Don't Go into Podiatry (or Medicine!) for the Money

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MaxillofacialMN

Osteopathic Foot Dentist
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Don't make the same mistake that I did.

Back when I was a teenager, I decided I wanted to be a doctor, but I think what I really decided was that I wanted to be wealthy. Besides the obvious lack of foresight of allowing 16 year old MaxillofacialMN to make career decisions for 29-60 year old MaxillofacialMN, this was an incredibly misguided decision. If you are going into medicine because science/medicine/altruism genuinely interests you, this post is not for you. If you want to be a doctor to become wealthy, DO NOT DO IT.

I graduated college with decent stats (3.5 GPA, chemistry degree, 31 MCAT, etc), and got accepted to pod school for 2013. I had family, friends, and a girlfriend that I left behind in Minnesota, and started at DMU. It sucked, big time. Medical school is probably exciting and cool if you like anatomy, disease, and learning, but if you are just interested in dollars, it will be the worst experience of your life. You will keep telling yourself that the $$ are just 6.5 short years away, and then your life will be great. Except, it won't. Sure you'll be making a ton of money with some letters behind your name, but you'll also be saddled with over $200k of debt hitting you with insane amounts of interest payments monthly. Maybe you'll be married at this point (if you found time to love between rotations), and you want to buy a house. Good luck with no money. You will probably end up buying a house anyways that is commensurable to your salary (not net worth, because all your fellow physicians have big, luxurious houses, not to mention cars, vacations, etc), and you'll be saddled with even more debt and structured payments. This is not financial independence.

I was really afraid to leave podiatry school, because I thought my prospects elsewhere were dismal. I looked at average salary for a bachelors degree, and it was depressing. I based all my forecasting off this number, and it had my net worth breaking even around age 42, and then DPM skyrocketed past into the many millions of dollars. But then I realized something important, that you should realize too. I wasn't average. I was in medical school. I could do great things with my life! At the end of my first year, I took the plunge; I withdrew from school.

Since leaving school, I got married , bought a house, and am net worth positive. I am in consulting, and my wife is in sales. Our combined income is ~$170k. If we keep this up, we will be worth a million dollars before my wife is 30 years old - the same age some of you will potentially be finishing your residencies strapped with $200+k of debt. Not only am I far better off financially by leaving school, but I have so much more freedom. We travel all the time - in the last year we've gone to Paris, Mexico, and this weekend we're taking a roadtrip to meet some friends. We get weekends off, we see our families regularly.

I don't want to encourage anyone who is genuinely interested in medicine to stop pursing it, but for those of you in it for the money, don't. It's not worth it.

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Sorry that podiatry didn't work out. You bring up good points, it's unfortunate that it took a year of school for you to realize it. It should be pretty widely known that going into any profession (but especially medicine) as a scheme to make it rich isn't a great idea. Best of luck to you!
 
Very honest and well writtten. Thanks so much for a potential sticky / link in a thread about whether one should choose pod or not. I remember your avi and username; you were always one of the quality and well-respected posters.

Just a couple of questions:

(1) so what exactly was the final nail in the coffin for you? I don't think you specifically mentioned it. You didn't drop out after first semster or even first few weeks. You grinded it out for an entire year! What was it that really made you leave? No interest in the subjects you were "forced" to learn? Poor grades?

(2) What kind of consulting did you branch into?

(3) Do you ever have days where you're just like, "man.... what if I had stayed and finished?"

(4) There must have been red flags along the way. Why did you ignore them?

Finally, I just want add my $0.02 that podiatry is not well known for bringing in the big bucks or big name recognition. If someone really wanted to go into medicine for the money or big name prestige, I'm sorry to say podiatry might not really offer that. Getting a PhD and winning a Nobel prize would give you money and prestige over podiatrt. My supervisor at work--when I told him I'm going into podiatry--was like "that's such a weird kind of doctor to be. Why feet? But if that's what makes you happy..."

My parents even think it's a waste of time lol just my $0.02 though.

Great post!
 
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Sorry that podiatry didn't work out. You bring up good points, it's unfortunate that it took a year of school for you to realize it. It should be pretty widely known that going into any profession (but especially medicine) as a scheme to make it rich isn't a great idea. Best of luck to you!

Thank you. And you are right. It is widely-known, and people said that to me and probably everyone before they started school. But, looking at my alternative prospects with a bachelors in chemistry, I thought, "I either need to get more schooling for a PhD, Masters in Engineering, or settle for $40k as a lab tech." So, I thought I'd either settle for a salary 1/5 of a physician's, or I go to more schooling regardless. Seemed like a no-brainer, but I wasn't thinking clearly of what opportunities I really had.

I agree that we got told this time and time again, but I didn't listen. And after I withdrew, you'd be surprised by how many other people from my class reached out to me who apparently didn't listen either.


Very honest and well writtten. Thanks so much for a potential sticky / link in a thread about whether one should choose pod or not. I remember your avi and username; you were always one of the quality and well-respected posters.

Just a couple of questions:

(1) so what exactly was the final nail in the coffin for you? I don't think you specifically mentioned it. You didn't drop out after first semster or even first few weeks. You grinded it out for an entire year! What was it that really made you leave? No interest in the subjects you were "forced" to learn? Poor grades?

Thanks! I haven't been on here in like 3 years, and when I came back to check it out, I thought I'd post my updated experience.

The first nail in the coffin was the first day of anatomy lab when I realized I hated working on dead bodies. It was repulsive to me (and I wanted to be a surgeon?!). I didn't want to quit right away, because I had dedicated so much of my time and life to these moments, that it seemed a waste to quit immediately after a bad experience. The year dragged on, and anatomy coupled with lectures that I found tedious and uninteresting made things worse. As you can well imagine, P1/M1 is a terrible year if you don't like didactic medicine.

However, I was elected as my class's rep to the APMSA, and it was great. I found myself enjoying the work on those committees and trips far more than school itself, which was another sign that I might be in the wrong career.

To answer your question though, the final nail in the coffin was a Neuroanatomy test that I literally failed, because I couldn't bring myself to study. As you can imagine from my posts, I wasn't interested in studying, and least of all as a future podiatrist studying the brain's anatomy. I realized after getting something like 45% on that test (If I remember correctly, I watched the lectures one time on 2x speed an hour before the test, or something stupid like that), that if I weren't willing to jump through the hoops, I shouldn't be wasting my time/deserving it.

(2) What kind of consulting did you branch into?

Started as clinical software, now more healthcare software.

So, the one benefit of having 1 year of medical education, is that I could put it on my resume, and it allowed me to apply for jobs that say, "clinical experience required." P1/M1 isn't really clinical at all, but people hiring for these jobs don't really know that, and once you have 1 job for like 6 months, no one really cares if you have clinical experience or not.


(3) Do you ever have days where you're just like, "man.... what if I had stayed and finished?"

3. My wife and I talk about this sometimes, and the answer is a resounding NO! I have honestly NEVER wanted to go back, and it is sorta surprising that's the case. I spent like 6 years of my life preparing for it, and once I flicked the switch off, I couldn't have been happier. That said, my cohort is presently in their 4th year (currently posting on facebook about places to go for Thanksgiving because they're away from home), so there isn't much to miss.

That said, I am interested to see how I feel like 10-15 years when my cohort has had their DPM jobs for a few years (then their thanksgiving facebook posts will probably be on a beach in Aruba... haha). That said, in my career, I've worked with a lot of physicians, and one that really stands out to me is a woman who had just finished her pulmonology/intensivist residency, was 35, and had 2 kids. She was very fresh on the job (and granted not a pod + pulm intensivists work odd on/off hours), but she HATED her job. She made it very clear that she was at the hospital WAY too much, never saw her children, and I (in my clinical software role) was the destruction of personalized medicine. She was probably right on all accounts, but I don't see this changing anytime soon for h er.

So right now - no, never.

(4) There must have been red flags along the way. Why did you ignore them?

Finally, I just want add my $0.02 that podiatry is not well known for bringing in the big bucks or big name recognition. If someone really wanted to go into medicine for the money or big name prestige, I'm sorry to say podiatry might not really offer that. Getting a PhD and winning a Nobel prize would give you money and prestige over podiatrt. My supervisor at work--when I told him I'm going into podiatry--was like "that's such a weird kind of doctor to be. Why feet? But if that's what makes you happy..."

My parents even think it's a waste of time lol just my $0.02 though.

Great post!

I'm not sure that I "ignored" the red flags insomuch that I saw them, but I thought the alternative was worse. I literally thought I would be making $17/hour as a lab tech washing glassware somewhere if I ended my education with a bachelor's in chemistry. As someone looking for money, that is a terrible start! But, once I quit, I thought about what I liked, and remembered my APMSA experience, and looked for jobs doing that type of thing in the medical space. There are so many unfilled jobs right now, it's incredible. Will it last? Probably not, but in Minneapolis/St. Paul, they estimate there will be 100k (NOT A TYPO!!) unfilled, skill-related jobs by 2020. That's not an opportunity to ignore!

If anyone else has questions, I will check back from time-to-time. Again, I want to be clear that medicine is probably still a great career if you thoroughly enjoy learning, medicine, and helping people. And podiatry is probably one of the easiest/best ways to get into medicine. But, I would just keep cautioning people to think twice if one of your motivating factors is $$.
 
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