but it does suck in the meantime. I do think that other specialties may offer less sacrifice during residency than surgical specialties.

Okay, so what's the alternative then if not medicine? Look at the other jobs doctors might have considered. Finance offers similar compensation, but the hours are similarly insane, and the competition and lifestyle are unbelievable. I know friends who went into finance, and they jump through hoops I didn't even know existed. How about professorship? 1-2 years working after undergrad, 6 years grad school working ~80 hrs/week (accurate in engineering, don't know the others), 2-3 years post-doc making very little money, if you're lucky get a tenure track position after that and spend the next 6-7 years working your ass off for career awards/grants/high impact papers and making probably less than 80K. If you're even luckier you get tenure and you're set, but most don't get to that stage, and the financial payout isn't half of what it is in medicine. Okay then law? Look at the job market, it's half of why malpractice suits are so prevalent.

So what is a good job really? I've seen that two career fields really lend themselves to financial stability and a relaxed life, engineering and business, and it still depends on the job. For most people going into medicine, neither of those careers provides the stimulation or the mental/emotional satisfaction they are looking for in a career, and neither guarantees the financial success/stability of medicine. I think if you're going into a high payout/high satisfaction career, you pay in other ways no matter which way you go. It's a choose two: free time, high pay, high satisfaction, and the high pay/free time options are generally a much lower variety of high pay. Of course every once in a while someone carves a path out for themselves to get all three, but that seems to require some luck.

I hear you though. I don't have kids, but my dad was a doctor, and I didn't see much of him in the beginning. I've never once been angry that he was out working while someone else was coaching little league. I've gotten to know him so much better as an adult anyway, and I don't feel like I missed out on anything. I was really only ever proud that he was doing something more meaningful with his life. I only grew up one way, so I don't have perspective on everything, but I honestly think I'm a better person having looked up to a doctor rather than a business man or a finance manager like some of my friends. Maybe you can take solace in that, but I get that from your end it sucks.

 

[armybound]

so what would you rather do?

I'd rather be a retired billionaire who just travels and spends time at home.

Okay, so what's the alternative then if not medicine? Look at the other jobs doctors might have considered. Finance offers similar compensation, but the hours are similarly insane, and the competition and lifestyle are unbelievable. I know friends who went into finance, and they jump through hoops I didn't even know existed. How about professorship? 1-2 years working after undergrad, 6 years grad school working ~80 hrs/week (accurate in engineering, don't know the others), 2-3 years post-doc making very little money, if you're lucky get a tenure track position after that and spend the next 6-7 years working your ass off for career awards/grants/high impact papers and making probably less than 80K. If you're even luckier you get tenure and you're set, but most don't get to that stage, and the financial payout isn't half of what it is in medicine. Okay then law? Look at the job market, it's half of why malpractice suits are so prevalent.

So what is a good job really? I've seen that two career fields really lend themselves to financial stability and a relaxed life, engineering and business, and it still depends on the job. For most people going into medicine, neither of those careers provides the stimulation or the mental/emotional satisfaction they are looking for in a career, and neither guarantees the financial success/stability of medicine. I think if you're going into a high payout/high satisfaction career, you pay in other ways no matter which way you go. It's a choose two: free time, high pay, high satisfaction, and the high pay/free time options are generally a much lower variety of high pay. Of course every once in a while someone carves a path out for themselves to get all three, but that seems to require some luck.

I hear you though. I don't have kids, but my dad was a doctor, and I didn't see much of him in the beginning. I've never once been angry that he was out working while someone else was coaching little league. I've gotten to know him so much better as an adult anyway, and I don't feel like I missed out on anything. I was really only ever proud that he was doing something more meaningful with his life. I only grew up one way, so I don't have perspective on everything, but I honestly think I'm a better person having looked up to a doctor rather than a business man or a finance manager like some of my friends. Maybe you can take solace in that, but I get that from your end it sucks.

I love being a doctor. I say pursue medicine if you understand the sacrifices and want to proceed anyway. I just think people should really understand the sacrifices and see how it can personally affect you. When you're a 20 year old girl you might not care too much if you're 30 and single and won't possibly have kids until you're 35... but when you're 30 and single and your biological clock is ticking, it's going to really suck. You might wonder why you did this to yourself, because there's no going back and undoing it. You may have missed your chance to have kids for good, and $300,000/year might not bring you that happiness in life.

I think sometimes people focus on the career and forget about their life. You'll progress through undergrad, med school, residency, etc and that will all go well. But you also need to live life, and medicine can be very disruptive to that goal. It's about priorities, I guess.

FWIW my wife is a professor and her job is pretty awesome. I mean it's high stress because productivity is so important, but her hours are very lax, she gets paid well, and she had no debt. Her PhD is more computer sciencey, so obviously different from a hard science.

edit: this is also where all of those "If you could see yourself doing anything else, don't go in to medicine.." comments come from

 

[EngineerPreMD]

I'd rather be a retired billionaire who just travels and spends time at home.


I love being a doctor. I say pursue medicine if you understand the sacrifices and want to proceed anyway. I just think people should really understand the sacrifices and see how it can personally affect you. When you're a 20 year old girl you might not care too much if you're 30 and single and won't possibly have kids until you're 35... but when you're 30 and single and your biological clock is ticking, it's going to really suck. You might wonder why you did this to yourself, because there's no going back and undoing it. You may have missed your chance to have kids for good, and $300,000/year might not bring you that happiness in life.

I think sometimes people focus on the career and forget about their life. You'll progress through undergrad, med school, residency, etc and that will all go well. But you also need to live life, and medicine can be very disruptive to that goal. It's about priorities, I guess.

FWIW my wife is a professor and her job is pretty awesome. I mean it's high stress because productivity is so important, but her hours are very lax, she gets paid well, and she had no debt. Her PhD is more computer sciencey, so obviously different from a hard science.

Well congrats to your wife! Comp sci. is the way to go. I had a job writing some software for a wave analysis program for a while, but I was never able to really get into coding for 8 hours a day though. I've heard it's far more lax and overall pretty decent in the academic world since there are so many good/prestigious options out in industry right now. I share an office with a post-doc and his wife is in comp sci. She came over from India, got a PhD in the US, and went to work in industry. She was actually recruited for professorships, but turned them down for a very cushy salary in industry. Meanwhile this poor post-doc sits in his chair analyzing data for 70+ hours a week in biophysics hoping for good papers. Definitely depends on the field, also the person (his wife is apparently a total comp sci. BAMF from IIT).

 

[DermViser]

Just spitballing here, but I think one of the reasons that medicine is appealing to a lot of students is because it's a fairly linear pathway. Do well in college, get into medical school, and graduate with a job waiting for you.

Sorry, but this is no longer a valid statement. Just ask the significant number of those who went unmatched.

 

[DermViser]

There's no doubt about it, medicine has fantastic perks. I was talking to a classmate once about how few job fields there are out there that practically guarantee a job, and could guarantee $200k (obviously depending on the specialty). There are so many specialties where that income is easily reached. How many other careers can promise that kind of financial security?

There are some huge benefits to being a physician, don't get me wrong. There are some sacrifices that come with it, too. I know we all "know" about those sacrifices, but I'll tell you, when you're in the middle of experiencing them it really, really sucks.

Yes, but you're leaving out the HUGE HUGE financial investment and in years for that so-called "guaranteed" $200K, which honestly is not guaranteed due to reimbursements being ratcheted down.

 

[DermViser]

Not even done with training, absolutely no experience as to what being an attending physician is like, and telling everyone not to become one anyway.

ok sure bae, keep trotting

You are quite the fool for thinking you know it all, as a premed.

 

[smq123]

The tone of the article is definitely based on being an attending and not a resident. To be honest, I've seen several articles like this that bemoan life as a physician, and I tend to think they're whiny and stupid. Medicine really is a fantastic career.. I hope no one reads my comments and thinks that I hate my career and think nobody should go in to it. All I'm saying is that I give a healthy warning that it's not for everyone.

I'll moan to non-medical friends about my work hours, but to be honest, they're not that bad. It's just a cheap shot for sympathy. I feel like this article and many others I've read are the same way. OMG the plight of the physician... really isn't that bad. Yeah, paperwork and all of that sucks. Not getting to spend time with your patients really, really sucks. Declining reimbursement, government mandates, etc all suck. But at the end of the day, I don't think anyone should feel sorry for us for being a physician. We're damn lucky to get to do what we do.

I agree with you that there are many who don't mind their role as residents and the sacrifices we make. I think a lot has to do with priorities and our place in life. A single guy who lives to operate will have a different perspective on a 14 hour day than me, who would love to go home and see his wife and kid. Also note that as a general surgery intern, I'm not doing urology, so I'm less happy than I would be if I was in my chosen specialty. Ask any radiology resident how they enjoyed their internal medicine internship and they'll probably tell you they hated it. Ask an internal medicine categorical the same and they probably wouldn't mind as much.

Is it possible to still have a life? Absolutely. Friends of mine (who post here) still enjoy life to the fullest. One general surgery resident looks like she's having a great time, going out with her boyfriend, going on vacations, etc. I definitely didn't put my life on hold for medical school or residency. It's just a little harder to do, both with your time and lack of money.

I think you're misunderstanding the article. And that's ok, I would have misunderstood it as a resident, too.

The lack of free time, missing out on family moments, etc. - meh. Yes, it sucks, but (to an extent) you get used to it. And you would miss out on a lot of family moments no matter what kind of job you worked. That's certainly not unique to medicine.

The work hours are also a meh. That gets better (usually) once you're done residency. The money does, too.

The hardest transition for me, from med student to attending, was realizing just how little you matter, even as a physician, particularly if you work for a large corporation, or if you work in a non-physician owned practice. They value you for the income you generate, but any MD with the same credentials and similar work ethic would generate the same amount of income. You, as an individual, do not matter. What that means is that the second you become a liability (a VIP complains about you, because you didn't kiss their ass enough, a bad patient outcome that you couldn't avoid happens), they'll drop you like a hot rock. I know a lot of physicians who have been told, to their faces, by hospital administration, that they are expendible and easily replaceable.

The insurance companies don't care who you are as a physician either. Your clinical experience means nothing to them - you're another faceless MD/DO who ordered another expensive test for another faceless patient that this insurance company does not want to pay for.

Finally, a lot of the patients don't care either. You could be Dr. Armybound, Dr. Navybound, Dr. Whatever-bound. They value you for what you do for them, and many patients will only see you as a vending machine - tell it what you want, and out it comes. When you balk, they will get angry. Not all patients are like this, of course, but there are quite a few who do not care who you are as a person. I was taken aback by how many patients got angry that I had the audacity to *gasp* go on vacation, because it "inconvenienced them." Because I was gone, they couldn't get their disability forms, or their meds as fast as usual, or their lab results, and they took it as a personal affront that I took some time off.

Maybe I was too idealistic for too long? I don't know. I still think that the article exaggerates a lot, and I'm not miserable in my job. But, I would encourage people to go to med school only if they understood what kind of conditions they should look for in a job once they finish their training.

So it's not what you expected? That's kind of the reality of everything.
I wonder if these same doctors unhappy in medicine would be happier commuting an hour to a useless 9-5 office making 50k/year.

I might be happier, actually. Because at least I'd know that it was a useless job, and there wouldn't be this pretense that you, as a person, matter - when you actually don't. Plus, I could leave AT FIVE, instead of having 1-2 hours of paperwork to finish up that has to be done.

 

[DermViser]

So wait. Things get cynical during the journey to medical career? All that altruism (I would rather work for free than at a minimum wage, I'd be happy to get paid at minimum wage as a physician etc.), love, cooperation, "Zero to Mother Theresa" work (a la @Planes2Doc) during undergrad to pursue the honorable career of medicine was a lie? Reality shattered

Yeah, funny how that all disappears when student loan repayments come a knockin'. The smart ones keep quiet about their true feelings. The dumb ones stand on their soapbox, and lecture to the rest of us, and become AMSA President.

 

[DermViser]

The hardest transition for me, from med student to attending, was realizing just how little you matter, even as a physician, particularly if you work for a large corporation, or if you work in a non-physician owned practice. They value you for the income you generate, but any MD with the same credentials and similar work ethic would generate the same amount of income. You, as an individual, do not matter. What that means is that the second you become a liability (a VIP complains about you, because you didn't kiss their ass enough, a bad patient outcome that you couldn't avoid happens), they'll drop you like a hot rock. I know a lot of physicians who have been told, to their faces, by hospital administration, that they are expendible and easily replaceable.

The insurance companies don't care who you are as a physician either. Your clinical experience means nothing to them - you're another faceless MD/DO who ordered another expensive test for another faceless patient that this insurance company does not want to pay for.

Finally, a lot of the patients don't care either. You could be Dr. Armybound, Dr. Navybound, Dr. Whatever-bound. They value you for what you do for them, and many patients will only see you as a vending machine - tell it what you want, and out it comes. When you balk, they will get angry. Not all patients are like this, of course, but there are quite a few who do not care who you are as a person. I was taken aback by how many patients got angry that I had the audacity to *gasp* go on vacation, because it "inconvenienced them." Because I was gone, they couldn't get their disability forms, or their meds as fast as usual, or their lab results, and they took it as a personal affront that I took some time off.

Maybe I was too idealistic for too long? I don't know. I still think that the article exaggerates a lot, and I'm not miserable in my job. But, I would encourage people to go to med school only if they understood what kind of conditions they should look for in a job once they finish their training. I might be happier, actually. Because at least I'd know that it was a useless job, and there wouldn't be this pretense that you, as a person, matter - when you actually don't. Plus, I could leave AT FIVE, instead of having 1-2 hours of paperwork to finish up that has to be done.

^^^^THIS.

 

[DermViser]

Are there even any successful pre-meds who think anything like this? I swear the only pre-meds who think like this are the ones with terrible grades and basically 0 chance of ever getting in. The successful ones are WAY less idealistic and put a strong value on potential income.

 

[DermViser]

You also have to realize that your traditional premed (esp. your typical SDN premed) also are imagining themselves practicing medicine in the specialty that they desire (if it's an SDNer, 9 times out of 10 it's a competitive, possibly lifestyle specialty). Hence the purely idealistic, and complete dissonance with reality. These same idiots believe that physicians are at the very top of the healthcare hierarchy. That has not been the case for decades.

Success up to this point has always been getting a specific grade or test score. Students figure, hey, I'm good at and like science, why not go to med school, right?

If you look at the medical extracurriculars by premeds it almost NEVER is to gain an appreciation for the realities of how medicine is like and practiced in this era. It is almost always to rack up notches on a gun belt. Wanting to be in medicine is the accepted premise. Now it's time to build up an application and it's a means to an end: med school admissions. Even those who do volunteering with primary care fields, do so specifically for the purpose of looking good for medical school admissions committees, bc they feel like they can pander to a mission statement.

I think of medical education as someone who constantly pinches you and each time he pinches, asks you "Can you handle it? Do you want to continue?" At which time you can answer "Yes" or "No". Each step of the way: preclinical, USMLE Step 1, clinicals, USMLE Step 2 CK/CS, ERAS match (and if you have to scramble), internship, residency, the pinches keep increase in frequency and intensity. The problem is the further you go in, the more realistically, you can't dig yourself back out.

 

[DermViser]

So much naivety in this thread. I can understand why pre-meds think being a doctor is a great profession that people shouldn't be unhappy in, but I'm a little blown away by the pre-meds who think they know so much more about medicine than the med students, residents, and attendings in this thread that they are trying to contradict what is being said.

That's bc they are so much smarter than the rest of us, bc their 4.0 GPA and stellar MCAT score tells them so. Many of them haven't held REAL full-time jobs.

Heck, they're even some medical students, who continue to believe that they know more than people with more experience:
http://news.yahoo.com/biggest-medical-student-group-leader-cheerleads-obamacare-while-052234883.html

In an interview with The Daily Caller, the president of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) praised President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul, denying that it is a “political” issue and insisting that medical students are better equipped to determine the best course for U.S. health care than seasoned but less idealistic physicians.

“Physicians-in-training have an unsoiled perspective on the health care system,” Liz Wiley, a fourth-year medical student at George Washington University, said. "[W]hile we may not have a wealth of experience, we have a commitment to patients that is unencumbered by competing financial interests or relationships with industry.”

 

[DermViser]

So is the answer to market cocaine, meth, extazy to doctors? Then they are high and happy... and have money/houses/cars. win win!

 

[mcloaf]

Yet you take it upon yourself to quote me and use emoticons in response in this thread. I'm truly touched how often you quote me at least then.

I do not understand why you're so compelled to disagree with me, and then regurgitate my own points back at me like I was disagreeing with myself. I really don't. Look, stop while you're ahead.

Now, you're going to say that your "trying to sound impressive" statement is not an ad hominem, but speaks to something about my point? Explain to me how that is relevant to any point. Just because you don't like being called out doesn't make your attacks any less of that: a copout to my points.

I'm not going to touch your straw man fallacy about people driving to work in ferraris and mansions since I said doctors are in the 1%, not EVERYONE, but whatever. There's too much past that to talk about. I mean, geez, seriously, man, just... WHY?! Who said to walk away from everything in their life?! I DARE YOU, NAY, CHALLENGE YOU TO QUOTE ME where I say to walk away from everything. Hell, not even in this thread, ANY THREAD. Go nuts. This is the definition of a straw man. You don't like that people have seen these illogical points before and given them a name, but their purpose is more to have useful conversation. We cut the BS and talk.

I mean, I get it, you really can't argue against my points because you're going to use them to break down your own straw men (so you probably shouldn't call them drivel, lol), but.... like, c'mon, at least try to put a mask on and pretend they are original statements.

So, I'm willing to forgive this outburst and have a civil conversation. The only valid point you brought up was that residents and attendings make five figures while having a six figure debt. This means they are foregoing current comforts for better positions in the future. I have worked closely with MDs who went straight into pharmaceutical business out of med school and started with six figures. Some are making seven figures now. There are other options, other possibilities to make a manageable salary inside of medicine while no longer practicing. And these are just the instances within medicine. If the money truly was not worth the "suffering," you have outs.

It's like talking to a wall.

 

[stems]

This articles not about being Doctor, It's about being a primary care practioner. And yes being a PCP is a miserable profession, but being a specialist isn't. It's the same in other countries as well. That's why it's harder to get into good specialties than IM or FM.

 

[stems]

That's bc they are so much smarter than the rest of us, bc their GPA and MCAT score tells them so. Many of them haven't held REAL full-time jobs.

Heck, they're even some medical students, who continue to believe that they know more than people with more experience:
http://news.yahoo.com/biggest-medical-student-group-leader-cheerleads-obamacare-while-052234883.html

In an interview with The Daily Caller, the president of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) praised President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul, denying that it is a “political” issue and insisting that medical students are better equipped to determine the best course for U.S. health care than seasoned but less idealistic physicians.

“Physicians-in-training have an unsoiled perspective on the health care system,” Liz Wiley, a fourth-year medical student at George Washington University, said. "[W]hile we may not have a wealth of experience, we have a commitment to patients that is unencumbered by competing financial interests or relationships with industry.”

It baffles me when medstudents think they know more about the profession they've barely set foot in. And yes we all know that politicians know who understands US healthcare best.

 

[DermViser]

It's truly a thankless and underpaid profession simply because they don't have any other experience to compare it to. They start out with six figure salaries, so they don't know what it is like to make ends meet with five figures. And it's different than if you are doing a dead-end job before going to medical school or while in college, because there's no pot of gold at the end of those rainbows.

No. The number of educational years required: 4 years of college (but that's for everyone) + 4 years of medical school + 3-7 years of residency PLUS the economic sacrifice (both in medical school tuition with accruing interest AND years of no salary) PLUS actual clinical practice of medicine, is what makes the profession (as a whole) thankless and underpaid.

 

[stems]

That's bc they are so much smarter than the rest of us, bc their 4.0 GPA and stellar MCAT score tells them so. Many of them haven't held REAL full-time jobs.

Heck, they're even some medical students, who continue to believe that they know more than people with more experience:
http://news.yahoo.com/biggest-medical-student-group-leader-cheerleads-obamacare-while-052234883.html

In an interview with The Daily Caller, the president of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) praised President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul, denying that it is a “political” issue and insisting that medical students are better equipped to determine the best course for U.S. health care than seasoned but less idealistic physicians.

“Physicians-in-training have an unsoiled perspective on the health care system,” Liz Wiley, a fourth-year medical student at George Washington University, said. "[W]hile we may not have a wealth of experience, we have a commitment to patients that is unencumbered by competing financial interests or relationships with industry.”

By the way, a medical student is not a Physician-in-training, that's a resident. If you go around telling people you're a Physician-in-training, when in fact you're a medical student, you're lying and you can get into trouble with the hospital, is Liz Wiley spreading lies to the patients she sees?

 

[type12]

It's like talking to a wall.

I feel ya. Challenge still stands. Quote me and show me, or can you not do it? Harmless request, lol. But seems like it can't be done because I'm right.

Who said to walk away from everything in their life?! I DARE YOU, NAY, CHALLENGE YOU TO QUOTE ME where I say to walk away from everything. Hell, not even in this thread, ANY THREAD. Go nuts. This is the definition of a straw man.

*drops the mic, walks away*

EDIT: Oh, have to point this out: your talking to the wall reply = ad hominem! The more you know!

 

[DermViser]

When you read all these posts, I urge everyone to remember: there's NOTHING stopping you from walking away at ANY point in time. Oh, loans? That thing almost EVERYONE has if they went to college? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_fallacy

So no matter what excuse they "don't recommend," remember, they are basically acting as hypocrites.

I am not referring to anyone who is just saying "Know what you are getting into," but those people who time and time again say, "I wouldn't do it if I could do it again." And I'm not talking about anyone specific in this thread, just a common phrase I've seen thrown about.

Yeah, except there is a huge difference between undergraduate loan costs (take your state flagship school) and medical school student loans (which are in the six figures), genius.

 

[type12]

Yeah, except there is a huge difference between undergraduate loan costs (take your state flagship school) and medical school student loans (which are in the six figures), genius.

See my subsequent posts where I address this, wise one. Not sure why you are cherry picking old posts, but you should see what was said afterwards.

 

[DermViser]

I will admit I am not a physician. I work as a healthcare consultant in NYC. I just got finished with work at midnight tonight and I regularly work until 1 am multiple times a week (plus 3 out of 4 weekends a month). Guess how much I get paid? A crappy $80k. And I'm incredibly lucky. Most people will work their entire lives and not make as much as I make in my first job out of college.

If you think $80K is crappy, you are nuts and deluded, esp. with your quite low level of education credential for that job. As a resident, you will be paid $40K for much more ridiculous hours, and depending on the specialty you are qualified to match for, you will be working a ridiculous amount of hours for the rest of your life.

 

[DermViser]

By the way, a medical student is not a Physician-in-training, that's a resident. If you go around telling people you're a Physician-in-training, when in fact you're a medical student, you're lying and you can get into trouble with the hospital, is Liz Wiley spreading lies to the patients she sees?

Tell that to these people: http://www.doctorsintraining.com/

 

[DermViser]

I think it tells you a lot when @NickNaylor, even with his full medical school tuition scholarship, from a top notch medical school says this.

 

[smq123]

This articles not about being Doctor, It's about being a primary care practioner. And yes being a PCP is a miserable profession, but being a specialist isn't. It's the same in other countries as well. That's why it's harder to get into good specialties than IM or FM.

All physicians who deal with insurance companies deal with paperwork. One of my friends is in ENT. She bemoaned on Facebook that she spent an hour on the phone with an insurance company to get an operation for her patient approved. My sister is a pulmonologist who hates prior authorizations as much as I do. The best tips I ever got on how to blast through insurance paperwork came from a cardiologist and an endocrinologist.

So, no, it's not just primary care.

 

[mcloaf]

Yeah, except there is a huge difference between undergraduate loan costs (take your state flagship school) and medical school student loans (which are in the six figures), genius.

Don't waste your time.

 

[DermViser]

Don't waste your time.

Yeah, I figured. Trying to explain the math to @type12 , is like talking to a . Probably difficult bc as he states, he gets "panic attacks and sudden pangs of anxiety", so to explain the realities of medicine, something he's working towards, would be morale crushing and spur more "panic attacks and sudden pangs of anxiety".

 

[type12]

Yeah, I figured. Trying to explain the math to @type12 , is like talking to a

Hey DermViser, I know my arguments are as sound as a rock, but I invite you go ahead and push them down instead of me. C'mon, let's have a civil discussion instead of you dismissing me as an uninformed premed, and me dismissing you as an uneducated in financial matters or common economic sense. I'm aware of people with 4.7% mortgages that are in the middle six figures, make 80k, and manage to still make ends meet.

Can you show me the math that makes paying off student loans so incredibly crippling? I've done it one too many times. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong and you are doing it right.

 

[DermViser]

Hey DermViser, I know my arguments are as sound as a rock, but I invite you go ahead and push them down instead of me. C'mon, let's have a civil discussion instead of you dismissing me as an uninformed premed, and me dismissing you as an uneducated in financial matters or common economic sense. I'm aware of people with 4.7% mortgages that are in the middle six figures, make 80k, and manage to still make ends meet.

Can you show me the math that makes paying off student loans so incredibly crippling? I've done it one too many times. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong and you are doing it right.

Do you not understand the magnitude of difference in amount between tuition in undergrad vs. amount of tuition in medical school? Seriously?

 

[type12]

Do you not understand the magnitude of difference in amount between tuition in undergrad vs. amount of tuition in medical school? Seriously?

I do. 6.7% interest rate on a 200k loan? 40-60k salary for resident, followed by six figure salary $178k. I did the math, and it's actually in your best interest to keep the loan as possible and put your extra money in investments.

Like I said, please show me what is so crippling about this. My maths may be bad, and you are a medical student so you know better.

See? I'm not a wall, I want a civil discussion with actual examples.

 

[DermViser]

I do. 6.7% interest rate on a 200k loan? 40-60k salary for resident, followed by six figure salary $178k. I did the math, and it's actually in your best interest to keep the loan as possible and put your extra money in investments.

Like I said, please show me what is so crippling about this. My maths may be bad, and you are a medical student so you know better.

See? I'm not a wall, I want a civil discussion with actual examples.

I'm not a medical student. I'm a resident. You are a fool if you think residents are paid 60K. I also think you're overshooting with a 178K, not to mention that you won't be JUST paying off tuition at that time in your life. You also won't be FULLY covered with federal loans alone to pay tuition. You will have other responsibilities.

 

[NontradCA]

 

[NickNaylor]

I want to address the point Whipple brought up regarding the hierarchy of medicine because I think it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of the structure and why it's there. You're also doing nothing more than parroting stereotypes and generalities while failing to consider alternatives for why this structure exists.

As I mentioned before, medicine is hugely experiential. You can prove this to yourself by giving a group of MS2s that just finished step 1 - ie, at the peak of their preclinical knowledge - a patient with a common disease and see what they come up with. There is a huge difference between intellectual understanding of a disease and clinical acumen sufficient enough to correctly recognize and diagnose a disease process. This is because you must develop experience. You might learn about a bunch of physical exam findings in your school's clinical skills course, but I would challenge ANY MS2 who has little clinical experience to successfully identify even the the most basic of these physical exam findings. After you've seen the same thing 5-10 times you start to be able to predict how a particular patient will progress based on your prior experience with the disease. You begin to recognize the key points that allow you to differentiate among diseases that present very similarly. Your physical exam becomes more useful and accurate - you can begin to qualify exam findings by severity and things that were once ambiguous become more clear. You begin to recognize what kinds of pieces of information are actually relevant to a patient's care and what isn't.

As you might expect, both the blessing and the curse of being a newbie clinician - and I'm absolutely not excluding myself from this group - is that anything is possible and everything is important. This makes it next to impossible to actually isolate, interpret, and act on the 100 pieces of clinical information you get about each patient every time you walk in the door. And that's ok - because that's just how the training process works. There's no going around it. That's how we as future physicians learn the trade.

I say all this to hopefully make an argument for why the hierarchy is both necessary and relevant. You seem to be mistaking people just being dicks, hierarchy or no, with the medical hierarchy. The hierarchy exists exactly because those more senior than you have seen orders of magnitude more patients than you. Their physical exam skills, diagnostic skills, and clinical judgment are that much more developed as a result. So yes, it's absolutely ridiculous to suggest that it is even remotely appropriate for someone of lower "rank" to question the clinical judgment of someone of higher "rank." You have some real balls, ego, and/or stupidity to, as the medical student who has been on the service for all of 2 weeks, to do anything but accept on faith what the residents who have been doing this for years and attendings for decades tell you. In doing so, you would essentially be arguing that the 5 cases of X that you've seen are equal to or superior than the 800 cases (literally) of X the resident or attending has seen. I hope you can see the absurdity of that.

The same principle applies to the experience of going through training. Your own post makes that abundantly clear - you don't have the perspective to even consider this as a possibility and, instead, fit your inaccurate and hyperbolic assessment of the situation to reinforce your own bias. I don't say those things to insult you. I don't think you're stupid or otherwise incompetent. It's a simple matter of experience. Much like you can't study your way to being an attending, you can't read your way to experiencing medical training. None of this is to say that senior clinicians don't mistakes. They do. This also doesn't mean that the hierarchy doesn't have negative aspects of it. It does. But I think your understanding of it is poorly founded.

I think this is such a hot-button issue because future medical students balk at the proposition that there is no way to understand or otherwise learn about something other than doing it. Unfortunately, this will only make things more difficult as you progress through training. The sooner you suppress your own ego and accept that you just might be able to learn something from people who definitively know more than you - full stop - the more you'll be able to gain during your training.

I could expand on this further, but after being in the hospital all night my patience with this damn iOS keyboard is shot.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[DermViser]

I want to address the point Whipple brought up regarding the hierarchy of medicine because I think it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of the structure and why it's there. You're also doing nothing more than parroting stereotypes and generalities while failing to consider alternatives for why this structure exists.

As I mentioned before, medicine is hugely experiential. You can prove this to yourself by giving a group of MS2s that just finished step 1 - ie, at the peak of their preclinical knowledge - a patient with a common disease and see what they come up with. There is a huge difference between intellectual understanding of a disease and clinical acumen sufficient enough to correctly recognize and diagnose a disease process. This is because you must develop experience. You might learn about a bunch of physical exam findings in your school's clinical skills course, but I would challenge ANY MS2 who has little clinical experience to successfully identify even the the most basic of these physical exam findings. After you've seen the same thing 5-10 times you start to be able to predict how a particular patient will progress based on your prior experience with the disease. You begin to recognize the key points that allow you to differentiate among diseases that present very similarly. Your physical exam becomes more useful and accurate - you can begin to qualify exam findings by severity and things that were once ambiguous become more clear. You begin to recognize what kinds of pieces of information are actually relevant to a patient's care and what isn't.

As you might expect, both the blessing and the curse of being a newbie clinician - and I'm absolutely not excluding myself from this group - is that anything is possible and everything is important. This makes it next to impossible to actually isolate, interpret, and act on the 100 pieces of clinical information you get about each patient every time you walk in the door. And that's ok - because that's just how the training process works. There's no going around it. That's how we as future physicians learn the trade.

I say all this to hopefully make an argument for why the hierarchy is both necessary and relevant. You seem to be mistaking people just being dicks, hierarchy or no, with the medical hierarchy. The hierarchy exists exactly because those more senior than you have seen orders of magnitude more patients than you. Their physical exam skills, diagnostic skills, and clinical judgment are that much more developed as a result. So yes, it's absolutely ridiculous to suggest that it is even remotely appropriate for someone of lower "rank" to question the clinical judgment of someone of higher "rank." You have some real balls, ego, and/or stupidity to, as the medical student who has been on the service for all of 2 weeks, to do anything but accept on faith what the residents who have been doing this for years and attendings for decades tell you. In doing so, you would essentially be arguing that the 5 cases of X that you've seen are equal to or superior than the 800 cases (literally) of X the resident or attending has seen. I hope you can see the absurdity of that.

The same principle applies to the experience of going through training. Your own post makes that abundantly clear - you don't have the perspective to even consider this as a possibility and, instead, fit your inaccurate and hyperbolic assessment of the situation to reinforce your own bias. I don't say those things to insult you. I don't think you're stupid or otherwise incompetent. It's a simple matter of experience. Much like you can't study your way to being an attending, you can't read your way to experiencing medical training. None of this is to say that senior clinicians don't mistakes. They do. This also doesn't mean that the hierarchy doesn't have negative aspects of it. It does. But I think your understanding of it is poorly founded.

I think this is such a hot-button issue because future medical students balk at the proposition that there is no way to understand or otherwise learn about something other than doing it. Unfortunately, this will only make things more difficult as you progress through training. The sooner you suppress your own ego and accept that you just might be able to learn something from people who definitively know more than you - full stop - the more you'll be able to gain during your training.

I could expand on this further, but after being in the hospital all night my patience with this damn iOS keyboard is shot.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Part of the problem with medical education is that it tries to discretely segment something that by definition is not segmentable: Medicine.

Even in basic sciences, we've gone from traditional basic science subjects to organ systems to try to integrate knowledge even though in reality many of the organ systems cross eachother. Yet, still MS-1/MS-2 has remained throwing spaghetti at a wall and see what sticks. Basic science is heavily taught, without the clinical side being presented side by side. This is usually bc basic science is taught by PhDs who have no clinical experience whatsoever (on the flip side of the coin, MDs know the clinical side but many times have long forgotten the factoid basic science or don't care.)

Some students are able to excel at the skills needed to succeed in MS-1 and MS-2 but absolutely flounder on rotations in MS-3, which requires a completely different set of skills, many of which are "hidden". Throw in a little sleep deprivation, crabby residents & not-so-happy attendings who judge your competence based on quick snapshots of you. What's even worse, I think is that the theme of "professionalism" is thrown on students, when many times, it's their residents/faculty who need the lessons taught to them.

An example of the faulty things that are taught are the medical school clinical skills course, in which students practice their physical exam skills on standardized patients, but can't compare this to patients with disease. By the time they do get to the latter, the memory imprint of doing the former has been long past. Before you know it, MS-3 is gone in a flurry, when medical students have become reduced to being spectators, and then all of a sudden when they get to intern year, we're surprised that they haven't really learned anything of value on the hospital wards.

 

[type12]

I'm not a medical student. I'm a resident. You are a fool if you think residents are paid 60K. I also think you're overshooting with a 178K, not to mention that you won't be JUST paying off tuition at that time in your life. You also won't be FULLY covered with federal loans alone to pay tuition. You will have other responsibilities.

Wow, and then I'm the wall? Okay, show me my numbers are wrong. Instead of just calling me names, why not show me where you're getting your numbers from, and unfortunately anecdotal sources won't cover it.

I'm sorry to say that if all you're going to do is disagree with me, the burden of proof is on you.
Here's a few sources I could find:
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/medical-resident-salary-SRCH_KO0,16.htm
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/emergencymedicine/residency/benefits/
https://www.aamc.org/download/359792/data/2013stipendsurveyreportfinal.pdf

I mean, the MEAN starts at 50k, and that's for 1st year only.

So, instead of just cowering behind name calling, show me SOMETHING. Otherwise you'd be a coward to just dismiss this lowly premed. Put this inferior fool in his place. Don't be like the other guy, who can't address the points so resorts to name calling. Here's something we can both discuss with civility. C'mon, let's do this.

Are you a doctor, or are you an @-hole? Where's the kind, caring humanness? No arrogant, dismissive pride please. Elucidate me, I'm asking for it. <-- See? Name calling is just offensive and unproductive. It doesn't further the conversation whatsoever, just gets in the way. Let's do numbers together. Show me my erroneous ways.

 

[Straw Hat]

I think you're misunderstanding the article. And that's ok, I would have misunderstood it as a resident, too.

The lack of free time, missing out on family moments, etc. - meh. Yes, it sucks, but (to an extent) you get used to it. And you would miss out on a lot of family moments no matter what kind of job you worked. That's certainly not unique to medicine.

The work hours are also a meh. That gets better (usually) once you're done residency. The money does, too.

The hardest transition for me, from med student to attending, was realizing just how little you matter, even as a physician, particularly if you work for a large corporation, or if you work in a non-physician owned practice. They value you for the income you generate, but any MD with the same credentials and similar work ethic would generate the same amount of income. You, as an individual, do not matter. What that means is that the second you become a liability (a VIP complains about you, because you didn't kiss their ass enough, a bad patient outcome that you couldn't avoid happens), they'll drop you like a hot rock. I know a lot of physicians who have been told, to their faces, by hospital administration, that they are expendible and easily replaceable.

The insurance companies don't care who you are as a physician either. Your clinical experience means nothing to them - you're another faceless MD/DO who ordered another expensive test for another faceless patient that this insurance company does not want to pay for.

Finally, a lot of the patients don't care either. You could be Dr. Armybound, Dr. Navybound, Dr. Whatever-bound. They value you for what you do for them, and many patients will only see you as a vending machine - tell it what you want, and out it comes. When you balk, they will get angry. Not all patients are like this, of course, but there are quite a few who do not care who you are as a person. I was taken aback by how many patients got angry that I had the audacity to *gasp* go on vacation, because it "inconvenienced them." Because I was gone, they couldn't get their disability forms, or their meds as fast as usual, or their lab results, and they took it as a personal affront that I took some time off.

Maybe I was too idealistic for too long? I don't know. I still think that the article exaggerates a lot, and I'm not miserable in my job. But, I would encourage people to go to med school only if they understood what kind of conditions they should look for in a job once they finish their training.



I might be happier, actually. Because at least I'd know that it was a useless job, and there wouldn't be this pretense that you, as a person, matter - when you actually don't. Plus, I could leave AT FIVE, instead of having 1-2 hours of paperwork to finish up that has to be done.

I think this post sums up what your expectations should be pretty well. My perspective might be a bit different as a nurse but after working in a hospital I can see that the bottom line is profit. Period. The environment is probably more or less toxic depending on the hospital system though. I could've worked at Emory Healthcare and I think that would've been a decent environment. There are a ton of HCA hospitals in Florida and I've heard they are just awful money driven hospitals. Where I work at now is great but it's still all about money and I can definitely see any employee being expendable.

And as far as patients go, some are very grateful and let me know so, but a lot more are just a drain on my soul as well as a drain on the system. I think a lot of people go into healthcare thinking it's a fairy tale where the patients are wonderful, the money is good, and doctors rule the hospital. Nope. Management rules the hospital, and their patients are good because they don't see any. And you'll have to jump through their hoops and review your charting just to make them happy. That powerless, expendable, and unappreciated feeling probably has a lot to do with why many physicians feel the way they do toward the end of their medical training/career.

At the end of the day I still enjoy what I do but I definitely don't want to be answering call bells, running to save that sun downed crazy patient from getting out of bed before they crack their skull at 3 am, dealing with etoh crazies yelling at you, and rushing to get meds and charting done on time. Perhaps we feel this more since we are at the bedside more but there are soooo many unappreciative patients. All they care about is their service and they think they're the only one on the floor. They need their sandwich now and the person possibly dying next door doesn't matter. And management driving the customer service/patient satisfaction bit doesn't help.

It seems like most of what I do is task oriented (give meds, chart meds, chart assessment, call this MD, etc, etc) whereas I want to be more knowledgeable and practice medicine. I feel like what I do now is just a bunch of tasks but as a physician I'd actually get to think more and I'd already have an idea of what I was getting myself into. And if I'm gonna have to put up with management among other things, more money wouldn't hurt either.

 

[QAsPsych]

I might be happier, actually. Because at least I'd know that it was a useless job, and there wouldn't be this pretense that you, as a person, matter - when you actually don't. Plus, I could leave AT FIVE, instead of having 1-2 hours of paperwork to finish up that has to be done.

The number of jobs where that is true is lower than you think, and they are vanishing. Not only is that not unique to medicine, it's commonplace.

 

[DermViser]

Wow, and then I'm the wall? Okay, show me my numbers are wrong. Instead of just calling me names, why not show me where you're getting your numbers from, and unfortunately anecdotal sources won't cover it.

So, instead of just cowering behind name calling, show me SOMETHING. Otherwise you'd be a coward to just dismiss this lowly premed. Put this inferior fool in his place. Don't be like the other guy, who can't address the points so resorts to name calling. Here's something we can both discuss with civility. C'mon, let's do this.

Are you a doctor, or are you an @-hole? Where's the kind, caring humanness? No arrogant, dismissive pride please. Elucidate me, I'm asking for it. <-- See? Name calling is just offensive and unproductive. It doesn't further the conversation whatsoever, just gets in the way. Let's do numbers together. Show me my erroneous ways.

I'm not a coward. Honestly, you are not worth convincing, as you already don't wish to be convinced, I also wouldn't want to send you into a "panic attack" or give you a case of "anxiety", which is why you refused to believe anything alternate to your worldview.

If you can't understand the magnitude of difference between undergraduate debt (even at your state flagship) vs. medical school debt, which runs in the six figures, there is absolutely no helping you. Like I said on top of that you will have OTHER responsibilities to pay for.

 

[Psai]

You guys are talking a lot about how other jobs are worse and how we have it good comparatively. It's true in general. But the whole point of this thread is that as a premed, you have no idea what's going on. It's not about pulling rank or some bizarre notion of power. If you're going to say that average salaries are $60k to a resident who is actually receiving said salary and then demand proof, you have no idea what's going on. This is especially when the sources you post show numbers in the 50s, not 60s which is significant difference. Also, job markets are not perfect and you can end up being an underemployed cardiothoracic surgeon after 15 years of training or a pathologist on his second fellowship because you can't get the job that you want.

It doesn't matter if other jobs are crappy for this discussion because we're talking about medicine. Everyone here is either training to be a doctor or interested in it. It doesn't matter what investment bankers do or what third world people do. We're addressing the fact that you come in to medical school with a certain expectation of how it's going to be and that's just not how it is. I know so many people who thought they were going to finish school and be some sort of mother teresa for the poor, unwashed masses in need of healthcare when the reality is that you're just going to be a replaceable cog in the healthcare machine. There are so many people without a single day of medical training who are trying to tell you what to do while reaching into your pocket for a share of the money that your hard work and education is earning. You're saying that 200k is a good salary. Nobody is saying it's not. But it will grate on you if you would be able to easily earn 2x the amount in half the time but can't because there are so many people that have no role in healthcare taking a share, including management companies, lawyers and hospital administrators. You're wasting so many hours a day with mindless bs because some administrator wants you to fill out some dumb checklist or you need to make sure to click all the boxes on your terrible emr so that your hospital gets paid. You can tell what the main goal is when you see that EMR systems are built for billing purposes, rather than as a means for physicians to communicate with one another. The expectations and the reality just do not coincide.

 

[DermViser]

You guys are talking a lot about how other jobs are worse and how we have it good comparatively. It's true in general. But the whole point of this thread is that as a premed, you have no idea what's going on. It's not about pulling rank or some bizarre notion of power. If you're going to say that average salaries are $60k to a resident who is actually receiving said salary and then demand proof, you have no idea what's going on. This is especially when the sources you post show numbers in the 50s, not 60s which is significant difference. Also, job markets are not perfect and you can end up being an underemployed cardiothoracic surgeon after 15 years of training or a pathologist on his second fellowship because you can't get the job that you want.

It doesn't matter if other jobs are crappy for this discussion because we're talking about medicine. Everyone here is either training to be a doctor or interested in it. It doesn't matter what investment bankers do or what third world people do. We're addressing the fact that you come in to medical school with a certain expectation of how it's going to be and that's just not how it is. I know so many people who thought they were going to finish school and be some sort of mother teresa for the poor, unwashed masses in need of healthcare when the reality is that you're just going to be a replaceable cog in the healthcare machine. There are so many people without a single day of medical training who are trying to tell you what to do while reaching into your pocket for a share of the money that your hard work and education is earning. You're saying that 200k is a good salary. Nobody is saying it's not. But it will grate on you if you would be able to easily earn 2x the amount in half the time but can't because there are so many people that have no role in healthcare taking a share, including management companies, lawyers and hospital administrators. You're wasting so many hours a day with mindless bs because some administrator wants you to fill out some dumb checklist or you need to make sure to click all the boxes on your terrible emr so that your hospital gets paid. You can tell what the main goal is when you see that EMR systems are built for billing purposes, rather than as a means for physicians to communicate with one another. The expectations and the reality just do not coincide.

I'll add to my list besides 1) not having ever held a REAL full-time job, also 2) inability to balance a checkbook. I swear these SDN premeds are incredible in their lack of reality based thinking.

 

[Frazier]

This thread demonstrates a natural human response. For many, as premeds, reality is focused on the goal of getting into med school...becoming a physician. You spend hours on EC's, days on your written app, weeks on the mcat, years crafting that gpa. Thousands of dollars on applying and interviewing. Stress mixed throughout.

It was and is an impressive commitment.

When someone, whether a doc at the hospital, a med student on SDN, or an author of an article tells you that the other side sucks for the great majority...that turns out the trophy isnt as shiny in your hands as when it was still 10 years down the line. There is some internal conflict (whether conscious or unconscious) that arises.

All the effort and utility expended towards getting into med school/becoming a doc..."wait you mean I'm doing all this now and the likely outcome is my reward isn't going to be worth it?"

That's a problem for our minds as humans.

It is like saying, "I never want to die, oh look, there's an iceburg, let me steer my boat directly into it".

No rational person does that.

Likewise, as rational people, you want satisfaction with your lives. For some that will be copious amounts of money, for others it will be helping people, some might place providing for their family above everything, for others it will be the "prestige" of being a physician.

All of those motivations are fine. We are different people with different frames of references, values, and experiences.

Problems might arise when you start getting paychecks and find out the copious amounts of discretionary income is not likely any time soon, or when the helping people becomes more of a function of being regulated and helping insurance companies/hospital bottom lines, or when you are forced to miss out on a lot of time with that family you wanted most to provide for, or when you get the feeling that there isn't tons of prestige to being a physician and many laymen will think you are a greedy crook that just looks stuff up on webMD.

Things might crumble for some.

Nevertheless, when the day comes for the majority of pre meds...the day when they sit and think, "wow this isn't quite what I was expecting. I kind of do see why so many are dissatisfied in medicine." ...just remember that it wasn't anyone's fault, not even your own.

Your mind will work really hard to validate what you do at any given moment. Dissonance is twarted. It is easy to remove yourself from a population and find little differences that makes you unique among the masses... "oh, those med students are from 6 figure income homes, they were always spoiled" or "those docs never worked a 9-5 before entering the profession, they don't know how good they have it".

Reality is that in all liklihood you will be average among your peers. This carries over to med school performance, hours worked as a resident, income as an attending, and satisfaction with medicine.

You can rationally expect to be the average.

Half the curve is below average. If the average is already mildly unsatisfied (this article, med scape surveys, etc) ...well, there is a good chance you will end up just as most of your peers. Not as hopeful, optimistic, and idealistic as when you were before all this.

In essence, try not to fight/discredit the complaints of those further down the line as you. Recognize that it makes sense that your thoughts revolts against their claims. You are thereby normal - which is a good thing when it comes to the mind.

 

[Doudline]

ITT: Medical students and residents who tell premeds that they need to change their point of view as to what being a physician -or training to be one- entails, pointing their lack of knowledge and judgment, saying that mentalities need to be changed, before repeatedly hammering that it is absolutely impossible for premeds to even fathom what being a physician -or training to be one- entails, and that they will never understand until it happens to them.

Sounds like a productive behavior to me.

Tell me, why do you people even come on preallo anymore, if not to make yourselves feel better about the inadequacies of your own life choices?

 

[type12]

I'm not a coward. Honestly, you are not worth convincing, as you already don't wish to be convinced, I also wouldn't want to send you into a "panic attack" or give you a case of "anxiety", which is why you refused to believe anything alternate to your worldview.

If you can't understand the magnitude of difference between undergraduate debt (even at your state flagship) vs. medical school debt, which runs in the six figures, there is absolutely no helping you. Like I said on top of that you will have OTHER responsibilities to pay for.

I'm so flattered you stalked me too. I'm building a fanclub, lol.

Why bother posting in a thread if you're not going to discuss TOPICS and just insult PEOPLE? I have, TIME AND TIME again, provided you with solid numbers. You disagreed with numbers, but failed to provide your own sources. In fact, the 200k debt I took from you lol. Just because a number is six figures doesn't make it special. Do you really think 99,999 is so far gone from 100,000? This is a number, and bound to the fix realities of how numbers work. So let's play the numbers and see who is right.

Wow, I cannot believe you are a doctor or a resident and would make fun of people when they prove you wrong. I guarantee you 100% you are INCAPABLE of giving me a panic attack or anxiety. YOU CANNOT, and WILL NEVER. So please, if you take offense to that, do your hardest to give me one, doctor. Or, hey, actually discuss the topic you keep running away from. This wall is not going anywhere.

My sympathies go out to your patients.

 

[DermViser]

I'm so flattered you stalked me too. I've building a fanclub, lol.

Why bother posting in a thread if you're not going to discuss TOPICS and just insult PEOPLE. I have, TIME AND TIME again, provided you with solid numbers. You disagreed with numbers, but failed to provide your own sources. In fact, the 200k debt I took from you lol. Just because a number is six figures doesn't make it special. Do you really think 99,999 is so far gone from 100,000?

Wow, I cannot believe you are a doctor or a resident and would make fun of people when they prove you wrong. I guarantee you 100% you are INCAPABLE of giving me a panic attack or anxiety. YOU CANNOT, and WILL NEVER. So please, if you take offense to that, do your hardest to give me one, doctor. Or, hey, actually discuss the topic you keep running away from. This wall is not going anywhere.

My sympathies to your patients.

Even the sources you posted were OFF when it came to resident salary. They definitely were NOT 60 K. I never said 200K in debt. I said six figure debt. Try to learn the difference. The 200 K referenced by someone else here, was referring to salary, which is definitely specialty dependent.

Like I said, I realize you won't change your mind bc your worldview and something you've been working towards, medical school, is all you've got. If you realize the realities, you'll realize what you're working towards is a lie, which will send you into a panic attack or anxiety based on what you've already invested. If the journey to applying to medical school gives you a panic attack, wait till you get into med school. You've seen nothing yet esp. now with the increasing competition in the match.

 

[type12]

Even the sources you posted were OFF when it came to resident salary. They definitely were NOT 60 K. I never said 200K in debt. I said six figure debt. Try to learn the difference. The 200 K referenced by someone else here, was referring to salary, which is definitely specialty dependent.

Like I said, I realize you won't change your mind bc your worldview and something you've been working towards, medical school, is all you've got. If you realize the realities, you'll realize what you're working towards is a lie, which will send you into a panic attack or anxiety based on what you've already invested. If the journey to applying to medical school gives you a panic attack, wait till you get into med school. You've seen nothing yet.

Whoops, you're right about the debt number, but why is AAMC's own site "OFF" in regards to salary? I let your "average 60k" comment slide, since I was providing a range and never said average. And can you provide a source for medical school debt then?

And what is the lie, specifically? I'm sorry if you think having a secure future after being accepted into medical school will give me a panic attack, but it won't. Heart didn't shoot up, buddy. I'm sorry if something like that did for you.

I'm gonna give you some help here: what will really make me go into full on panic attack is actually number crunching from you, to demonstrate your point. No more of these arbitrary statements.

My "heart" goes out to your patients.

 

[Psai]

"My sympathies go out to your patients." hahaha it's been so long since I've seen Burnett's law in action.

The numbers posted are not relevant to you because tuition goes up by something ridiculous like 9% a year and interest rates will be going up. $500,000 debt will not be unheard of in the near future and there are already some people who are approaching that number. Averages also don't matter to you as the individual. It doesn't matter if 70% of people in a clinical trial have a good response to a drug if it doesn't work for you.

 

[type12]

ITT: Medical students and residents who tell premeds that they need to change their point of view as to what being a physician -or training to be one- entails, pointing their lack of knowledge and judgment, saying that mentalities need to be changed, before repeatedly hammering that it is absolutely impossible for premeds to even fathom what being a physician -or training to be one- entails, and that they will never understand until it happens to them.

Sounds like a productive behavior to me.

Tell me, why do you people even come on preallo anymore, if not to make yourselves feel better about the inadequacies of your own life choices?

I'm very curious about this as well. Why not a civil conversation instead of just insults? Let's DISCUSS. Geez.

 

[type12]

"My sympathies go out to your patients." hahaha it's been so long since I've seen Burnett's law in action.

I have no idea what that is, but it's genuine sympathy. Here I am trying to discuss rationally, and this so-called doctor starts attacking me personally, which doesn't help his point in the slightest. Like I asked before, if an idiot said the sky is blue, does it suddenly change color so he's wrong?

Who cares about my credentials if my points are valid? If you destroy my points, we have something to talk about. If you're just here to name-call, WHY?!

The numbers posted are not relevant to you because tuition goes up by something ridiculous like 9% a year and interest rates will be going up. $500,000 debt will not be unheard of in the near future and there are already some people who are approaching that number. Averages also don't matter to you as the individual. It doesn't matter if 70% of people in a clinical trial have a good response to a drug if it doesn't work for you.

This part is a discussion. Thank you. Can we keep doing this? I mean, I disagree that statistics have no value to an individual (I'll explain later when I have time!), but it's a discussion we can talk about!

 

[DermViser]

Whoops, you're right about the debt number, but why is AAMC's own site "OFF" in regards to salary? I let your "average 60k" comment slide, since I was providing a range and never said average. And can you provide a source for medical school debt then?

And what is the lie, specifically? I'm sorry if you think having a secure future after being accepted into medical school will give me a panic attack, but it won't. Heart didn't shoot up, buddy. I'm sorry if something like that did for you.

I'm gonna give you some help here: what will really make me go into full on panic attack is actually number crunching from you, to demonstrate your point. No more of these arbitrary statements.

My "heart" goes out to your patients.

Learn about BASIC statistics on how salary is calculated. There's a reason there isn't just one source, and why some sources are more inflated (MGMA), bc salary is based on many contributing factors and practice characteristics.

Like I said, if you're already getting panic attacks as a premed as demonstrated by your statement in another thread:

I get panic attacks and sudden pangs of anxiety. It's awful. I'd think I was prone panic attacks/anxiety if med school was not the only thing it is.

So... usually that gets me out of the panic loop. "OMG, med school... future... everything... am I having a panic attack? Wait, no, I have other s### in life that's bothering me and I'm not freaking out. Phew."

You'll be in for even a bigger shock when you get into medical school. They don't need your "heart". My patients appreciate what I do for them quite well.