Like what, joining the NBA? Making movies in Hollywood? Being a member of the Royal family? The people who make these statements are almost always those who never held a job in the real world prior to entering medical school. And by real job, I'm not talking about your job as a bar tender, phlebotomist, EMT or lab tech you took between college and medical school. Those of us who worked in corporate America in any capacity laugh when naive medical students and other physicians make the famous: "You can make more money in other jobs." That is such rubbish. A physician once said this on Vault.com, the business and law version of SDN and nearly the entire forum blasted this guy and said how they wished they went to medical school.
I can promise you that you won't make more money in other fields. Most CEO's make under 250K and many of these earn between 100-150K. Business is not like medicine. You don't just show up with your degree and command a huge salary. There are no sure-fire paths to earning a lot of money as there is in medicine. Becoming a CEO has as much if not more to do with chance as it does with how hard you work. There is no class rank or Step I score that will guarantee you an executive position as there is with guaranteeing you a residency in medicine. There are thousands of companies in the United States. Just because you read about Bill Gates and other CEO's of Fortune 500 companies, don't think the majority of CEOs make anywhere close to that type of money. Most lawyers earn less than 100K per year. And even the big corporate attorneys who make 120K out of law school never make partner and many don't see over 200K in their life once they leave their big firm. Then there is the computer programmer myth. That one makes me laugh the most. I always hear: "My buddy made 100K right out of college", yeah maybe if he graduated from MIT during the dotcom era. The grass is always greener on the other side. Physicians need to understand that they earn an incredible amount of money. Did you know less than 1% of the U.S. population earns 200K or more? Most fields of medicine offers compensation of 200K +
Physicians earn their pay. I'm not suggesting otherwise, but they make a considerable amount of money despite all of the negative hype you hear. And when you add the job security, independence (not having a boss) and respect associated with the job, it's certainly worth the journey. Those of us who held jobs before coming to medical school know what it's really like. Yes, medicine is not perfect. It certainly has its own drawbacks but I would do it again in a second if I had to. I know I would never want to be like the many 40 year old engineers, lawyers and business professionals who were layed off and are still looking for jobs or had to take a huge pay cut and move their family to another state. Medicine offers many advantages that you are unaware of.