Emergency Physician Compensation Decreased Most Among Specialties Over Past 5 Years (Inflation-Adjusted), per MGMA '24

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Completely agree--very sage advice. I make almost as much with my 3 other non-EM jobs (photography, short-term rentals, and Army National Guard) as I do in EM and they all provide some level of satisfaction in different ways.

To the person who asked about alternative careers, I think it deserves its own thread but I'd be a full time photographer. I could probably make my physician salary with it (you'd be surprised when you position it as a luxury brand) but I also like the security/stability of medicine along with other things like insurance, pension (i.e. multi-million payout or really nice annuity in our system), matching retirement contribution, CME account, etc.
You can make 350k/year doing photography?
 
I guess I’m confused if your argument is that reimbursements don’t matter but then you give an example where they do matter because the ED/hospital will be closing because of it. Again, we both know lots of factors boil down to compensation but reimbursement is absolutely one of those factors.
But in reality the compensation to the docs doesn’t rely on reimbursement from insurance. Note the top 2 jobs hospital an and b pay the same but reimbursement changes by a ton. In the end perhaps we can agree to a few things that are obvious which will simplify things going forward.

Employers won’t pay any more than they have to in order to hire people. 2. an employer needs some profit in order to justify managing the contract. The higher the profit it doesn’t impact pay to the docs. If hospital an and b changed to a certain level of profit the CMG would not run it at a loss. For example pre bankruptcy envision dumped or threatened to dump contracts in Arizona where they didn’t have a 15% margin.
 
But in reality the compensation to the docs doesn’t rely on reimbursement from insurance. Note the top 2 jobs hospital an and b pay the same but reimbursement changes by a ton. In the end perhaps we can agree to a few things that are obvious which will simplify things going forward.

Employers won’t pay any more than they have to in order to hire people. 2. an employer needs some profit in order to justify managing the contract. The higher the profit it doesn’t impact pay to the docs. If hospital an and b changed to a certain level of profit the CMG would not run it at a loss. For example pre bankruptcy envision dumped or threatened to dump contracts in Arizona where they didn’t have a 15% margin.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. This post just had another anecdote about a CMG that shows the relationship with reimbursement and physician pay. Medicine has a lot of similarities to other businesses including the revenue generated being related to compensation.
 
I went to Texas A&M for undergrad (Gig’em). 4 of my good friends from undergrad are engineers (Petro, chem, mechanical). All are doing better than me. I am finally starting to catch up. This is after I have been working 200-230 hrs a month for years.

Their internships paid their college bill.
They sleep in their beds at night.
They have weekends off.
They have holidays off.
They have the ability to own their work/companies.

Medicine is not worth it anymore. Do something else without a glass ceiling and suits robbing you.
 
You can make 350k/year doing photography?
Most people don’t but it’s definitely doable. I know somebody making seven figures doing pet photography.

The thing that we get no exposure to in medicine (and many other academic fields) is there are so many other ways to make money. I think I focused so much on my education for so many years that I had no idea of all the other potential ways to make a great income. For example, I paid $50,000 to a basement waterproofing company a few years ago because our basement kept flooding. I’ve spent probably $20,000 with our HVAC company this spring to fix some air conditioner units on our short term rentals. There are people with Porta potty businesses making millions of dollars a year in the right location, so it’s totally doable.

Regarding photography, my average sale is about $2500 but I don’t do the volume right now to make a ton on it because of some of the other things that I’m doing. That said, I think I could easily scale it up. The reality is that I would only need 100 to 150 clients in an area of 100,000 to have a really great income.
 
I went to Texas A&M for undergrad (Gig’em). 4 of my good friends from undergrad are engineers (Petro, chem, mechanical). All are doing better than me. I am finally starting to catch up. This is after I have been working 200-230 hrs a month for years.

Their internships paid their college bill.
They sleep in their beds at night.
They have weekends off.
They have holidays off.
They have the ability to own their work/companies.

Medicine is not worth it anymore. Do something else without a glass ceiling and suits robbing you.
How long have you been out of residency? Have you really been working 200-230 hours a month as an attending?
 
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. This post just had another anecdote about a CMG that shows the relationship with reimbursement and physician pay. Medicine has a lot of similarities to other businesses including the revenue generated being related to compensation.
Explain geographic pay differences. Even better explain why academic pay is so bad when many of them staff 3 pts per attending hour.

Why is pay in Denver and Chicago so much lower than many other metro markets.
 
Explain geographic pay differences. Even better explain why academic pay is so bad when many of them staff 3 pts per attending hour.

Why is pay in Denver and Chicago so much lower than many other metro markets.
I guess I’ll repeat it again. Compensation is multifactorial but reimbursements certainly play a part.
 
How long have you been out of residency? Have you really been working 200-230 hours a month as an attending?
5 years, and yes. I do 120 hrs full time (~$261 per hr after state taxes) and another 80-140 hrs as bonus (~378 per hr with no state taxes). All 1099. Most I have ever done is 264 hrs in one month (4 months like this). Only met one doc who does more than me, and he was at 320-360 hrs a month (10/12 hr and 24 hr shifts, sometimes pulling double shifts a day). He has done this for 12-13 years since graduating residency.
 
5 years, and yes. I do 120 hrs full time (~$261 per hr after state taxes) and another 80-140 hrs as bonus (~378 per hr with no state taxes). All 1099. Most I have ever done is 264 hrs in one month (4 months like this). Only met one doc who does more than me, and he was at 320-360 hrs a month (10/12 hr and 24 hr shifts, sometimes pulling double shifts a day). He has done this for 12-13 years since graduating residency.
So if you do low end of your 80-140 range and work 100 bonus hours, you're making $829440 per year. You're saying that your friends are all doing better than you? That's certainly impressive and you have a friend pool that makes a lot of money. That is by no means the norm.

The amount that you're working is also highly unusual. Is the juice really worth the squeeze?
 
Look at when I finished. 2019-now: inflation killed me, taxes eat a lot, New England medical school debt eats a lot (paid off in Nov), put off having kids until finishing residency (2 right now and 1 more on the way) - they eat a lot. Paying cash for everything eats a lot.

Compound interest is a powerful thing to try to over come. I only have 5 years of it. My friends have 13 years. I am 2 years away from my first “doubling,” and they are almost at their second “doubling.” I missed out on my friend’s experience with the market and having the 2009 to 2019 amazing market returns.

I save a great deal of money, and I live like a slightly upper middle class (house/cars - still drive a 2014 Ford Focus).

I project to be equal to my friends in another 2-3 years at current pace and level off to 160 hrs a month to be equal to them.

Juice is worth the squeeze - becomes more juicy as time goes on because of compound interest working in my favor.
 
Look at when I finished. 2019-now: inflation killed me, taxes eat a lot, New England medical school debt eats a lot (paid off in Nov), put off having kids until finishing residency (2 right now and 1 more on the way) - they eat a lot. Paying cash for everything eats a lot.

Compound interest is a powerful thing to try to over come. I only have 5 years of it. My friends have 13 years. I am 2 years away from my first “doubling,” and they are almost at their second “doubling.” I missed out on my friend’s experience with the market and having the 2009 to 2019 amazing market returns.

I save a great deal of money, and I live like a slightly upper middle class (house/cars - still drive a 2014 Ford Focus).

I project to be equal to my friends in another 2-3 years at current pace and level off to 160 hrs a month to be equal to them.

Juice is worth the squeeze - becomes more juicy as time goes on because of compound interest working in my favor.
Inflation affects everyone but it affects those with lower incomes/assets more.

Do you mean your friends make more than you or they’re in a better financial situation than you currently? You say you’re catching up and will pass them so I imagine you mean general financial shape and not income wise. It’s not the norm for the jobs your friends have to make $800k, especially at their age. It typically takes a bit for a physician to get caught up with other more traditional jobs but once you get caught up, you’ll be surprised at how much distance you can put on most other occupations.
 
Still LOL at people citing all their engineering friends (or whatever) making more than them. Something is off. Shooting from the hip, it's probably that you grew up with rich parents in a rich town going to school with a bunch of other kids with rich parents. Born on third base but growing up thinking you hit a triple. FWIW, it's fine to have that advantage, but it's delusional to not acknowledge/realize it; and also to not realize that on some level you are selecting those people to be your friends.

Even if you grew up not rich, etc. at a certain point being a physician changes your social circle. Anyways, my point is that as physicians, we generally live in a bubble that is probably 2 std deviations from the mean (not just in pay). It's important not confuse our collective average with the average of everyone else around us.
 
Look at when I finished. 2019-now: inflation killed me, taxes eat a lot, New England medical school debt eats a lot (paid off in Nov), put off having kids until finishing residency (2 right now and 1 more on the way) - they eat a lot. Paying cash for everything eats a lot.

Compound interest is a powerful thing to try to over come. I only have 5 years of it. My friends have 13 years. I am 2 years away from my first “doubling,” and they are almost at their second “doubling.” I missed out on my friend’s experience with the market and having the 2009 to 2019 amazing market returns.

I save a great deal of money, and I live like a slightly upper middle class (house/cars - still drive a 2014 Ford Focus).

I project to be equal to my friends in another 2-3 years at current pace and level off to 160 hrs a month to be equal to them.

Juice is worth the squeeze - becomes more juicy as time goes on because of compound interest working in my favor.
Interesting to see this written out like you did. It looks like a quote straight out of my head from 2020 as I had a very similar mentality straight out of residency and for a few years after. I'm someone who has always been extremely comfortable with delayed gratification. More recently, however, I've come to the opinion that I was sacrificing time with my family unnecessarily. Sure, you can argue that working more now lets you FIRE and spend all the time in the world with them later. That's certainly viable. I realized I wasn't willing to miss this specific time, however, for some theoretically greater quantity of time at a later point in all of our lives. In the interim, even working 128 hrs/month I'm still making far more money than we need to be extremely comfortable.

To be clear, I'm not trying to say that you're going to shift to my way of thinking. I'm just saying that it's interesting how that mentality and one's approach to money can fundamentally change over time.
 
Interesting to see this written out like you did. It looks like a quote straight out of my head from 2020 as I had a very similar mentality straight out of residency and for a few years after. I'm someone who has always been extremely comfortable with delayed gratification. More recently, however, I've come to the opinion that I was sacrificing time with my family unnecessarily. Sure, you can argue that working more now lets you FIRE and spend all the time in the world with them later. That's certainly viable. I realized I wasn't willing to miss this specific time, however, for some theoretically greater quantity of time at a later point in all of our lives. In the interim, even working 128 hrs/month I'm still making far more money than we need to be extremely comfortable.

To be clear, I'm not trying to say that you're going to shift to my way of thinking. I'm just saying that it's interesting how that mentality and one's approach to money can fundamentally change over time.
Agreed. Here. When my kids were very little much of my focus was on earning money. I grew up with little. I wanted to feel safe financially. Fast forward and 2of my kids are teens and when the first goes to college it will change our home dynamic forever. A few years back I made the decision to work less and try to be around more. I think it is paying off. I don’t know what it would be like at home if I continued to work more.

As someone told me about success it is not about what you are willing to do but what you are willing to give up/sacrifice.

I’ll also echo what some people are saying on here. 1) my social circle is much different. I have friends who will let me borrow their boat for no charge, I have friends who want to take me flying with them or take me to their country club. That is not the norm in society.

Ill also say of my non medical friends say my college friends (I went to a top 20 university) I am the poorest or close to it amongst my social circle from college. A couple of guys started their own VC companies, some did biotech, some started businesses that sold to larger entities. 5 went to Harvard business school, Wharton etc.

There is an ortho trauma guy who married a woman with an MBA who started / founded a company and sold to PE, another is an orthodontist who makes a ton of money speaking and his wife run her own business.

The key in my opinion is contentment. If I told my 16 year old self I would be in the financial position I am in and earning what I earn I would take it 100 times over. I dont buy 10k bags for my wife nor do i fly first class. I dont value those things. The belief that the grass is always greener is inherent to the reasons we were all able to become docs.

Some people would say man being a lawyer is amazing, they start at 150k a year and can make really good money. That ignores the reality that the avg salary of a lawyer is not very high and substantially lower than the avg salary of a physician. Same for engineering. We do give up a lot to work in medicine. For that we work fewer hours.
 
LOL at the citing all these other "high-paying" jobs. NYPD cops making >200K are either high up on the chain of command or working a lot of overtime. They're not working 32hr/wk for 48 weeks/yr. Financial analysts average a lot less than 175K. Someone in marketing making 200K/yr is really good at their job and has likely gotten multiple promotions. And again, both of those folks are working more than 40hrs/week. My partner is an executive VP for an advertising firm and makes more than me. She works during the day and then will lay in bed at night for hours doing work. Shes constantly doing work on weekends. I never envy her job.

EM/medicine sucks a lot. There are other things I'd love to do, but I couldnt make half as much doing them. Lets be real, we all may be burnt to a crisp, but we do decently enough and work less than the average person. Its why we keep doing it. If it was so easy to jump ship and make good money in something else most of us would do it. But we don't because we know we may not be able to do it or don't want to invest the time necessary to do it. We post to a forum for med students and scream into the ether instead.

I agree on the fact that there aren’t many (if any) other easy jobs out there making $200k. Trust me, these jobs are not easy to find and do not exist for the vast majority of Americans who would be looking for them.

There is no easy path to a six figure income in America in the year 2024 - especially if you want to make $300k plus. Medicine is the most assured way of making that income. It’s also *possible* in law, business, etc but not nearly as easy. A huge fraction of lawyers that graduate today never find jobs and don’t work in law, and iirc the overall average income of an attorney is currently $80k. Same with getting an MBA.
 
5 years, and yes. I do 120 hrs full time (~$261 per hr after state taxes) and another 80-140 hrs as bonus (~378 per hr with no state taxes). All 1099. Most I have ever done is 264 hrs in one month (4 months like this). Only met one doc who does more than me, and he was at 320-360 hrs a month (10/12 hr and 24 hr shifts, sometimes pulling double shifts a day). He has done this for 12-13 years since graduating residency.
My god that's a lot of hours.
 
Still LOL at people citing all their engineering friends (or whatever) making more than them. Something is off. Shooting from the hip, it's probably that you grew up with rich parents in a rich town going to school with a bunch of other kids with rich parents. Born on third base but growing up thinking you hit a triple. FWIW, it's fine to have that advantage, but it's delusional to not acknowledge/realize it; and also to not realize that on some level you are selecting those people to be your friends.

Even if you grew up not rich, etc. at a certain point being a physician changes your social circle. Anyways, my point is that as physicians, we generally live in a bubble that is probably 2 std deviations from the mean (not just in pay). It's important not confuse our collective average with the average of everyone else around us.

Nice condescension, but no.

Born middle class. Dad worked real hard to pay for my college...med school and beyond was on me. I Worked in McDonald's and the grocery store as a teenager. Would say I was born on first with a nice lead to 2nd.
 
I agree on the fact that there aren’t many (if any) other easy jobs out there making $200k. Trust me, these jobs are not easy to find and do not exist for the vast majority of Americans who would be looking for them.

There is no easy path to a six figure income in America in the year 2024 - especially if you want to make $300k plus. Medicine is the most assured way of making that income. It’s also *possible* in law, business, etc but not nearly as easy. A huge fraction of lawyers that graduate today never find jobs and don’t work in law, and iirc the overall average income of an attorney is currently $80k. Same with getting an MBA.

You keep saying this, and others keep saying they know people with these jobs. I guess we're lying.
 
When I was working in the hospital averaging about 400K/yr, I looked around the hospital and many times told myself I would not trade with any other field. Most hospital specialists are miserable, I wasn't because I worked 30 hrs/wk and rarely stayed late. All of my friends, engineers included, made much less than I did. My degree was in Computer Eng and so I know lots of them. I had the biggest/most expensive house, went on the nicest vacation, and rarely every worried about $$$.

Fast forward and I make much more than this because working only 30 hrs a week gives you lots of time to create wealth outside of medicine.

Even now when I make much more and have an easier job with multiple streams of incomes, I still don't see any of my close engineering friends having anything near my wealth. They still seem to be living tight on the budget. My Brother who is a director at a Large Tech company do not make anywhere near what I make. My BIL who is a director at a Big finance company doesn't make anywhere close to what I made.

EM is a difficult job for sure, but so is almost all medicine jobs. But when you are working 30 hrs/wk making 400K+, spend the other 10hrs/wk as a side gig. You have time, money, brains so use it to your advantage.

If you walk into a typical engineering office, I bet 1 in 100 makes 400K plus. If you walk into a hospital, I bet you half the docs makes 400K+.

For every engineer that is making 300K, there are docs that are making 700K+. I can name you 30 docs I know that easily pulls in 700K.
 
For all the mountain of bull&*#% anecdotes in this thread (my friend makes 400k/year writing answers for Quora!), here's the data.


Seems median annual salary is ~$59k in 2024.

Should we be comparing ourselves to John Q. Average? No, but I'm willing to bet that anything north of $250k/yr is well above average in any non-medical professional field (engineering, law, business, etc.). I can cut my hours in half and still make that. Doesn't mean I don't think we all deserve huge raises.

Save as much money as you can early in your career. Build a foundation and give yourself options later, including the option to not sweat things you can't control.
 
You keep saying this, and others keep saying they know people with these jobs. I guess we're lying.
No one is saying that. We're saying that's not the norm.

For every 23 year old engineer making 200k, there's probably 10 others not breaking 100k.
 
For all the mountain of bull&*#% anecdotes in this thread (my friend makes 400k/year writing answers for Quora!), here's the data.


Seems median annual salary is ~$59k in 2024.

Should we be comparing ourselves to John Q. Average? No, but I'm willing to bet that anything north of $250k/yr is well above average in any non-medical professional field (engineering, law, business, etc.). I can cut my hours in half and still make that. Doesn't mean I don't think we all deserve huge raises.

Save as much money as you can early in your career. Build a foundation and give yourself options later, including the option to not sweat things you can't control.
Yeah why is this even a debate? We have high quality data sets on this.

For individual incomes (not household), here are the percentiles:
$100k - 81st
$250k - 97th

So yeah, our incomes are up there guys and I assure you it’s not easy to find jobs that pay similarly to ours.
 
Yeah why is this even a debate? We have high quality data sets on this.

For individual incomes (not household), here are the percentiles:
$100k - 81st
$250k - 97th

So yeah, our incomes are up there guys and I assure you it’s not easy to find jobs that pay similarly to ours.
It's a sort of educational bias. Many physicians go to top undergrads and so their classmates are the ones who are doing way better than most physicians in lots of different fields.
 
Maybe this is a just a Michigan thing but here most engineers are not pulling in over 100k.

We have many engineers schools such as UofM, MSU, Mich tech,Wayne State so that maybe the reason

And to above poster about other career I would either go with photography or bench chemist.
 
Agreed. Here. When my kids were very little much of my focus was on earning money. I grew up with little. I wanted to feel safe financially. Fast forward and 2of my kids are teens and when the first goes to college it will change our home dynamic forever. A few years back I made the decision to work less and try to be around more. I think it is paying off. I don’t know what it would be like at home if I continued to work more.

As someone told me about success it is not about what you are willing to do but what you are willing to give up/sacrifice.

I’ll also echo what some people are saying on here. 1) my social circle is much different. I have friends who will let me borrow their boat for no charge, I have friends who want to take me flying with them or take me to their country club. That is not the norm in society.

Ill also say of my non medical friends say my college friends (I went to a top 20 university) I am the poorest or close to it amongst my social circle from college. A couple of guys started their own VC companies, some did biotech, some started businesses that sold to larger entities. 5 went to Harvard business school, Wharton etc.

There is an ortho trauma guy who married a woman with an MBA who started / founded a company and sold to PE, another is an orthodontist who makes a ton of money speaking and his wife run her own business.

The key in my opinion is contentment. If I told my 16 year old self I would be in the financial position I am in and earning what I earn I would take it 100 times over. I dont buy 10k bags for my wife nor do i fly first class. I dont value those things. The belief that the grass is always greener is inherent to the reasons we were all able to become docs.

Some people would say man being a lawyer is amazing, they start at 150k a year and can make really good money. That ignores the reality that the avg salary of a lawyer is not very high and substantially lower than the avg salary of a physician. Same for engineering. We do give up a lot to work in medicine. For that we work fewer hours.

Agree with the contentment piece. I really need to focus on this one myself. We moved to an upper class neighborhood to be close to (rich) family and it's easy to get caught up in the rat race. When you're surrounded by everyone with Porsches, second vacation homes, making what I make or more while working from home with summer Fridays off, you begin to question your chosen career path. This isn't even counting the hoards of people born into wealth who never needed to work a day in their lives. Living in these kinds of neighborhoods, it seems like it's every other house. Growing up in my lower middle class bubble I never knew just how many there were. Ignorance is bliss in many ways.

As a doctor we work so hard and sacrifice so much to get to where we are. When you're exposed to the other members in the top tier of society it's easy to feel resentful and/or inadequate. Perspective, mindfulness, and contentment are key.
 
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You keep saying this, and others keep saying they know people with these jobs. I guess we're lying.

“The pleural of anecdote is not data.”

The US government data out there on this indicates that if these jobs exist, they’re clearly outliers. There are not many of them, and if you’re going into these fields hoping to find that, you might as well be trying to break into Hollywood.
 
“The pleural of anecdote is not data.”

The US government data out there on this indicates that if these jobs exist, they’re clearly outliers. There are not many of them, and if you’re going into these fields hoping to find that, you might as well be trying to break into Hollywood.
I’m sure there are tons of people making income in ways that’s not reported. I know a PA who moonlights as an escort (no I don’t use these services). Im guessing she’s pulling quite a bit to risk her medical career.

I also think it’s easier to be content when you never had that much potential. I never had any real bankable talents in high school. Didn’t get into any top schools. Teachers thought I was above average at best. Friends were all more talented in some way. So for me, having so much at my age means a lot to me. And I’m fairly confident things will only get better. Some of you guys have top 1% social circles by NW I’m guessing. But you can be a top 5%er and still live an incredibly good life.
 
Also the thing about the engineering job is that it is just a job if the company lays you off or you get fired then what? You often have to move and you can't get the same high paying job. The same with tech with the layoffs I know many people on unemployement for the last 6 or so months. As a doctor you can be sued or layed off and still easily get at 350k job. Engineer can't do that.

There is also a psych NP that makes 600k a year

I have an EM friend who owns a medical spa and makes 1 million a year.
 
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Again contentment matters. If you make $500a year and spend 300k you’ll be content and happy if that’s what your lifestyle demands.

If you earn $1m and require $1,000,001 you’ll be stressed and press for more. I’m super
Content. Never followed the Ramsey teachings though I bet I listened to 100+ hours of his show. I do think having an abundance mindset matters. Took me a long time to get there. I think for most of us who grew up with little it’s hard. My mom is fairly comfortable financially but spends very little. I looked at her expenses. Well under 3k a month and her social security if she took it is over 4k. She still lives like she is broke. It’s fine. She is happy because legit material things don’t matter to her. Immigrant people are built different.
 
Most are affected by the negatives more than the positives. This is no different.

400K+ ER doc - "but my job is harder", "We don't get paid enough". Yes you are getting screwed when you compare yourself to the Radiologist making 700K and not dealing with drug addicts. But you are comparing yourself to the .5% when you are the 1%. There are 99% below you making less and many working likely harder

When you invest, those dys/years when you are down hurts way more and affect your psyche more than when you are up 70% of the time.

When you play poker, those bad beats is etched but when you are on the good side of a bad beat, it never registers.

When you work 30hrs a week, it is not burned in your mind how lucky you have it but if you worked 60 hrs/wk it would be a bitter pill.

When you feel "wronged", people jump straight writing a 20 min bad google review. But when they had a great experience, they won't spend 1 minute to click 5 stars.

Its just human nature to always look at the bad side and never the good side. This is the difference between happy people and unhappy people. Its all perception.

I will bet that the ones on here who are the major malcontent, would be malcontent if they were in finance, engineering, or other "Big bucks jobs"

I came from nothing. I have more than I could ever have imagined when I had nothing. I have my health. I have my family. Nothing else really registers on my stress meter.
 
There’s a lot of grass is greener everywhere. I feel like I’m one of the relatively rare docs who’s worked manual labor, but I’d say folks in the trades (when established) probably make about as much as your average engineer with those high ceilings and they get paid from age 18, if not sooner. They also get their union benefits and have significant job security. Lawyers are about $140k per BLS, and the ones I know doing better had family connections for their jobs. I know a Harvard Law guy making like $80k as a low-level prosecutor.
 
There’s a lot of grass is greener everywhere. I feel like I’m one of the relatively rare docs who’s worked manual labor, but I’d say folks in the trades (when established) probably make about as much as your average engineer with those high ceilings and they get paid from age 18, if not sooner. They also get their union benefits and have significant job security. Lawyers are about $140k per BLS, and the ones I know doing better had family connections for their jobs. I know a Harvard Law guy making like $80k as a low-level prosecutor.
Yeah, lots of states don't really have unions worth the name...
 
There’s a lot of grass is greener everywhere. I feel like I’m one of the relatively rare docs who’s worked manual labor, but I’d say folks in the trades (when established) probably make about as much as your average engineer with those high ceilings and they get paid from age 18, if not sooner. They also get their union benefits and have significant job security. Lawyers are about $140k per BLS, and the ones I know doing better had family connections for their jobs. I know a Harvard Law guy making like $80k as a low-level prosecutor.
Again it’s the avg not the extremes to the top or bottom. College guy I know makes 6-10 m a year at Goldman Sachs. Similarly there are people who make very little. Our circle is different because some people have country club memberships and there is the dude in real estate who makes 10m a year doing “ nothing”. I agree we do well. I think em is underpaid relative to other fields of medicine.
 
I know a PA who moonlights as an escort (no I don’t use these services). Im guessing she’s pulling quite a bit to risk her medical career.
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5 years, and yes. I do 120 hrs full time (~$261 per hr after state taxes) and another 80-140 hrs as bonus (~378 per hr with no state taxes). All 1099. Most I have ever done is 264 hrs in one month (4 months like this). Only met one doc who does more than me, and he was at 320-360 hrs a month (10/12 hr and 24 hr shifts, sometimes pulling double shifts a day). He has done this for 12-13 years since graduating residency.
I would literally die doing this. Good for you
 
This is just a put things in perspective stat. The top 1% American needs an income of 800K. The top 1% worldwide needs an income of 34K.

Avg american salary 60K.
 
This is just a put things in perspective stat. The top 1% American needs an income of 800K. The top 1% worldwide needs an income of 34K.

Avg american salary 60K.
We often lack this. It’s natural for people to compare themselves to those who surround them. Your social circle and complacency in it makes a difference. There will always be someone richer, better looking, more fit and perhaps even seemingly happier.

We also see this as EM docs saying man, Derm is amazing, EM sucks, ortho has it so good, our job sucks.

One thing I have gotten good at is seeing the trash those specialties all deal with. I am content with being an EM doc. I have 0 desire to work in a different speciality and am quite happy being an EM doc. We work 20-40 hours a week except for a few outliers. Few EM docs work 2000 clinical hours. My friends in finance, law, tech who make crazy doctor type money work more. Many of us dont bring our work home. Shift over, charts done dont think about it again. The finance guy has the work from earlier still hanging over him etc.
 
We often lack this. It’s natural for people to compare themselves to those who surround them. Your social circle and complacency in it makes a difference. There will always be someone richer, better looking, more fit and perhaps even seemingly happier.

We also see this as EM docs saying man, Derm is amazing, EM sucks, ortho has it so good, our job sucks.

One thing I have gotten good at is seeing the trash those specialties all deal with. I am content with being an EM doc. I have 0 desire to work in a different speciality and am quite happy being an EM doc. We work 20-40 hours a week except for a few outliers. Few EM docs work 2000 clinical hours. My friends in finance, law, tech who make crazy doctor type money work more. Many of us dont bring our work home. Shift over, charts done dont think about it again. The finance guy has the work from earlier still hanging over him etc.
I remember when I worked in the hospital, most other specialites were unhappy and envied our job. Thing could very well have changed but I doubt the hospital specialists are any happier. Can't speak for outpt docs but I bet the ER docs are still happier b/c they get to go home at a particular time and work less than 35hrs/wk.
 
This is just a put things in perspective stat. The top 1% American needs an income of 800K. The top 1% worldwide needs an income of 34K.

Avg american salary 60K.

I mean this is just a ridiculous statement that means pretty much nothing as it doesn't correct for CoL. The "average American" making 60k is spending that money in America, not Vietnam.
 
I just said it was an interesting fact. But realize that the people in Vietnam who are middle class do not have what our lower class here have either.
 
Maybe this is a just a Michigan thing but here most engineers are not pulling in over 100k.

We have many engineers schools such as UofM, MSU, Mich tech,Wayne State so that maybe the reason

And to above poster about other career I would either go with photography or bench chemist.
Plenty of software engineer bros out there making way over 100k, if the avg is already way above 100k in many metro areas.

But their compensation certainly has been under pressure the last few years vs most docs in medicine. And employment is far less secure:



 
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I think we’re going to find out a lot of things were the result of 0% interest rates.
 
I mean literally no one here should be surprised.

We've all been saying this is coming since the number of EM residencies increased by over 100 in the last 10 years.

I'm going to be leaving academics this summer because the job has become increasingly terrible in the last few months but ironically despite
this our EM admin with 500K salaries have been able to hire EM fellowship trained new grads to work for 250K salaries with horrible benefits.


The EM admin is apparently very good at their job. They deserve a raise! 😉
 
The EM admin is apparently very good at their job. They deserve a raise! 😉
Though I fully support going after CMGs, I’d like to see an eye turned towards academic shops. The abuse in academia makes it ripe for unionization.
 
Though I fully support going after CMGs, I’d like to see an eye turned towards academic shops. The abuse in academia makes it ripe for unionization.
No doubt take a look at the expansion by “academic” centers. Indiana, Vanderbilt, U of Az and others. They then underpay docs, expand and screw patients and use noctors to replace docs. CMGs are the biggest problem but academic is learning from their playbook.
 
Ironically U Colorado Medical Center just posted on the EM DOCS group for 250K salary positions.

Disabled the comment section after an hour after people started posting how terrible the rate is compared to all the other local jobs.

The best part is that its not even pure academics but rather its 50/50 shifts at their community hospitals that see 2 PPH without residents.

Also their contracts require approval for locums shifts outside the hospital system and you have to give them a percentage of profits.
 
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