MD Caribbean Graduate kills himself

[sazerac]

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With a loan payment of $3,000 a month, that's $36,000 a year. That's discretionary income of $360,000 a year in REPAYE, or total pretax income of over $400,000 a year. Doesn't sound like they are "living like a resident" to me.

Or maybe they are voluntarily making $3,000 monthly payments? That's a life choice, not a destiny of doom and despair.

 

[Staphylococcus Aureus]

Of all the threads where the Caribbean schools deserve to be smacked around, this isn't one. Change the scenario from "not matching" to "matching into PC with >300k in loans" and it becomes real for you, your friends, and/or your classmates. For my nontrad US friends with families in this same situation who can't simply "live like a resident for 4 more years", I wish I had the solution. Same for this kid. Terrible situations that remain ignored.

Are you seriously insinuating that Caribbean student failing to match is the equivalent to matching primary care with debt? How is that a serious statement? I think we all agree COA is egregious, but no one forced you to go to medical school. Sorry about your paragraphs of not being able to provide an upper-middle class lifestyle, but I would assume you've already learned the world is ruthless and being smart/working hard, even in medicine, doesn't guarantee anything. Failing to match (dead end to your dream of practicing medicine) is nowhere near matching family med while living like a resident for a few years and not buying your kids two cars.

 

[YoungDoc25]

Are you seriously insinuating that Caribbean student failing to match is the equivalent to matching primary care with debt? How is that a serious statement? I think we all agree COA is egregious, but no one forced you to go to medical school. Sorry about your paragraphs of not being able to provide an upper-middle class lifestyle, but I would assume you've already learned the world is ruthless and being smart/working hard, even in medicine, doesn't guarantee anything. Failing to match (dead end to your dream of practicing medicine) is nowhere near matching family med while living like a resident for a few years and not buying your kids two cars.

No. I'm seriously insulating that the increased cost of medical school makes the very situation of suicide real to all of us. It doesn't take failing out for that to happen. Working in primary care with $300k+ in loans is no small burden if you're 40+ and expected to still give up X amount of years to maybe have them paid off. You have a dollar looking over your shoulder anytime you think about putting money anywhere besides that loan payment. Whether it be 2 used cars for your kids or just a freaking savings fund for their future college. I'm not sure about you, but I'm not wanting to spend 1/3 of my life working my a** off just to skate by after I'm done. That's ridiculous.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I am not disagreeing with you regarding COA being out of control. The path is hard , but career changers should know what they are getting into.
The financially responsible thing and the thing done to make life easier is usually not the same thing.
Considering you could live on 75 k /year and pay the rest towards loans or even 100k and pay the rest towards loans. Let's not conflate the financial struggles of the majority of Americans with those of top percentile income earners, keep some perspective.

1. Median is a better number because mean includes the mark zuckerburgs of the world.
2. If your loans are federal you should look into ibr, considering your payoff plan is different.

1. I understand the difference between median and mean, but thank you. I mentioned the mean because it was closer to our income and I didn't want to just say it.
2. The biggest loans are not federal, but thanks for the tip.

 

[YoungDoc25]

With a loan payment of $3,000 a month, that's $36,000 a year. That's discretionary income of $360,000 a year in REPAYE, or total pretax income of over $400,000 a year. Doesn't sound like they are "living like a resident" to me.

Or maybe they are voluntarily making $3,000 monthly payments? That's a life choice, not a destiny of doom and despair.

What do you think a 10 year repayment plan equals out to if your loans are 350k? Even a 15 year plan puts you over 2k every month. Or I guess do PAYE or REPAYE for the next 20-25 years and then pay the tax differential on it. It's all doable, I don't disagree with your point. It just all comes at a price and the inflation in COA has been ridiculous.

 

[Staphylococcus Aureus]

@YoungDoc25 the two are apples to oranges, especially considering family docs are getting contracts well over 200k these days. But I agree that the system of indentured servitude via COA debt is savage, and yet no one is doing anything about it.

 

[jadedphysiotherapist]

@YoungDoc25 the two are apples to oranges, especially considering family docs are getting contracts well over 200k these days. But I agree that the system of indentured servitude via COA debt is savage, and yet no one is doing anything about it.

That's because it wont stop until applications drop. Period.

For ALL health fields.

 

[YoungDoc25]

That's because it wont stop until applications drop. Period.

For ALL health fields.

True. We had 2 new schools pop up in my state at $50k a year in tuition. Result? Previous cheap, lone standing state school spikes tuition $3500 for next year. Why let the new schools make all of the money? The politics of it all is sickening

 

[jih]

Whew, first time on this site in a year (just finished up M1).

Anyway, the person who committed suicide is suspected to have made this post in /r/premed and this post in /r/medicalschool last week. This comment chain is particularly chilling. Ignore the SSL warnings; it's just a site that shows deleted posts/comments on Reddit.

 

[Dr.Jekyll75]

Whew, first time on this site in a year (just finished up M1).

Anyway, the person who committed suicide is suspected to have made this post in /r/premed and this post in /r/medicalschool last week. This comment chain is particularly chilling. Ignore the SSL warnings; it's just a site that shows deleted posts/comments on Reddit.

this is very chilling reading these posts. Im still curious why the news has picked this up

 

[neoevolution]

Whew, first time on this site in a year (just finished up M1).

Anyway, the person who committed suicide is suspected to have made this post in /r/premed and this post in /r/medicalschool last week. This comment chain is particularly chilling. Ignore the SSL warnings; it's just a site that shows deleted posts/comments on Reddit.

this is very chilling reading these posts. Im still curious why the news has picked this up

I just want to point out that it's very possible that the post about the suicide could have been faked. The user "maggi" who made the insensitive comments to the original post by the suicidal Carib grad is disliked by a large number of users in the premed group who might have gone as far as making a fake post from the suicidal grad's brother.

Even now, there are posts about contacting maggi's MD acceptance school over what he said. Maggi got banned repeatedly on multiple accounts, and the single active moderator is trying to calm the situation down, but the maggi's real name and identity were known to a lot of people and he might already have been doxxed.

 

[Staphylococcus Aureus]

Doesn't really matter if this particular case was fabricated, it happens far too often. Female physicians are something like 400x more likely to commit suicide. These women didn't all have underlying depression any more than the average person.

And no you won't find it on national news ever unless the victim/situation by coincidence is politically inflammatory. At best there'll be a 2 minute piece on medicine's suicide epidemic.

 

[Blessthefall]

I respect the opinion of those whom believe that the onus is upon the signer of the private student loans; however, I completely disagree. To me, the Caribbean schools are predatory as they offer a seemingly viable option to a career in medicine for candidates that couldn't gather an acceptance otherwise but after they get your money, they send you out into the cold and you as the former student are now on the hook for the loan amount- not the school in any capacity.

Should the student have educated him/herself about the common perils of Caribbean schools? Ideally, yes, but even if they don't, that doesn't excuse the irresponsible behavior of the Caribbean schools.

This can be interpreted as a straw man argument, and perhaps it is, but I see the Caribbean schools as pay day loan institutions. They provide a "needed service" to those that aren't educated to their pitfalls or those that simply have no other visible option, rack them up with enormous and unregulated amounts of debt and laugh all the way to the bank. It's entirely a predatory entity among the lower, struggling class much like how the Caribbean schools operate among the lowest tier of prospective applicants.

TL;DR? Caribbean schools are predatory and should be considered illegal or at the very least, unethical. The placement of blame solely upon the borrower of student loans to attend the institution is disregarding the responsibility the education institution has to better the future of the student to the best of their abilities- one the Caribbean schools do not uphold and in certain instances completely violate.

 

[libertyyne]

I respect the opinion of those whom believe that the onus is upon the signer of the private student loans; however, I completely disagree. To me, the Caribbean schools are predatory as they offer a seemingly viable option to a career in medicine for candidates that couldn't gather an acceptance otherwise but after they get your money, they send you out into the cold and you as the former student are now on the hook for the loan amount- not the school in any capacity.

Should the student have educated him/herself about the common perils of Caribbean schools? Ideally, yes, but even if they don't, that doesn't excuse the irresponsible behavior of the Caribbean schools.

This can be interpreted as a straw man argument, and perhaps it is, but I see the Caribbean schools as pay day loan institutions. They provide a "needed service" to those that aren't educated to their pitfalls or those that simply have no other visible option, rack them up with enormous and unregulated amounts of debt and laugh all the way to the bank. It's entirely a predatory entity among the lower, struggling class much like how the Caribbean schools operate among the lowest tier of prospective applicants.

TL;DR? Caribbean schools are predatory and should be considered illegal or at the very least, unethical. The placement of blame solely upon the borrower of student loans to attend the institution is disregarding the responsibility the education institution has to better the future of the student to the best of their abilities- one the Caribbean schools do not uphold and in certain instances completely violate.

Institutions should be held responsible for student debt that they generate that the students are unlikely able to repay. These problems are not restricted to carribean schools , the same issues exist in for-profit and non profit schools state side that generate graduates with little to no career prospects.

 

[Blessthefall]

Institutions should be held responsible for student debt that they generate that the students are unlikely able to repay. These problems are not restricted to carribean schools , the same issues exist in for-profit and non profit schools state side generate graduates with little to no career prospects.

Completely agree in that the issue isn't restricted solely to schools of the Caribbean but there is a much higher incidence of issues like the deceased faced at those institutions than stateside public/private schools. When you have schools that promote the idea that "the MCAT is meaningless", hide behind inflated match rates and step scores all the while conveniently neglecting to mention the rates of attrition and default- they're clearly the more devious culprits and should be held accountable.

 

[Stagg737]

You guys are placing way to much of the burden on caribbean schools. The onus is on the person signing for the loans. Like others have said, this is just a risky business deal. Works for some, not for others. If someone going to the caribbean does not know that going in then they didn't do enough research.

I agree that people should do research before signing any life-changing document, but there is a lot of misrepresentation of Caribbean medical schools in general. Many universities post ads for Carib schools and tout them as not only valid, but good options when considering the path to becoming a physician. As I said in a previous post, how is a college student supposed to discern the truth from the bs when a lot of the bs is coming from sources that should be reliable? When their advisors tell them it's a good choice, the university they attend advertises for them, practicing physicians say it's okay, and the federal government provides loans for them to attend these schools, how are they supposed to know that the horror stories they hear on forums like this are actually the truth? Do you really expect them to dive into the statistics of Charting the Outcomes and read a hundred page document that they likely won't understand or even know exists? At some point higher organizations (the AMA, the federal government, etc) has to step in and call those schools out for what they really are. Until that happens, I don't think it's fair or realistic to shovel all that blame on pre-meds whose "best resources" are telling them it's a viable option.

You don't really know that they had no mental illness. Remember that many enter the profession feeling afraid to disclose their illness. They fear that it would have an affect on their ability to get licensed. So, they may have hid it the best that they could until it was no longer possible to do so. Hiding a mental illness is often done in other professions too until the person can no longer do so.

I don't know that, but I do know several people who entered med school without previous mental health problems who developed a condition while in medical school, many of whom sought help and received treatment. My point was just that med school and residency are incredibly stressful processes which can manifest depression or anxiety in even the healthiest individuals, never mind throwing in a major life stressor like death of a family member or divorce which can trigger an acute major depressive episode on their own.

 

[Rads312]

Wow.

I've been harsh on IMG/FMG grads before...this is so hard to read...

 

[Dr.Jekyll75]

I agree that people should do research before signing any life-changing document, but there is a lot of misrepresentation of Caribbean medical schools in general. Many universities post ads for Carib schools and tout them as not only valid, but good options when considering the path to becoming a physician. As I said in a previous post, how is a college student supposed to discern the truth from the bs when a lot of the bs is coming from sources that should be reliable? When their advisors tell them it's a good choice, the university they attend advertises for them, practicing physicians say it's okay, and the federal government provides loans for them to attend these schools, how are they supposed to know that the horror stories they hear on forums like this are actually the truth? Do you really expect them to dive into the statistics of Charting the Outcomes and read a hundred page document that they likely won't understand or even know exists? At some point higher organizations (the AMA, the federal government, etc) has to step in and call those schools out for what they really are. Until that happens, I don't think it's fair or realistic to shovel all that blame on pre-meds whose "best resources" are telling them it's a viable option.



I don't know that, but I do know several people who entered med school without previous mental health problems who developed a condition while in medical school, many of whom sought help and received treatment. My point was just that med school and residency are incredibly stressful processes which can manifest depression or anxiety in even the healthiest individuals, never mind throwing in a major life stressor like death of a family member or divorce which can trigger an acute major depressive episode on their own.

ill agree with you about schools advertising it but in todays day and age there so much free flowing info on the internet i find it hard that people do look anything up. My undergrad advertised the hell out of ross and AUC. People enrolled there by the boat load knowing well it would be a tough road. There comes a point where personal responsibility has to come into play. Nothing is guaranteed, even if you go to a US school, you could still not match. Also to touch on your mental health issue, schools are getting better about recognizing the problem but the execution is still poor. There is many people at my school that have had a really hard time and the admin has tried to help them but its half baked efforts

 

[libertyyne]

Hate to be that person. But is there any proof besides a Reddit thread ? There seems to be no news coverage .

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Hate to be that person. But is there any proof besides a Reddit thread ? There seems to be no news coverage .

You're not that person. The idea that this might be fake has come up several times in this thread.

 

[cellsaver]

I blame the depression.

there is that but what is the "pathogenesis"?

I blame our culture. we have become a culture that is self-absorbed. Visit any campus university or restaurant- alone but together, a bunch of cultural zombies.

we have replaced face to face interpersonal skills with impersonal, online "connectivity" skills. Witness the hundreds of frantic questions on SDN that could be addressed efficiently, effectively and quickly by talking to someone in the flesh (e.g. faculty member, school support services member, a friend....assuming they have friends). Today's young kids were not taught these important skills by their selfish Baby Boomer parents.

Dr Sherry Turkle diagnosed our culture years ago in her TED Talk and everything she predicted has materialized...and it keeps growing like a cancer.

Expect the cancer to grow and worsen until we excise it and become a culture of encounter. Otherwise we are following the path of the dinosaurs...unfit to survive, e.g. the 50% burnout of physicians

 

[cellsaver]

Hate to be that person. But is there any proof besides a Reddit thread ? There seems to be no news coverage .

when i read the post on SDN, then researched for the reddit post, my first thought was "attention seeking behavior". fake post

 

[Staphylococcus Aureus]

I reiterate that medical student suicides will NOT get major news attention, and might not even show up on SDN, as anyone with personal experience already knows. Could be fake news, but not finding it on a Google search doesn't make it so.

 

[libertyyne]

I reiterate that medical student suicides will NOT get major news attention, and might not even show up on SDN, as anyone with personal experience already knows. Could be fake news, but not finding it on a Google search doesn't make it so.

1. Already a medical school graduate and not a student.
2. Suicide in NY got enough attention to get published .
3. This is a pretty good story if true.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I reiterate that medical student suicides will NOT get major news attention, and might not even show up on SDN, as anyone with personal experience already knows. Could be fake news, but not finding it on a Google search doesn't make it so.

A med school grad hanging himself in a public park would definitely at least be reported on some news stations, if not nationally.

 

[Mad Jack]

Not matching and having a fiancé leave you after working really hard for 4-7 years can make people who may have lived long happy and healthy lives as a HS biology teacher or PA or carpenter or whatever somewhere do things like this. It's not always a long history of depression or "mental illness". People can react without completely considering better alternatives. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem and this may have been prevented if someone who knew them interviened. People can make the wrong choice impulsively. This is very sad.

You can be a perfectly mentally healthy individual and commit suicide simply because you have exceeded your coping mechanisms. Pre-existing depression is not necessarily a prerequisite for suicide.

 

[Mad Jack]

Factor in being in your second career and having 3+ kids in their preteens/teenage years, and then add on a $3,000+ payment to your loans each month. It was hard for me to imagine until seeing a family friend go through it. The whole "median household" argument is complete BS to me. We're also having a monthly loan payment that's more than the average citizen makes in a month. We also get taxed the s*** out of on top of that. Not to mention our job requires much more stress and hours than "the average American". My friend is in his early 40s and doesn't have 4+ more years to throw away and not enjoy life with his kids and wife. They slid by in medical school on loans and continued it in residency. At some point, it's just not worth it. Some quit, some become so negative they're impossible to be around, and some commit suicide from the stress of it all and their dream being smothered by a dollar hanging over their head.

The COA for medical is a huge load of crap, and if you can't see that as a top factor for suicide amongst our friends/classmates, then I'm really not sure what else to say.

I dunno, I've lived a pretty fantastic life on around 30k a year post-tax worth of income for around a decade. I never feel like I'm missing out on anything. I guess I never really had much growing up so I don't get what I'm missing out on, but I've got a paid off car, eat well, go out several times a week, and never really come across anything I want but can't afford. I don't have kids though, but I know people who manage working as EMTs, firefighters, teachers, etc that are doing just fine on incomes at or well below the median with kids. IBR limits your payments, and if you're living cheap, it doesn't even matter because you can throw amounts above your minimum at your debt without issue. It's all a personal decision though- some value stuff, some value financial freedom, there is no right answer.

 

[Localnative]

Factor in being in your second career and having 3+ kids in their preteens/teenage years, and then add on a $3,000+ payment to your loans each month. It was hard for me to imagine until seeing a family friend go through it. The whole "median household" argument is complete BS to me. We're also having a monthly loan payment that's more than the average citizen makes in a month. We also get taxed the s*** out of on top of that. Not to mention our job requires much more stress and hours than "the average American". My friend is in his early 40s and doesn't have 4+ more years to throw away and not enjoy life with his kids and wife. They slid by in medical school on loans and continued it in residency. At some point, it's just not worth it. Some quit, some become so negative they're impossible to be around, and some commit suicide from the stress of it all and their dream being smothered by a dollar hanging over their head.

The COA for medical is a huge load of crap, and if you can't see that as a top factor for suicide amongst our friends/classmates, then I'm really not sure what else to say.

Kudos for pointing this out
yes, the median household argument, defense, whatever you want to call it is horsesh-t
I'm in my 40s. I have been practicing both hospital and office based oral and maxillofacial surgery for 7 yrs. I am a sole income provider.
I have 3 kids.
my numbers:
340,000 pretax income MINUS...
35,000 malpractice premium
20,000 life insurance premium
6,000 homeowners insurance
4,000 a month for my medical and dental and wifes grad loans (~48,000 a yr)
1,500 a month for private health insurance for 5 (knock on wood) very healthy people (~18,000 a yr)
4,000 a yr for disability insurance premium
4,400 a yr for automotive insurance
~ 3,500 a yr DEA, state license, association fees around
I travel around to different offices , sometimes 2 hours a part. Travel around 2,500 -3,000 miles a month. You can imagine the travel costs
Schooling costs for kids
Then you have cost of living - food, utilities, clothing, monthly car payment, unanticipated costs such as major plumbing/electrical disasters
total PRETAX income after all that is ~100,000. then you have retirement savings, college savings for kids.
lets say I'm in the 35% income bracket.
Do the math.
"the almighty dollar" is a monkey constantly hanging on my back
of course, I am not complaining and not in financial dire straits. however finances can weight heavily on an individual, and depending on how one copes, one may see it as a hole they will never crawl out of. If there is no emotional support from family, friends, intervention by a medical professional, one may very well wander down the wrong path.

 

[Staphylococcus Aureus]

1. Already a medical school graduate and not a student.
2. Suicide in NY got enough attention to get published .
3. This is a pretty good story if true.

A med school grad hanging himself in a public park would definitely at least be reported on some news stations, if not nationally.

No one here knows someone who has been murdered or committed suicide? It gets a local news blurb at best, unless it has political elements. Practicing physicians, residents, and students that end their life are not "sensational" enough for national news, it might not even be stated in local reports their identity or profession, which is why there may be a story on this person's suicide we just wouldn't be able to find it unless we knew which park. "GUY WITH CARIBBEAN DEGREE COMMITS SUICIDE" is not going to be read by Brian Williams.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

No one here knows someone who has been murdered or committed suicide? It gets a local news blurb at best, unless it has political elements. Practicing physicians, residents, and students that end their life are not "sensational" enough for national news, it might not even be stated in local reports their identity or profession, which is why there may be a story on this person's suicide we just wouldn't be able to find it unless we knew which park. "GUY WITH CARIBBEAN DEGREE COMMITS SUICIDE" is not going to be read by Brian Williams.

My nephew committed suicide a year ago. He was just an 18-yo kid with mental illness. It took me a second to find several hits on Google about it.

Edit: just Googled to see if I could find friend of mine who killed himself a few months ago. Took slightly longer. Maybe 30 seconds.

 

[Toutie]

My nephew committed suicide a year ago. He was just an 18-yo kid with mental illness. It took me a second to find several hits on Google about it.

Yep. There is no way 'unemployed MD hangs self in state park' is NOT going to get some coverage, somewhere. With reddit being the ONLY source for this story makes it's legitamacy questionable at best.

 

[libertyyne]

Kudos for pointing this out
yes, the median household argument, defense, whatever you want to call it is horsesh-t
I'm in my 40s. I have been practicing both hospital and office based oral and maxillofacial surgery for 7 yrs. I am a sole income provider.
I have 3 kids.
my numbers:
340,000 pretax income MINUS...
35,000 malpractice premiums
20,000 life insurance premiums
6,000 homeowners insurance
4,000 a month for my medical and dental and wifes grad loans (~48,000 a yr)
1,500 a month for private health insurance for 5 (knock on wood) very healthy people (~1,800 a yr)
4,000 a yr for disability insurance premium
4,400 a yr for automotive insurance
~ 3,500 a yr DEA, state license, association fees around
I travel around to different offices , sometimes 2 hours a part. Travel around 2,500 -3,000 miles a month. You can imagine the travel costs
Schooling costs for kids
Then you have cost of living - food, utilities, clothing, monthly car payment, unanticipated costs such as major plumbing/electrical disasters
total PRETAX income after all that is ~100,000. then you have retirement savings, college savings for kids.
lets say I'm in the 35% income bracket.
Do the math.
"the almighty dollar" is a monkey constantly hanging on my back
of course, I am not complaining and not in financial dire straits. however finances can weight heavily on an individual, and depending on how one copes, one may see it as a hole they will never crawl out of. If there is no emotional support from family, friends, intervention by a medical professional, one may very well wander down the wrong path.

Sounds like your house is valued at greater than 1.2 million dollars.

 

[Staphylococcus Aureus]

My nephew committed suicide a year ago. He was just an 18-yo kid with mental illness. It took me a second to find several hits on Google about it.

Edit: just Googled to see if I could find friend of mine who killed himself a few months ago. Took slightly longer. Maybe 30 seconds.

Again was this not local news? And I believe release of personal details (did have have a graduate degree) are consented at the family's discretion, but I could be wrong. My point is there a suicide epidemic in medicine that isn't being addressed on a large scale.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Again was this not local news? And I believe release of personal details (did have have a graduate degree) are consented at the family's discretion, but I could be wrong.

Neither were my friend's nor my nephew's. It doesn't have to be national news to be on Google. Have you ever used Google?

Also I'm pretty sure the news doesn't need family's permission to publish public details like having a professional degree.

My point is there a suicide epidemic in medicine that isn't being addressed on a large scale.

That doesn't have anything to do with my point, but I agree.

 

[Localnative]

Sounds like your house is valued at greater than 1.2 million dollars.

Hardly.
As an aside/unrelated to this thread, bought a bank owned dive valued below 170,000. Dug up the savings, took it off their hands and did much of the reno on my own. still a work in progress.
Don't think my personal and professional overhead would ever allow me to fork over THAT kind of cash.

 

[libertyyne]

Hardly.
As an aside/unrelated to this thread, bought a bank owned dive valued below 170,000. Dug up the savings, took it off their hands and did much of the reno on my own. still a work in progress.
Don't think my personal and professional overhead would ever allow me to fork over THAT kind of cash.

You homeowners insurance is insane if that is the case.

 

[Localnative]

You homeowners insurance is insane if that is the case.

Tell me about it. I reside in the Hurricane Belt.

 

[YoungDoc25]

Kudos for pointing this out
yes, the median household argument, defense, whatever you want to call it is horsesh-t
I'm in my 40s. I have been practicing both hospital and office based oral and maxillofacial surgery for 7 yrs. I am a sole income provider.
I have 3 kids.
my numbers:
340,000 pretax income MINUS...
35,000 malpractice premiums
20,000 life insurance premiums
6,000 homeowners insurance
4,000 a month for my medical and dental and wifes grad loans (~48,000 a yr)
1,500 a month for private health insurance for 5 (knock on wood) very healthy people (~1,800 a yr)
4,000 a yr for disability insurance premium
4,400 a yr for automotive insurance
~ 3,500 a yr DEA, state license, association fees around
I travel around to different offices , sometimes 2 hours a part. Travel around 2,500 -3,000 miles a month. You can imagine the travel costs
Schooling costs for kids
Then you have cost of living - food, utilities, clothing, monthly car payment, unanticipated costs such as major plumbing/electrical disasters
total PRETAX income after all that is ~100,000. then you have retirement savings, college savings for kids.
lets say I'm in the 35% income bracket.
Do the math.
"the almighty dollar" is a monkey constantly hanging on my back
of course, I am not complaining and not in financial dire straits. however finances can weight heavily on an individual, and depending on how one copes, one may see it as a hole they will never crawl out of. If there is no emotional support from family, friends, intervention by a medical professional, one may very well wander down the wrong path.

I appreciate the numbers! Subtract ~80k-100k for a lot of the FM people, and that can get hairy really quickly without the right support. Pretty crazy.

 

[libertyyne]

Here is what a 250K /year paycheck looks like

Keep in mind this is for a single person with zero deductions being married with kids would change the amount paid in taxes.

6114x 2=~ 12000 per month.
The average indebtedness is 160K after medical school. This assumes that balloons up to 200K after residency.

Just by putting away half your income on it you should be able to get paid off in 3.1 years.

It is not all doom and gloom. or dont and just pay the minimum and be in debt for more than a decade. This is a choice not scrapping to get by. Tell that to people who have never seen 10k let alone have 10k+ income per month.

 

[Mad Jack]

My nephew committed suicide a year ago. He was just an 18-yo kid with mental illness. It took me a second to find several hits on Google about it.

Edit: just Googled to see if I could find friend of mine who killed himself a few months ago. Took slightly longer. Maybe 30 seconds.

It really depends on how open the family is about it. We had people die at my old workplace of suicide but we didn't know for months and sometimes years that that was the cause of death due to the family keeping it quiet.

 

[Mad Jack]

Here is what a 250K /year paycheck looks like

Keep in mind this is for a single person with zero deductions being married with kids would change the amount paid in taxes.
View attachment 218748
6114x 2=~ 12000 per month.
The average indebtedness is 160K after medical school. This assumes that balloons up to 200K after residency.
View attachment 218749

Just by putting away half your income on it you should be able to get paid off in 3.1 years.

It is not all doom and gloom. or dont and just pay the minimum and be in debt for more than a decade. This is a choice not scrapping to get by. Tell that to people who have never seen 10k let alone have 10k+ income per month.

Depends on where you go. I'll be roughly 400k in debt after residency, started with a mere 10k in undergrad debt.

 

[Dr.Jekyll75]

unless someone confirms it , @Mad Jack is right, ive had class mates die for Drug overdose and no one knew for about 3 years until his little brother spoke up. The family was very quiet. and this is from a town of 5k people

 

[YoungDoc25]

Here is what a 250K /year paycheck looks like

Keep in mind this is for a single person with zero deductions being married with kids would change the amount paid in taxes.
View attachment 218748
6114x 2=~ 12000 per month.
The average indebtedness is 160K after medical school. This assumes that balloons up to 200K after residency.
View attachment 218749

Just by putting away half your income on it you should be able to get paid off in 3.1 years.

It is not all doom and gloom. or dont and just pay the minimum and be in debt for more than a decade. This is a choice not scrapping to get by. Tell that to people who have never seen 10k let alone have 10k+ income per month.

I don't think anyone has argued that a single person couldn't pay off $160k in loans while making $250k. Quite the opposite. A family of 4 or 5 with over $300k in loans while making $200k-250k fresh out of residency in PC. It's not something you just punch into a calculator and get an answer. As @Mad Jack said, it's also highly dependent on where you live as well. COL and taxes vary pretty significantly.

 

[Toutie]

unless someone confirms it , @Mad Jack is right, ive had class mates die for Drug overdose and no one knew for about 3 years until his little brother spoke up. The family was very quiet. and this is from a town of 5k people

Again, he HUNG himself in a STATE PARK. Rangers found him and called the family. THAT will make the news somewhere. The park would have had to have a public record of it, they would have had to release the information of a death. I live near several State and National parks and they are always announcing deaths and even major injuries.

 

[dempty]

The average indebtedness is 160K after medical school. This assumes that balloons up to 200K after residency.

Is that the mean, median, or mode for medical school debt?

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

It really depends on how open the family is about it. We had people die at my old workplace of suicide but we didn't know for months and sometimes years that that was the cause of death due to the family keeping it quiet.

I don't think the family can keep it quiet when he allegedly hung himself in a public park. That's something the park rangers and the police have to report. Even if they don't report the method of suicide, they still report a death in a public park.

 

[Stagg737]

ill agree with you about schools advertising it but in todays day and age there so much free flowing info on the internet i find it hard that people do look anything up. My undergrad advertised the hell out of ross and AUC. People enrolled there by the boat load knowing well it would be a tough road. There comes a point where personal responsibility has to come into play. Nothing is guaranteed, even if you go to a US school, you could still not match. Also to touch on your mental health issue, schools are getting better about recognizing the problem but the execution is still poor. There is many people at my school that have had a really hard time and the admin has tried to help them but its half baked efforts

Still, how is a pre-med supposed to know who to trust when it comes to that info? When I was a pre-med I assumed that my advisor and the physicians I talked to knew what they were talking about. How are they supposed to know the information on some random forum is better than the info from the people who are paid to advise them? At that point, they're getting so much thrown in their faces that they probably have no idea what to actually trust.

1. Already a medical school graduate and not a student.
2. Suicide in NY got enough attention to get published .
3. This is a pretty good story if true.

Yes, but that doesn't mean it'll get covered. How would the news/police know they entire backstory if the family didn't want them to know? Not everything gets reported. The issues at UPenn didn't make any major news until the 10th or 11th in 3 years happened...

My nephew committed suicide a year ago. He was just an 18-yo kid with mental illness. It took me a second to find several hits on Google about it.

Edit: just Googled to see if I could find friend of mine who killed himself a few months ago. Took slightly longer. Maybe 30 seconds.

Yep. There is no way 'unemployed MD hangs self in state park' is NOT going to get some coverage, somewhere. With reddit being the ONLY source for this story makes it's legitamacy questionable at best.

Crazy stuff happens all the time that doesn't make the news. One of the parents of a kid I played sports with growing up had his dad commit suicide by OD. Apparently the mom (also a doc I believe) found him and passed out while trying to perform CPR. The kid and his younger brother got home from school to find both his parents passed out on the floor, unresponsive, and apparently dead. This was a little over 10 years ago. Didn't make the news, or google, or any local papers other than the obituary saying the father had passed away. I didn't find out what actually happened until a lot later. I'd guess we'd probably eventually see something more about this, but if the park and family wanted to stay discreet about it, I wouldn't be surprised if this is all we hear either.

 

[Mad Jack]

Is that the mean, median, or mode for medical school debt?

It's a mean. A quarter of medical students graduated with zero debt in 2015, while 10% graduated with 300k+. Given that those students started paying tuition in 2011, I'd imagine the median would be substantially higher. It would also be interesting to see what the mean of medical student debt is for students that don't graduate debt free, as those students usually fall in one of two categories- massive scholarships (military/public health/extremely exceptional student) or parents paying for school for them- and the other 75% are a lot more hard up for cash.

 

[Blessthefall]

Here is what a 250K /year paycheck looks like

Keep in mind this is for a single person with zero deductions being married with kids would change the amount paid in taxes.
View attachment 218748
6114x 2=~ 12000 per month.
The average indebtedness is 160K after medical school. This assumes that balloons up to 200K after residency.
View attachment 218749

Just by putting away half your income on it you should be able to get paid off in 3.1 years.

It is not all doom and gloom. or dont and just pay the minimum and be in debt for more than a decade. This is a choice not scrapping to get by. Tell that to people who have never seen 10k let alone have 10k+ income per month.

Thank you for posting this, very consoling. I'm interested in FM (yeah I know, the 7th circle of Hell on SDN). Good to have a representation of possibility.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Still, how is a pre-med supposed to know who to trust when it comes to that info? When I was a pre-med I assumed that my advisor and the physicians I talked to knew what they were talking about. How are they supposed to know the information on some random forum is better than the info from the people who are paid to advise them? At that point, they're getting so much thrown in their faces that they probably have no idea what to actually trust.




Yes, but that doesn't mean it'll get covered. How would the news/police know they entire backstory if the family didn't want them to know? Not everything gets reported. The issues at UPenn didn't make any major news until the 10th or 11th in 3 years happened...




Crazy stuff happens all the time that doesn't make the news. One of the parents of a kid I played sports with growing up had his dad commit suicide by OD. Apparently the mom (also a doc I believe) found him and passed out while trying to perform CPR. The kid and his younger brother got home from school to find both his parents passed out on the floor, unresponsive, and apparently dead. This was a little over 10 years ago. Didn't make the news, or google, or any local papers other than the obituary saying the father had passed away. I didn't find out what actually happened until a lot later. I'd guess we'd probably eventually see something more about this, but if the park and family wanted to stay discreet about it, I wouldn't be surprised if this is all we hear either.

Again. This is a HANGING in a PUBLIC PARK. There is no way at least one news station doesn't find out about that, as the police have to make that part of their records. Someone found the body and made a 911 call, even if it was a park ranger.

I can totally see why it might not be news if he did it in his house or something. The fact that it is a dramatic suicide in a public park makes the odds it doesn't get reported infinitesimal.