Debt

[4EverBluDevils]

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I came across a doctor on another site who is up to his neck in med school debt and can't afford a house. Given debt to income ratio, would you say you end up saving more money ultimately than you would if you went a different route? (I really like psychiatry, but I also like food and water).

 

[OldPsychDoc]

I came across a doctor on another site who is up to his neck in med school debt and can't afford a house. Given debt to income ratio, would you say you end up saving more money ultimately than you would if you went a different route? (I really like psychiatry, but I also like food and water).

N=1. Everybody is different.
Some people are driven (God knows why...) to go to a "name" undergrad school, start at their "top ranked" med school already with $50-100K in debt, and then add another $100-200K in med school. Then if their lifestyle demands owning a "doctor house", or living in the Bay Area--they will have problems like this.

I owned houses in med school and residency, went to state schools, and sacrificed nothing, but my tastes are modest.

You have to decide how much "lifestyle" you need, and figure out how to afford it. Psychiatry provides a very nice living for my family in the Midwest. It's better than primary care, certainly, and sadly, far and away more than what almost all of my clients live on. (BTW--anyone seen "Pursuit of Happyness"--talk about living paycheck to paycheck!)

 

[billypilgrim37]

People have very different reasons for having so much debt, and while there are definitely some individuals who are swamped, on average, most physicians can at least live comfortably, and many live way too comfortably. I came from a pretty modest upbringing, so the idea of a 6 figure salary after only 10 years of back-breaking sleepless post-grad training sounds like a sweet deal. Some people come from different backgrounds, and don't understand why they can't buy a half-million dollar house by the time they're 30.

I know plenty of folk buying 200k condos straight out of residency. I'm definitely not one of those people, and I've been on full merit scholarship for undergrad and for med school. But people do it, and they're happy doing it.

In all of these threads, the question I've never seen you answer is whether you want to be a doctor or not. You've asked whether you want to be a psychiatrist or not, but I'm not sure that's the most useful question for you. They're very different questions, and pondering that one might give you some more insight into what you really want.

Now, I say that as an M4. Maybe 15 years from now I would have thought that was a strange way to approach things.

 

[GNanak1]

It also depends on how you live in the post-residency period. The problem I'm seeing a lot of is people graduating from medical school/residency and not being able to wait patiently for debt to clear.

For example, say you're $200,000 in debt after residency. You could pay that off in two to three years easily with a starting physician's salary. The only question is whether you'd be willing to live in a studio and drive a corolla for those two years...or if you want a decent sized house and an acura.

 

[BabyPsychDoc]

N=1. Everybody is different.
Some people are driven (God knows why...) to go to a "name" undergrad school, start at their "top ranked" med school already with $50-100K in debt, and then add another $100-200K in med school. Then if their lifestyle demands owning a "doctor house", or living in the Bay Area--they will have problems like this.

IMHO, if you are the type of person that goes to a "name" undergrad and "top ranked" medschool, then your lifestyle WILL demand a "doctor house", alpha-romeo, a trophy wife etc. They want the "top quality" in everything. I once met an attending at Cornell, who was practically introducing himself as someone who was "born and bred on Long Island, and continues to live there now". As if this was an important advantage that somehow makes him a better doctor. I guess, there should be a diagnosis there for people like him...🙄

 

[Doctor Bagel]

Man, this is depressing me because I'm not going to a name school but am still acquiring lots of debt I guess because I wasn't cool enough to get big scholarships or whatever. I'm walking out of here with close to $250k in debt, not from an extravagant lifestyle or in pursuit of vanity -- people don't go to school in Oklahoma for vanity. That's just how it works out because my state school was super subjective and rejected me, but that would have cost me $200k anyway. So after that ramble, I guess I'm just trying to say that merely going to any medical school costs lots of us lots of money. We're not all superstars who can get full tuition at any school.

So for people like us who have no choice but to borrow tons of money, is psych a bad choice? Am I not going to be able to buy a house if I make $150k/year? These extreme levels of debt are actually new and are only going to get worse as school prices go up more than inflation every year.

 

[lilnoelle]

? Am I not going to be able to buy a house if I make $150k/year? These extreme levels of debt are actually new and are only going to get worse as school prices go up more than inflation every year.

Yup, I'm in the same boat. OOS tuition and needing to borrow the max plus money for daycare (two children) means I'll graduate with almost $300K in debt.
However we live very comfortably and own what I consider a nice home on an income of $60K (that was our income before attending med school and when I add my hubby's income plus the loans I take out for living expenses). Theres no reason an individual can't own a home and live comfortably on $150K... if one can do it on $60k, then you could potentially have ones loans paid off in a matter of years and then live a more physician-like lifestyle.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

Yup, I'm in the same boat. OOS tuition and needing to borrow the max plus money for daycare (two children) means I'll graduate with almost $300K in debt.
However we live very comfortably and own what I consider a nice home on an income of $60K (that was our income before attending med school and when I add my hubby's income plus the loans I take out for living expenses). Theres no reason an individual can't own a home and live comfortably on $150K... if one can do it on $60k, then you could potentially have ones loans paid off in a matter of years and then live a more physician-like lifestyle.

I guess it depends on where you live. Unfortunately, I want to get the heck out of Oklahoma and probably go somewhere more expensive, so that'll make it harder. I guess my main worry is that we'll be denied for a home loan when the time comes just because of my huge medical school debt. I know that's not an issue now, but with all the real estate woes, it seems like it could hit.

Bleh, school loans suck.

Editing to say thanks for backing me up on the fact that lots of us don't really have a choice about the massive borrowing.

 

[lilnoelle]

I guess it depends on where you live.

Yeah, thats true. I'm perfectly happy to stay in the midwest but I know the housing market is very different in places like New York City and San Fransisco (and most of California for that matter).

The thing that makes it difficult (in addition to the huge amount of money we're borrowing) is that our interest rates are quite a bit higher than those who have graduated recently. I figured up my interest payment and it will start out to be close to $30K a year once I get out of residency!

 

[4EverBluDevils]

In all of these threads, the question I've never seen you answer is whether you want to be a doctor or not. You've asked whether you want to be a psychiatrist or not, but I'm not sure that's the most useful question for you. They're very different questions, and pondering that one might give you some more insight into what you really want.

No I definitely don't want to be a doctor, only a psychiatrist. If there were no such things as psychiatrists, I wouldn't be considering med school.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

The thing that makes it difficult (in addition to the huge amount of money we're borrowing) is that our interest rates are quite a bit higher than those who have graduated recently. I figured up my interest payment and it will start out to be close to $30K a year once I get out of residency!

Yeah, I know. I get especially irked when people who graduated in the past few years tell us all to consolidate with super low interest rates. It doesn't work that way anymore. So, yeah, huge tuition increases, interest rate increases and increasing costs for all sorts of necessary things for living (gas, food, real estate, etc.) makes going to med school right especially suck.

My brother graduated from my school is 2000, and his instate tuition was $8k/year. Now it's $19k. 😱

Editing to all about the real estate market -- it's not just California and NY that are insane. In Oregon (where I'd absolutely love to return), it costs you about a minimum of $350k to get a small house in an OK neighborhood. DC is supposed to be crazier than that, and heck, even in Austin, you had to live way the hell out in super boring suburbia to get an affordable house.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

No I definitely don't want to be a doctor, only a psychiatrist. If there were no such things as psychiatrists, I wouldn't be considering med school.

Jumping in to say that medical school might be a really miserable path if you're only interested in psych because you're going to spend a lot of time doing things that aren't at all psych relevant. Honestly, I think you need some interest in other types of medicine to not go insane.

 

[PsychMD2100]

2 separate thoughts responding to different posters:

First, Bank of America has a special home mortgage loan devoted to physicians. They keep sending me offers in the mail. Even if your income is limited, Bank of America is hoping to get your business in the long term when you're finally looking for the "doctor house". Unless your credit is abominable, you shouldn't have a problem securing a modest home loan as a resident.

Second, I never thought I'd do psychiatry when I started med school. On the other hand, I knew a couple people that started med school wanting to do psychiatry; they are now practicing psychiatrists. There are so many years involved in becoming a psychiatrist that you've got to keep an open mind.