2015 MSAR released

[mrh125]

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Lol

lol what?

 

[BestDoctorEver]

lol what?

The median will NEVER get to 38

 

[mrh125]

The median will NEVER get to 38

it's slowly creeping up there. It may level off eventually, 35 wouldn't be surprising in a few years if they kept the same format.

 

[BestDoctorEver]

it's slowly creeping up there. It may level off eventually, 35 wouldn't be surprising in a few years if they kept the same format.

35 would not surprise me either... It seems like a lot people have realized that medicine a sure bet as far as salary and job security. It was like that for pharmacy 7-10 years ago, but since the job market is getting saturated for pharmacists, people are gravitating toward medicine now.

 

[Tommyguns89]

Why has no one addressed the fact that the table posted toward the beginning of the thread has the average MCAT of matriculants for 2013 at 31.3 up only 0.1 from the year previous. Am I reading this wrong or has this thread really gone on that long without this correction?

Because I think people are getting confused. Im pretty sure both the table referenced and the MSAR are true, they are just measuring different things.

 

[Frazier]

it's slowly creeping up there. It may level off eventually, 35 wouldn't be surprising in a few years if they kept the same format.

The format has nothing to do with it.

Score distributions are based off the aim of set percentiles.

In other words, the exam format could be throwing wet spaghetti at the wall trying to get it to spell your name... doesn't matter.

More people taking the test = more people in the applicant pool with high numbers.

 

[MedWonk]

I made a similar argument last year. I actually believe the economic situations going on right now (the recession's still here but it's recovering) is forcing numerous people to plan ahead and the safest best is job security. When people plan accordingly, they take the prereqs/MCAT/ECs seriously and annihilate them, so the applicant pool is stronger and tougher during recession times. This is very much true for nontrads and for driven trads.

Pretty much. I graduated before the recession hit, and my attitude, especially during my study abroad program, was "Med school is cool, I guess. I'm gonna go watch the world cup games with a bunch of drunk euros at 3AM. Don't count on me for the 8AM class. Or the 10AM class. I'll need to break this hangover with some gyoza and ramen, or perhaps a heaping bowl of soup curry, so maybe not the 1PM class, either. Oh, ****! There's a beer garden?! With 2hr all you can eat and drink?! Welp, I guess I gotta take advantage of that and further immerse myself in modern Japanese culture."

Me after the recession hit and taking the idea of med school more seriously: "****, maybe I should've gone to at least some of the classes and not gotten an F and some Cs."

 

[PreMedOrDead]

Average allopathic accepted MCAT at 33. Yikes.

Edit: Messed up a bit here. 33 MCAT is the median, not the average. Sorry!

You have to keep in mind that the MSAR always rounds data averages up. So if the MCAT average was a 32.1, they're round it to 33. Of course, with medians this won't occur. However, a 33 does seem pretty high - but this can be accounted for because the median is those applicants who are accepted - including those with multiple acceptances (so a person with a 44 MCAT and 15 acceptances gets counted as 15 individual 44s). That skews this number higher. However, I have no doubt that a 33 is becoming a lot more close to what the expectation is these days.

Wow and here I am thinking my 34 was all cool and stuff

I was upper 30s and felt pretty average on my interview trail. Those schools that did see my score didn't even bother commenting on it.

Is this worth buying if I'm a sophomore planning to apply a year or two after graduation?

No, wait until your application year.

WashU has had that kind of average for years, and Penn joined them this year...

WashU has been at a 38 since I was a wee boy, I swear.

 

[Boolean]

You have to keep in mind that the MSAR always rounds data averages up. So if the MCAT average was a 32.1, they're round it to 33. Of course, with medians this won't occur. However, a 33 does seem pretty high - but this can be accounted for because the median is those applicants who are accepted - including those with multiple acceptances (so a person with a 44 MCAT and 15 acceptances gets counted as 15 individual 44s). That skews this number higher. However, I have no doubt that a 33 is becoming a lot more close to what the expectation is these days.



I was upper 30s and felt pretty average on my interview trail. Those schools that did see my score didn't even bother commenting on it.



No, wait until your application year.



WashU has been at a 38 since I was a wee boy, I swear.

Can you provide a source for this? While I trust your insight, I've heard this claimed twice and I'd quite like to get official verification on it, if it isn't too much of a hassle. Thanks in advance.

 

[listener23]

Can you provide a source for this? While I trust your insight, I've heard this claimed twice and I'd quite like to get official verification on it, if it isn't too much of a hassle. Thanks in advance.

Logically speaking i'm pretty sure he's right....

 

[Psai]

It's funny how much the standards are rising so rapidly to get into medical school as the actual value of the job goes down.

 

[WierdScience]

Logically speaking i'm pretty sure he's right....

While this might be true, I don't think it's very logical. Wouldn't AAMC realize that they are double counting people and see that the data from that is much less useful? I mean they know how many people apply and are accepted each year so why would they double count people? They know what the total numbers should be. They make this tool to be helpful as to where to apply and for the admissions process so you would think that they would have someone there who knew a little bit about statistics. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong though.

 

[gyngyn]

It's funny how much the standards are rising so rapidly to get into medical school as the actual value of the job goes down.

To which comparator job?

 

[listener23]

While this might be true, I don't think it's very logical. Wouldn't AAMC realize that they are double counting people and see that the data from that is much less useful? I mean they know how many people apply and are accepted each year so why would they double count people? They know what the total numbers should be. They make this tool to be helpful as to where to apply and for the admissions process so you would think that they would have someone there who knew a little bit about statistics. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong though.

Remember these are the same people who changed a perfectly fine admission test...

 

[Boolean]

To which comparator job?

I think they may have meant this fiscally (the actual dollar value ROI of the job)

 

[Boolean]

Is the ROI if this "job" going down disproportionately to other jobs?

Medscape surveyed 25,000 physicians from 25 various speciality areas and reported the average salaries of these specialities back in 2011:

• Pediatrics — $156,000
• Psychiatry — $170,000
• Obstetrics/Gynecology — $220,000
• General surgery — $265,000
• Plastic surgery — $270,000
• Cardiology — $314,000
• Orthopedics — $315,000
• Radiology — $315,000

Nearly all physician income declined over the course of the past year with the exception of ophthalmologists who garnered a 9% pay increase, pediatricians who increased by 5%, and finally a 4% increase from both rheumatologists and oncologists. The biggest declines of the year went to general surgery with a leap of 12% in decreased income, followed closely by orthopedic surgery and radiology who both dropped 10% and finally emergency medicine which took a dip of nearly 8%.

In most other STEM fields (especially those involving computers), there has been a rather sharp increase in salaries/compensation.

 

[Psai]

To which comparator job?

To the job itself. What else would you compare it to? The golden age of medicine is over and the people who enjoyed the days of plenty are selling out and squeezing as much as possible out just in time for us to be trained. Now we have the joy of answering to several different masters while learning ever more material and having our professional societies take as much as they can from us with bs MOCA requirements while we contend with declining reimbursements. We're under heavy scrutiny from a hostile media and unsympathetic populace while we generate more and more data without extracting any more useful information. As we get smarter and learn more and more, we still have to contend with mid-levels that say they are just as smart and good without working as hard or knowing as much.

 

[gyngyn]

To the job itself. What else would you compare it to? The golden age of medicine is over and the people who enjoyed the days of plenty are selling out and squeezing as much as possible out just in time for us to be trained. Now we have the joy of answering to several different masters while learning ever more material and having our professional societies take as much as they can from us with bs MOCA requirements while we contend with declining reimbursements. We're under heavy scrutiny from a hostile media and unsympathetic populace while we generate more and more data without extracting any more useful information. As we get smarter and learn more and more, we still have to contend with mid-levels that say they are just as smart and good without working as hard or knowing as much.

Interesting. I heard this exact line from bitter, crusty old docs when I graduated (early 80's). I guess everything old is new again!

 

[mrh125]

It's funny how much the standards are rising so rapidly to get into medical school as the actual value of the job goes down.

yea, seriously. 5 to 10 years ago it'd would have been so much easier to get into med school for all of us.

 

[Pacna]

I can only imagine that this discussion happens yearly. When was the last time it got easier to get into med school? 😛

The sky isn't falling. Errybody calm down.

 

[premed2000]

yea, seriously. 5 to 10 years ago it'd would have been so much easier to get into med school for all of us.

So true. Two of my cousins who are practicing physicians now went to Vandy and Stanford med (~10yr ago) by being good/hardworking students. They said they didn't need the kind of ridiculous ECs we are seeing today.

Not so long ago, Good/hardworking students with good gpa/mcat and adequate experiences in research and clinical shadowing = top 20 bound.

 

[Narmerguy]

No, accepted data is not useful. With all due respect you have it backwards. The majority of students that are accepted don't go to the school, so the true pool of students at BU stats are a little lower. Schools always overadmit students that are better than there student body. The bottom line is don't get scared of by the GPA/MCAT of accepted applicants. As long as you at least meet the matriculant average of the school you should consider yourself competitive. Maybe @LizzyM could chime in.

*accepted data is not as useful. It still is important of course but it doesn't show the whole picture

I understand your point, but you are mistaken. Your goal as an applicant is not to figure out the general GPA/MCAT of the matriculating class. If this were true, the incidence of multiple acceptances for a single applicant would matter. But, these acceptances are each at different schools, so when looking at a single school, you only see the acceptances to that school, i.e. you see everyone at that school that got accepted. That many of the accepted students choose not to matriculate is not germane for you, the applicant, who is trying to be accepted. If you want to get accepted you have to compete against both the students who end up matriculating and those who don't matriculate.

One could argue that the value is unreliable because schools accept more students than matriculate, and thus if there is a large population of superstars that are accepted at a single school they can throw off the average for the rest of the accepted students. This is true to some extent, though it is offset by self selection (applicants, including superstars, are more likely to apply to schools with stats that are generally similar to their own), which reduces the proportion of superstars relative to normal applicants. The only schools where this may be a major concern are those with a really low yield because the vast majority of their acceptances are relative superstars. Keep in mind that even if superstars apply to multiple schools, schools don't "confer" with each other, so at each school you must compete with the superstar independent of their success at other schools (i.e. only acceptances matter, you have to be accepted by competing against the competition for each school independent of others).

Using matriculant data suffers from the reverse bias (underestimating the competitiveness to get into schools). If you're going to choose one as an applicant, would you rather use a slight overestimate of what it takes to get into the school, or an underestimate? Would you rather be overprepared or underprepared?

Some of you guys are forgetting how the MCAT is scaled, general statistics, or perhaps both.

The MCAT doesn't need revamped because the average accepted student has a 33.

The MCAT is scored so that the same approximate percentage of test-takers achieves a certain score over time.

"People figured out how to beat the MCAT!" is not a valid reason for this trend...as the same % of people are scoring a 20 today as were 5 years ago, and same with those scoring a 40.

With increasing numbers of students applying to schools, you have a larger pool of applicants with high scores (and a larger pool of applicants with lower scores); however, the high scores are more successful more often -> increasing averages.

Also, in regards to average accepted student scores...they are averages. The curve goes both ways. If you have a 30 or whatever, all is not lost.

Much agreed! People need to really keep in mind that the MCAT is a normalized test. However, people are also neglecting an alternate interpretation--that applicants with strong MCATs are figuring out the EC game better, such that even if the same # of applicants had MCAT >33, a greater proportion of them are being accepted because they have crafted better applications separate from their MCAT score (i.e. GPA, ECs, research, personal statements, etc).

 

[Narmerguy]

So true. Two of my cousins who are practicing physicians now went to Vandy and Stanford med (~10yr ago) by being good/hardworking students. They said they didn't need the kind of ridiculous ECs we are seeing today.

Not so long ago, Good/hardworking students with good gpa/mcat and adequate experiences in research and clinical shadowing = top 20 bound.

Students still go to Vandy and Stanford by being good/hardworking students. The only difference is that everyone is good and hardworking. That's not enough to get into medical school now, and you have to show that you have extra value added. For some that may be by ridiculous ECs, for others that may be simply by doing the "usual" things to an incredible standard (i.e. acing MCAT/GPA). This isn't unique to medicine, what it takes to get into college in the US is so much different now than 10 years ago, ditto for prestigious scholarships and awards, etc etc. Everyone is raising their game. As an applicant and competitor, that sucks. But as a consumer and member of the general public, that's awesome.

 

[Espadaleader]

Narmerguy is a beast lol

 

[Goro]

Seems pretty good to me. Those salaries are a lot more than any tenured PhD can make! Maybe if I score an R01 and make Dep't Chair.

Oh well.

Medscape surveyed 25,000 physicians from 25 various speciality areas and reported the average salaries of these specialities back in 2011:

• Pediatrics — $156,000
• Psychiatry — $170,000
• Obstetrics/Gynecology — $220,000
• General surgery — $265,000
• Plastic surgery — $270,000
• Cardiology — $314,000
• Orthopedics — $315,000
• Radiology — $315,000

Nearly all physician income declined over the course of the past year with the exception of ophthalmologists who garnered a 9% pay increase, pediatricians who increased by 5%, and finally a 4% increase from both rheumatologists and oncologists. The biggest declines of the year went to general surgery with a leap of 12% in decreased income, followed closely by orthopedic surgery and radiology who both dropped 10% and finally emergency medicine which took a dip of nearly 8%.

In most other STEM fields (especially those involving computers), there has been a rather sharp increase in salaries/compensation.

 

[Microglia]

I can only imagine that this discussion happens yearly. When was the last time it got easier to get into med school? 😛

The sky isn't falling. Errybody calm down.

But I'm scurred!! What if I don't get in???? 😛

 

[Boolean]

Seems pretty good to me. Those salaries are a lot more than any tenured PhD can make! Maybe if I score an R01 and make Dep't Chair.

Oh well.

I personally think the salaries are fairly reasonable, however I can understand why the decline may upset some. People entering medicine solely for the money need to do some more research, perhaps.

 

[Microglia]

I personally think the salaries are fairly reasonable, however I can understand why the decline may upset some. People entering medicine solely for the money need to do some more research, perhaps.

Eh, I think the salary in medicine is still incredibly high. People entering for the money are still technically making a smart call..for the same salary in other fields you basically have to be willing to chop off a limb and hand it to your employer.

 

[Boolean]

Eh, I think the salary in medicine is still incredibly high. People entering for the money are still technically making a smart call..for the same salary in other fields you basically have to be willing to chop off a limb and hand it to your employer.

I agree and disagree. The salary is incredibly high, yes. That said, there is also an incredibly high cost of entry into the field (applications, medical school itself, supporting yourself as a resident, etc etc)

 

[Frazier]

I agree and disagree. The salary is incredibly high, yes. That said, there is also an incredibly high cost of entry into the field (applications, medical school itself, supporting yourself as a resident, etc etc)

Perhaps the most important cost inherent to medicine (beyond things like application fees, minimum wage during residency, etc) is time.

There is a lot of delayed gratification inherent to this route. It is something one often doesn't appreciate until starting medical school...and I'm sure that "appreciation" only intensifies as training proceeds down the line.

 

[Microglia]

Perhaps the most important cost inherent to medicine (beyond things like application fees, minimum wage during residency, etc) is time.

There is a lot of delayed gratification inherent to this route. It is something one often doesn't appreciate until starting medical school...and I'm sure that "appreciation" only intensifies as training proceeds down the time.

I definitely agree with this. There are times where it feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

For example: Just 11 years to go until I can start trying to get an R01! Lol..

 

[Lucca]

Perhaps the most important cost inherent to medicine (beyond things like application fees, minimum wage during residency, etc) is time.

There is a lot of delayed gratification inherent to this route. It is something one often doesn't appreciate until starting medical school...and I'm sure that "appreciation" only intensifies as training proceeds down the line.

This is definitely true. The key is to not get caught up in delaying ALL of your gratification. Having the purchasing power to buy that 911 is only a very small part of what you might enjoy. It's very important to enjoy the ride, if you can do that then you will be happy anywhere.

That's why I stopped making myself miserable doing a million things and only worry about the things that truly satisfy me. Will it keep me out of Harvard? Maybe. But if so, **** those guys.

If you have the mindset of "Premed will be hell but then I'll get into med school and it will all be better" then you are going to have a miserable life.

 

[SN12357]

I definitely agree with this. There are times where it feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

For example: Just 11 years to go until I can start trying to get an R01! Lol..

And by that time the funding line is going to be at 1%....

 

[chenzt]

Eh, I think the salary in medicine is still incredibly high. People entering for the money are still technically making a smart call..for the same salary in other fields you basically have to be willing to chop off a limb and hand it to your employer.

It's high because of the potential 10+ years of extra training for physicians. No other profession requires this.

Look at some other professions like teacher, police, and firefighters. All hell would break loose with the unions if they were asked to take a 5-10% pay cut, yet the drop in physician salary is barely making any waves.

 

[moisne]

I assume MSAR is using the 2013 data. I wonder why there is a 1.7 difference between average and median. Maybe rounding or MSAR double/triple/etc counts accepted applicants with multiple acceptances? (whereas table 17 is matriculating students, so only count each person once) That could explain the uncharacteristically high average MCAT number.

https://www.aamc.org/download/321494/data/2013factstable17.pdf

Statistics. If there are a few (as in a few hundred since tons of people take this test) people who score exceedingly high (near perfect), the average will be higher than the median - and vice versa. Say it was out of 10. And the scores for some are as follows:

1,3,4,4,4,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,6,6,6,6,7,7,7,8,9,10,10,10
The average would be 5 but the average would be skewed to say 6. (I didn't calculate as I lost track of the 5's)

 

[Microglia]

It's high because of the potential 10+ years of extra training for physicians. No other profession requires this.

Look at some other professions like teacher, police, and firefighters. All hell would break loose with the unions if they were asked to take a 5-10% pay cut, yet the drop in physician salary is barely making any waves.

Yep, but a little late to the party on this point haha 🙂

 

[chenzt]

Statistics. If there are a few (as in a few hundred since tons of people take this test) people who score exceedingly high (near perfect), the average will be higher than the median - and vice versa. Say it was out of 10. And the scores for some are as follows:

1,3,4,4,4,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,6,6,6,6,7,7,7,8,9,10,10,10
The average would be 5 but the average would be skewed to say 6. (I didn't calculate as I lost track of the 5's)

I can see this being true with things like income (ppl making hundreds of millions will skew the data) and therefore median being the more important number. But MCAT is capped at 0-45, it's impossible to skew that much.

https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/2013factstable24.pdf

Also, the average is lower than median (31.3 according to table 17 average and 33 according to MSAR median), which means there should be a lot of extremely low scores. The above table doesn't support that. The only thing I can see is that MSAR counts multiple acceptance more than once whereas table 17 calculate average by only count each person once.

 

[ace12345]

There is no question whatsoever that medicine is, was, and in the foreseeable future will remain one of the most stable professions in country. We're talking about a generation where the projected number of jobs changes - by some metrics - is eight. That is absolutely insane. There is simply no comparison to that in the medical field, regardless of where reimbursements go. A teacher could work all their lives 80+ hours a week and never dream of making 200K (Which is on the low end for a number of specialities).

That said, I do think that the cost of education is becoming a problem, and will hopefully be addressed on a nationwide scale soon.

 

[orangeman25]

Looks like if you score a 30-32, you better consider a retake. Makes me so sad because people scoff at you for doing that. Now it definitely seems more logical..

 

[487806]

Students still go to Vandy and Stanford by being good/hardworking students. The only difference is that everyone is good and hardworking. That's not enough to get into medical school now, and you have to show that you have extra value added. For some that may be by ridiculous ECs, for others that may be simply by doing the "usual" things to an incredible standard (i.e. acing MCAT/GPA). This isn't unique to medicine, what it takes to get into college in the US is so much different now than 10 years ago, ditto for prestigious scholarships and awards, etc etc. Everyone is raising their game. As an applicant and competitor, that sucks. But as a consumer and member of the general public, that's awesome.

This is a major problem. Why is this even happening in the first place? Why are more applicants diving into medicine? I pointed out this before but slightly digressed.

Basically, medicine follows job market dynamics. But unlike typical jobs where they have vacancies, medical schools can easily fill up their seats without a problem. Naturally, medical school admissions is the suppliers' market. All us applicants (the "unemployed") are eagerly competing among ourselves to secure a seat in medical school. Typically, only 40% get in while 60% are screened out.

However, recently, the applicant pool somehow became insanely competitive. Why did this happen in the first place? Medical schools now realize there's a stronger applicant pool with good stats and basic stuff completed, so they up the game to include additional requirements, such as the "uniqueness" requirement. Applicants respond to this by checkboxing these requirements in order to win a seat. Then med schools respond by adding more requirements.

See the problem? It's positive feedback. It's an arm race. It's Cold War in medicine. It's basically equivalent to the major problem of multidrug resistant pathogens, with the applicants being the pathogens and medical schools being the scientists developing treatments. The root cause is this sudden increase in the applicant pool that somehow became stronger. This has nothing to do with applicants being Mother Theresa reincarnations, or a Nobel Prize quality researcher. While this can be the case, it's a very small minority.

This is an economic problem. As someone pointed out, the admissions wasn't this bad 10 years ago, when the US was in an economic boom. Because of the post-2008 financial crisis, people are scared of being unemployed in the "ordinary" job market that they look for secure jobs, with the famous one being medicine. Even when the economy is recovering, the job market improves only slowly, and only a fullswing economic boom will reduce the applicant pool and lighten the medical school requirements. All this mess has happened because of the underlying economic problems and because of applicants demanding to look for secure jobs, not because of their calling.

It may get more competitive than it is now, but wasn't the most competitive time to enter medicine in the mid-90s?

https://www.aamc.org/download/153708/data/

This is awesome. Definitely an underlying economic problem.

 

[khrisskhoras]

Only explanation for the discrepancy between accepted and matriculant median mcat is accepted students being counted multiple times, once for each school from which they receive an offer. Otherwise, the MSAR would be presenting the matriculant median.

Although I do have a spreadsheet from the 2008 MSAR (the LizzyM score sheet) and the median that year was a 31, while matriculant average was a 31 as well...

Btw, can anyone confirm Jefferson U making it prereqs "recommended"?

 

[606577]

Well there is the honorable title and a salary over 4x the average. It's really a no brainer why there are so many applicants.

This is a major problem. Why is this even happening in the first place? Why are more applicants diving into medicine? I pointed out this before but slightly digressed.

Basically, medicine follows job market dynamics. But unlike typical jobs where they have vacancies, medical schools can easily fill up their seats without a problem. Naturally, medical school admissions is the suppliers' market. All us applicants (the "unemployed") are eagerly competing among ourselves to secure a seat in medical school. Typically, only 40% get in while 60% are screened out.

However, recently, the applicant pool somehow became insanely competitive. Why did this happen in the first place? Medical schools now realize there's a stronger applicant pool with good stats and basic stuff completed, so they up the game to include additional requirements, such as the "uniqueness" requirement. Applicants respond to this by checkboxing these requirements in order to win a seat. Then med schools respond by adding more requirements.

See the problem? It's positive feedback. It's an arm race. It's Cold War in medicine. It's basically equivalent to the major problem of multidrug resistant pathogens, with the applicants being the pathogens and medical schools being the scientists developing treatments. The root cause is this sudden increase in the applicant pool that somehow became stronger. This has nothing to do with applicants being Mother Theresa reincarnations, or a Nobel Prize quality researcher. While this can be the case, it's a very small minority.

This is an economic problem. As someone pointed out, the admissions wasn't this bad 10 years ago, when the US was in an economic boom. Because of the post-2008 financial crisis, people are scared of being unemployed in the "ordinary" job market that they look for secure jobs, with the famous one being medicine. Even when the economy is recovering, the job market improves only slowly, and only a fullswing economic boom will reduce the applicant pool and lighten the medical school requirements. All this mess has happened because of the underlying economic problems and because of applicants demanding to look for secure jobs, not because of their calling.



This is awesome. Definitely an underlying economic problem.

 

[487806]

Well there is the honorable title and a salary over 4x the average. It's really a no brainer why there are so many applicants.

There are high-paying salaries in other professions that involve less time (and costs) of training. Honorable title really doesn't mean anything.

 

[QAsPsych]

There are high-paying salaries in other professions that involve less time (and costs) of training. Honorable title really doesn't mean anything.

1. There are, but those positions rarely have a clear and obvious path in the same way that medicine does, nor are the high paying positions available to essentially everyone who makes it through the training process.

2. Prestige is a major factor in why many people pursue certain jobs, and medical doctor is one of the most prestigious jobs out there.

 

[487806]

1. There are, but those positions rarely have a clear and obvious path in the same way that medicine does, nor are the high paying positions available to essentially everyone who makes it through the training process.

2. Prestige is a major factor in why many people pursue certain jobs, and medical doctor is one of the most prestigious jobs out there.

I think you guys are discussing additional factors why people pursue medicine, which are valid (long-run effects). What I am getting at is why is the competition getting harsher now than it was previously (short-run).

 

[Tommyguns89]

I think you guys are discussing additional factors why people pursue medicine, which are valid (long-run effects). What I am getting at is why is the competition getting harsher now than it was previously (short-run).

The big reason as you said is job security. In virtually any other field, you can "make it" reach the top and then get laid off at 50 and be forced to take a much lesser job or worse be unemployable. Really the underlying reason is that capital has labor bent over a barrel. And the only way for people not born into wealth to avoid that is to find a strong union or enter a profession with high barriers to entry and a distorted market(In this case medicine).

 

[MangoPlant]

Pretty soon winning a nobel prize and solving world hunger are going to be requirements for med school.

 

[Lucca]

Pretty soon winning a nobel prize and solving world hunger are going to be requirements for med school.

The Nobel or the Fields medal is the college Intel Science Fair

 

[IMDoc607]

I think people are right when they say the salaries are decent but when you put all the time and money in then your opinions will change....trust me. So far, I am in 4 years of undergrad, 4 med school, 3 IM residency, 3 cardiology fellowship, 1 interventional, with a potential additional year for structural heart. All while being paid <70K and saving lives. We as physicians sell ourselves short/ Now I know this comes with the job but with the downward pressure on salaries you wonder why people are going into it. In all, I would be 16 years post high school to train to become an interventional cardiologist who can perform lifesaving and life altering complex procedures.

Is $315,000 worth the time, effort, and lifestyle? IMO, absolutely not. Hence, why I am currently searching for jobs that pay starting to >350K which means I need to move to another geographical location.

 

[606577]

I think people are right when they say the salaries are decent but when you put all the time and money in then your opinions will change....trust me. So far, I am in 4 years of undergrad, 4 med school, 3 IM residency, 3 cardiology fellowship, 1 interventional, with a potential additional year for structural heart. All while being paid <70K and saving lives. We as physicians sell ourselves short/ Now I know this comes with the job but with the downward pressure on salaries you wonder why people are going into it. In all, I would be 16 years post high school to train to become an interventional cardiologist who can perform lifesaving and life altering complex procedures.

Is $315,000 worth the time, effort, and lifestyle? IMO, absolutely not. Hence, why I am currently searching for jobs that pay starting to >350K which means I need to move to another geographical location.

You get the privilege of spending 16 years learning about the subject that fascinates you the most. You get to be surrounded by extremely intelligent people with similar interests who continue to push you to better yourself. After this you become an expert in your field where you are respected and looked highly upon and make an absolutely absurd amount of money.

Or you can go into investment banking or law. You spend 16 years working your way to the top making about $100k salary. Your sole purpose is now to make rich executives even more money.

Why is this even an argument? What's to decide?