For those that think physician career is a bad idea

[plaz]

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Economics:

Doctors' compensation goes down=fewer doctors.
Fewer doctors=increase in demand.
Increase in demand=increased compensation.

The end.

 

[Kaustikos]

Economics:

Doctors' compensation goes down=fewer doctors.
Fewer doctors=increase in demand.
Increase in demand=increased compensation.

The end.

Law of Diminishing Returns - increased demand = increasingly stupid doctors filling the gaps = decreased compensation. HAVE AT YOU!


jk

 

[Quadratic]

Economics:

Doctors' compensation goes down=fewer doctors.
Fewer doctors=increase in demand.
Increase in demand=increased compensation.

The end.

Yeah, until Uncle Sam marginalizes your ass.

 

[Trismegistus4]

p.s. regarding money: a great way to make money is to go to a med school in a city where your parents or some other relatives live so you could live at their home and take out those living expenses loans at $20k/yr. Can invest $80k over 4yrs and if you're good come out with about $200k out of med school. But thats peanuts compared to what an ibanker who lives modestly for 4yrs could accumulate if he invests wisely.

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. First, financial aid is NEED-based: if you're living with your parents, they won't give you loans for living expenses. Second, risking borrowed money is one of the dumbest things you could possibly do. Third, no one can consistently get a 250% return over 4 years; anyone who could wouldn't need a day job.

 

[BennieBlanco]

Record for most posts in a row:

gujuDoc with 5!

 

[crasiman]

Threads like this one always make me think of a talk given by Mike Rowe at TED, if you've got 20 min to spare, it's pretty good: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html

 

[stud247]

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. First, financial aid is NEED-based: if you're living with your parents, they won't give you loans for living expenses. Second, risking borrowed money is one of the dumbest things you could possibly do. Third, no one can consistently get a 250% return over 4 years; anyone who could wouldn't need a day job.

what are you talking about? you do not tell your bank where you live. you tell them your school and they determine the cost of tuition and the cost of living in your city and they give you the loan. they dont care if u live at your parents' or if you're renting beyond your means. it is 150% return over 4% or 50% annually. of course not everyone is smart enough to make those returns. but as for making it my primary source of income--well 50% of 20k is still less than what you could earn at mcdonalds over 1 year. and as for why the likes of Warren Buffett only have a 25% annual return it's because they play with much larger amounts of money.

 

[stud247]

You know I used to believe teaching is the next most highly secure job next to medicine but not true at all.

I've seen family friends who've gone into teaching lose their jobs with the recent economic meltdown leading to massive budget cuts in schools. I've heard of at least one probation officer telling me they've had a hard time finding a job in this economic meltdown we are having.

So I'd say its not necessarily true that you can get a decent job in these fields and for NYC to be a teacher and 50k is peanuts pay compared to the price of living. That's barely anything.

also here in Fl. I know a lot of people who've given up teaching because its peanuts pay and they had to be able to support their family. At least one family I know of and several others from what I've heard in their area have gone to work for the postal services as that is a more stable job and better pay then teachers make.

Well florida is not a good state for teaching. It's hard to get a job teaching in the rich suburbs of nyc, but at least those jobs are desirable. And I wouldnt be surprised if doctors too made twice as much in other states. In nyc there is never any shortage of cops or teaching jobs. Sure it's not as cool to be a teacher as it is to be a board certified ortho surgeon. But you dont have such a choice. it takes at least 10 extra years to become a board certified surgeon. In my case I screwed up, so it will take much longer. $50k is nothing in nyc, but you can live 3months of the year anywhere else. And teachers and cops make $100k after 5yrs.

 

[searun]

what are you talking about? you do not tell your bank where you live. you tell them your school and they determine the cost of tuition and the cost of living in your city and they give you the loan. they dont care if u live at your parents' or if you're renting beyond your means. it is 150% return over 4% or 50% annually. of course not everyone is smart enough to make those returns. but as for making it my primary source of income--well 50% of 20k is still less than what you could earn at mcdonalds over 1 year. and as for why the likes of Warren Buffett only have a 25% annual return it's because they play with much larger amounts of money.

The only guy who got a 25 percent annual return is Bernie Madoff and he is in prison for the rest of his life. No, wait a minute, not even Bernie could pull off a 25 percent return, even with a Ponzie scheme.

 

[stud247]

The only guy who got a 25 percent annual return is Bernie Madoff and he is in prison for the rest of his life. No, wait a minute, not even Bernie could pull off a 25 percent return, even with a Ponzie scheme.

I have nothing to say for someone who talks about Ponzi schemes when I talk about Warren Buffets and Seth Klarmans of the world. And honestly I don't care if I got a 50% annual return or a 10% annual return, I will still invest any cash (school loans) I can get my hands on. Because Warren Buffet says so.

 

[searun]

I have nothing to say for someone who talks about Ponzi schemes when I talk about Warren Buffets and Seth Klarmans of the world. And honestly I don't care if I got a 50% annual return or a 10% annual return, I will still invest any cash (school loans) I can get my hands on. Because Warren Buffet says so.

Relax and develop a sense of humor. Your comments about Warren Buffet were factually incorrect. Buffet has never had a 25 percent return over an extended period of time (10-20 years). I love Buffet, he is a financial genius. But Buffet has been losing money like everyone else during the past year and a half. In the 18 years prior to that, his returns were between 18-19 percent which is totally phenomenal (approximately doubling the market index returns) - but not 25 percent, nobody does that over time.

Oh, and you are no Warren Buffet. But good luck with your plan. If your loans are not subsidized, you could easily lose your shirt, if not your butt.

 

[searun]

I would rather stash $100 bills every week in my bed for 30 years than put my money into the stock market. If I have money left after stashing some of my own money away, I might see if I can get any type of money off the stock market.

Well, inflation would kill you and Warren Buffet would say that you are a fool. Buffet is staying in the stock market and so am I. By the way, the market was up about 7 percent this week.

 

[Soba]

Well, I now see that the financial literacy of premeds is roughly the same as that of the nation's.

 

[nfgsjklgnsdfkjn]

I have talked to many docs and many of them bitch about their jobs. BUT WHY THEN DON'T THEY QUIT? Because deep down they know that life is worse outside medicine. Its less pay with no job security, far less prestige and you can't ever say that you made a real difference in the world, like a doctor can.

Holy crap, that's one of the most naive and arrogant things I've read in a while.

1) Once you are in the profession, it's very difficult to change careers at a whim. During the medical education process, you rack up huge amounts of debt that force you into the profession for a couple decades just to be able to swing a respectable salary for somebody with so much education. Not to mention you spent your prime years in training and will never be at your peak again. It's very hard to go from being a doctor to a lawyer or finances or even academics. It's like a street gang where you aren't allowed to leave. 🙂 (That's an exaggeration, of course, but you get my point.)

2) There are plenty of professions that make just as much if not more of a difference in the world than physicians. Doctors can do nothing but delay the inevitable - death. But the vast majority of the time, physicians deal with much smaller problems that aren't so dramatic. Even lawyers and politicians, who seem to be universally despised, can do much more good for the world than a physician. If you're worried about saving the most lives or whatever "good" metric, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep 80 year olds from dying for a few more years isn't the answer. Doctors don't have the market cornered on world superheroes.

 

[BennieBlanco]

what are you talking about? you do not tell your bank where you live. you tell them your school and they determine the cost of tuition and the cost of living in your city and they give you the loan. they dont care if u live at your parents' or if you're renting beyond your means. it is 150% return over 4% or 50% annually. of course not everyone is smart enough to make those returns. but as for making it my primary source of income--well 50% of 20k is still less than what you could earn at mcdonalds over 1 year. and as for why the likes of Warren Buffett only have a 25% annual return it's because they play with much larger amounts of money.

lol, Buffet and everyone else lost a ton of money this year.

No investments are guaranteed. You must be OK with losing 30-40% of your investment (which is not a good idea on borrowed capital).

 

[circulus vitios]

Economics:

Doctors' compensation goes down=fewer doctors.
Fewer doctors=increase in demand.
Increase in demand=increased compensation.

The end.

Or the ACGME will increase FMG slots because FMGs are happy with earning $100k/year after a decade of higher education and 80 hour work weeks for the rest of their life...

 

[da8s0859q]

This thread is interesting to watch from the outside. It's primarily a bunch of people on the undergraduate side of their medical education saying, sometimes with defiance, what the other side is like. It'd be like me insisting I know what it's like to practice even though I'm two weeks away from being even a merely clueless M1.

Then again, I do appreciate the reminders that there is still, and will likely continue to be, money and security in medicine. Of course that was a motivator for me, just as it is for everyone pursuing this job. And it's an interesting job, one in which you get to do some really neat things, AND one which can be a means to your other ends in life (financial support of alternate interests and so forth). There's a lot of money to be had elsewhere as has been aforementioned, but I guess for us, there's that certain something about medical practice that remains appealing. I refuse to say "helping people" on principle (that damn phrase!), but, well, it's what we all write/wrote about in our personal statements. I plan on referring to mine, uh, prn depression/anxiety through med school when I can't remember why I subjected myself to such biochemistry/anatomy/pharmacology/etc. Forest for the trees and all that.

Medical students, best I can tell, tend towards Type-A, gotta-see-it-for-myself, gotta-know-for-myself types who have some interest in the science and practice of this stuff. Maybe it's better to suffer through med school, God forbid even like some of it, and have the benefits on the other side than it is to never go to medical school and consequently never know -- from personal experience -- what we missed, and if maybe it was for us.

There's always that Twain attribution about being more disappointed by the things one didn't do...

 

[Trismegistus4]

what are you talking about? you do not tell your bank where you live. you tell them your school and they determine the cost of tuition and the cost of living in your city and they give you the loan. they dont care if u live at your parents' or if you're renting beyond your means. it is 150% return over 4% or 50% annually. of course not everyone is smart enough to make those returns. but as for making it my primary source of income--well 50% of 20k is still less than what you could earn at mcdonalds over 1 year. and as for why the likes of Warren Buffett only have a 25% annual return it's because they play with much larger amounts of money.

If you have never gone to medical school and have not been through the medical school financial aid application process, it's best to assume that someone who HAS been through that process knows more than you about it. You tell your school where you live, and if they know you have living expenses covered they will not approve any federal or school loans for living expenses. I suppose you could take out whatever private loans you want, but these will have a higher interest rate and the options for repayment are much less flexible. As others have attested, it's extremely foolish to gamble with such borrowed money. But if you think you have such a good chance of success, why the need to use medical school as a guise to take out these loans? If you can multiply money by 2.5x over 4 years, just take out a bank loan for $10 million and in 4 years you'll have $20.5 million. You can work part-time at Starbucks to occupy yourself while you wait.

Medical students, best I can tell, tend towards Type-A, gotta-see-it-for-myself, gotta-know-for-myself types who have some interest in the science and practice of this stuff.

As I've posted in other threads, if that describes you, you'll probably be OK. When you'll be miserable is if you're really a Type-B person who'd rather be sailing/hiking and is more interested in other subjects than biomedical science, but are pursuing medicine anyway because you feel that if you don't you won't live up to your full potential or you're trying to impress girls or you're in it for the secondary benefits.

 

[JJMrK]

I have read many threads bashing medicine including one by a guy who graduated Ivy leage and who apperently had hedge funds courting him. Here are two true stories about people I know that should be considered for all of us who didn't go to ivy league schools.

My friend in undergrad, Jeremy, always laughed at me for going pre-med. When he asked me why I chose that path I explained how the good salary and job security would let me start a family that would never know the kind of fear my own was reeling from. He laughed at that and showed me print outs and newspapers about the profits of wall street brokerages where his brother worked at Lehman Brothers and had promised to get him a job as well. He bragged that though my salary may start at $100K, his first year bonus would be more than that. So Jeremy chose finance because wall street was where the big money was and poor, naive me chose the old school route to a comfortable and secure life, medicine.

In 2008 the financial meltdown brings down almost all of the brokerage houses and Lehman goes bankrupt. Suddenly Jeremy's golden ticket is no more and now his brother is in deep ****. See, while Jeremy's brother Tom, had made over $1 million/year since 2003, he saved almost none of it, but rather bought a mansion, a Mercedes S class and a ferrari. Why not? After all every year was better than the last and the good times looked they were never going to stop.

Then Lehamn goes bust and Tom can't find a job in brokerage firms. He tries banks and that's a dry hole as well. He tries overseas, but noone wants to hire an American from wall street, who helped cause the disaster in the first place. So today Tom is selling his pocessions, one by one and living a very modest life, hopeing and praying that wall street starts hireing again and the good times return so he can experience the life he grew accustomed to.

Another friend of mine, Marina, had a father who was a family physician in private practice and was doing very well, earning $500,000 last year. He told her not to go into medicine, because business was were the real money was. So she got into Brown, he paid her way completely and she majored in business and got an MBA. Do you know what Marina did with her Ivy league MBA? She got a job in business which she quit after two years to plan her wedding full time, (who the hell does that?) After her wedding she became a home maker because her husband is from a rich spanish family and she can no longer stomach the idea of working in business. She went to an Ivy league school, paid completely by her doctor father and then chose to throw it all away because she had been led down a terrible path by that same father, who apperently thought that all business men live better than doctors.

My own father is a Senior Accountant and Financial Analyst who worked for Northwest and is being let go because Delta bought them out. He is desperate to find something in this terrible job market that pays similar to what he makes now but it looks bleak. He can't sleep at night and I am worried that he is suicidal.

My mother is a Senior Marketing Manager for Hartford Financial. She works 70 hours/week at a job she can't stand with people dumber than her who treat her like ****. Yet despite constantly screaming about how she wants to quit this hell she is trapped in, she is terrified because two of her colleagues where just let go with no warning. They didn't screw up or anything, the company just wanted to cut costs and at her level of management the salaries are about $75-85K, so they decided to start firing people. If all that weren't enough there are rumors that ING wants to buy them and that would almost certainly mean she would be let go.

In this job market she would not be able to find another position for the $80K she is making now, (after 15 years of corporate ladder climbing and a hell of a lot of luck).

At some point I have talked to these people, all of which know that I am going into medicine. And you know what? THEY ALL WISH THEY HAD GONE INTO MEDICINE! Why? Because even a doctor in the public sector makes more than any of them can make now! And they have lifetime job security!

For 99% of Americans life truely and completely sucks right now! They live in constant fear of loseing their job, (which means loseing health insurance) of not being able to pay the bills, that the lives they have spent decades building could come crashing down around them at any time.

You know what I think? I think that without security you can't have happiness. Hell even Tom thinks that now. He lived the high life for years and lost it all. Maybe I won't be living large like him, but I will be comfortable and my family and I will always know that my job is secure and that our lifestyles will not suddenly change for the worse.

So to those who warn us eager young premeds away from medicine I ask you where should we go? We live in America, where if you want to eat you need a good career? What career should we choose?

Buisiness, finance, law? You know my parents have a friend who is a lawyer and you know what he tells his kids? GO INTO MEDICINE! You know why? Because of the old joke that is still funny because it is 100% true!

What do you call a law student who finishes in the bottom half of his class? Unemployed.

What do you call a med student who finishes in the bottom half of his class? Doctor and financially secure.

I have talked to many docs and many of them bitch about their jobs. BUT WHY THEN DON'T THEY QUIT? Because deep down they know that life is worse outside medicine. Its less pay with no job security, far less prestige and you can't ever say that you made a real difference in the world, like a doctor can.

This sounds like a rant to convince yourself, not any of us.

Come on. If you want to enter medicine, go for it. If you want to be a businessman, fine. There's no need to bash medicine, or finance, or marketing, or working at McDonald's. If someone is interested in something, let them be.

Alot of us here know, you don't make good money as a doctor, but making alot of money isn't my concern. I turn down an opportunity for a $20/hr full time job to work on my post-bac this year. I came to the US poor so I am fine with making enough money to live.

I just don't understand where people come up with this. You think 100K, or 200K, isn't "good money"? I know families who have raised six kids on less than half of that. They work hard, but they live happy lives.

It seems like there are two distinct types of pre-meds on SDN. The majority say that docs don't make much. The others want to go into medicine for the money. There's a middle ground: You might not live in a mansion and own a Ferrari, but you're not going to live in a shack either.

 

[stud247]

If you have never gone to medical school and have not been through the medical school financial aid application process, it's best to assume that someone who HAS been through that process knows more than you about it. You tell your school where you live, and if they know you have living expenses covered they will not approve any federal or school loans for living expenses. I suppose you could take out whatever private loans you want, but these will have a higher interest rate and the options for repayment are much less flexible. As others have attested, it's extremely foolish to gamble with such borrowed money. But if you think you have such a good chance of success, why the need to use medical school as a guise to take out these loans? If you can multiply money by 2.5x over 4 years, just take out a bank loan for $10 million and in 4 years you'll have $20.5 million. You can work part-time at Starbucks to occupy yourself while you wait.


As I've posted in other threads, if that describes you, you'll probably be OK. When you'll be miserable is if you're really a Type-B person who'd rather be sailing/hiking and is more interested in other subjects than biomedical science, but are pursuing medicine anyway because you feel that if you don't you won't live up to your full potential or you're trying to impress girls or you're in it for the secondary benefits.

Of course people like you should not invest. You cannot think rationally whatsoever. People like you run to Madoff(or if risk-averse just put it in the treasure yields) instead of thinking on your own. Do you really think a bank will just give anybody money so he could invest it in stocks?? The only ways to borrow money are:
1) you already have equity in the stock market. you can then borrow on the margin up to the same amount as your equity. So if you have 20k invested, u can borrow another 20k at 7% interest or so, if you have 500k, you can borrow another 500k at a 4% interest. see a pattern?
2) if you own a house, you can take out a line of credit with your house as collateral. again your house is your equity.
3) if you have a business, use your business as collateral.

If you are just a poor worker, you can only invest cash that you have on hand. A teacher can save $10k/yr and invest it. A medical student can use those private/federal loans as his cash. You will not have much cash if you pay your own living expenses, but if your parents pay, then you will. Obviously you do not tell the schools that your parents contribute to your education(and they shouldnt unless you live in their house). Unsubsidized federal and private loans all have worse % than the above. Subsidized loans will not even cover the tuition. But any cash i can get on my hands I must invest so I could buy a bmw.

 

[Trismegistus4]

Of course people like you should not invest. You cannot think rationally whatsoever. People like you run to Madoff(or if risk-averse just put it in the treasure yields) instead of thinking on your own. Do you really think a bank will just give anybody money so he could invest it in stocks?? The only ways to borrow money are:
1) you already have equity in the stock market. you can then borrow on the margin up to the same amount as your equity. So if you have 20k invested, u can borrow another 20k at 7% interest or so, if you have 500k, you can borrow another 500k at a 4% interest. see a pattern?
2) if you own a house, you can take out a line of credit with your house as collateral. again your house is your equity.
3) if you have a business, use your business as collateral.

People like me? People who understand that you shouldn't gamble with borrowed money? It sounds like YOU shouldn't be investing if you think you can count on a 150% return over 4 years enough to risk your student loan money on it.

 

[Soba]

But any cash i can get on my hands I must invest so I could buy a bmw.

Here is a Reality Check for you: The time, ingenuity, and effort needed to make decent profit, i.e. +10% after tax/transaction fee/loan repayment, on your measly 20K/year will eat away a disproportionate amount of time from your medical studies. Oh, and that is if you can even make that much profit. 50% annually? LOL

I might not have gone through medical school, but I have been investing for a while and I have a better idea.

If you do get into med school, just concentrate on your freaking studies. Doing so will increase your chance of landing a position of first choice and then you can buy whatever car floats your boat. BMW are overrated, btw.

 

[Quadratic]

I have nothing to say for someone who talks about Ponzi schemes when I talk about Warren Buffets and Seth Klarmans of the world. And honestly I don't care if I got a 50% annual return or a 10% annual return, I will still invest any cash (school loans) I can get my hands on. Because Warren Buffet says so.

Is this guy for real? Lol

You write that as if 10% is your lowest possible yield, when in fact, it is probably going to be the highest anyone makes (averaged over a year's time) in the two years.

 

[imer]

...

 

[JJMrK]

People say edicine is not a lot of money cuz they want to put medicine as a prestigious thing like being the top partner in a multimillion dollar law practice, or being CEO of a business that is multimillion dollars or billions of dollars in net value. But they don't want to compare it to the fact that they are still top earners compared to say many engineers or other things out there and that while no one is going to ever be millionaire rich like the doctors of yester years i think we will all be well off.

Yes.

 

[stud247]

Bump this thread in 5 years. NRG is 24.39 now. I bought it at an average price of 16.99. NRG is a Warren Buffett stock. Warren Buffett said that it should take you no more than 10minutes to decide if the stock is underpriced or not.

 

[Quadratic]

Bump this thread in 5 years. NRG is 24.39 now. I bought it at an average price of 16.99. NRG is a Warren Buffett stock. Warren Buffett said that it should take you no more than 10minutes to decide if the stock is underpriced or not.

Perhaps. That is of course, if Exelon doesn't swallow NRG....

 

[Food]

Thankfully, my motivation to go into medicine is not something that could vanish because of what people say on SDN. I wouldn't be on SDN if I didn't want to go to medical school, simple as that. It may be naive, but I would much rather hate medicine after trying it, than hate it without trying it.

 

[da8s0859q]

It may be naive, but I would much rather hate medicine after trying it, than hate it without trying it.

Right on.

 

[BennieBlanco]

Bump this thread in 5 years. NRG is 24.39 now. I bought it at an average price of 16.99. NRG is a Warren Buffett stock. Warren Buffett said that it should take you no more than 10minutes to decide if the stock is underpriced or not.

Buffet is also a genius.

 

[BennieBlanco]

People like me? People who understand that you shouldn't gamble with borrowed money? It sounds like YOU shouldn't be investing if you think you can count on a 150% return over 4 years enough to risk your student loan money on it.

You guys have to understand that the guy talking about investing with borrowed money has never invested before.

They have never had even 10k in investments. They also have less than a year or two of learning about investing.

Likely they have read a few get rich books and looked at markets over a short period (say less than 2 years), and based on this limited perspective they now "know" they can make money.

This happened to a lot of my friends fresh out of college in real estate. Real Estate was a sweet market for 10-20 years, they were making upwards of 500k per year in equities. (fastforward 4 years). Many of these same people lost all the money they made and are foreclosing on multiple properties and banks are chasing them for money, one of my buddies has a 100k judgement and will have to declare bankruptcy (this is after foreclosing on homes which don't usually lead to judgements).

The same with this kid on Wallstreet Warriors, a genius day trader who turned 10k into over a million dollars in less than 2 years. Where is he today, even richer? Nope. He lost it all.

All these schemes sometimes work and sometimes they make the 150% or whatever, but 10 years from now when you check in with the guy he is broke and talking about how it is the market's fault.

There are no guaranteed even 12% investments. Maybe 5-8%.

Easy come, easy go.

 

[Trismegistus4]

You guys have to understand that the guy talking about investing with borrowed money has never invested before.

They have never had even 10k in investments. They also have less than a year or two of learning about investing.

Likely they have read a few get rich books and looked at markets over a short period (say less than 2 years), and based on this limited perspective they now "know" they can make money.

This happened to a lot of my friends fresh out of college in real estate. Real Estate was a sweet market for 10-20 years, they were making upwards of 500k per year in equities. (fastforward 4 years). Many of these same people lost all the money they made and are foreclosing on multiple properties and banks are chasing them for money, one of my buddies has a 100k judgement and will have to declare bankruptcy (this is after foreclosing on homes which don't usually lead to judgements).

The same with this kid on Wallstreet Warriors, a genius day trader who turned 10k into over a million dollars in less than 2 years. Where is he today, even richer? Nope. He lost it all.

All these schemes sometimes work and sometimes they make the 150% or whatever, but 10 years from now when you check in with the guy he is broke and talking about how it is the market's fault.

There are no guaranteed even 12% investments. Maybe 5-8%.

Easy come, easy go.

True story: I got bit by the investing bug in college. It was spring of 1998, and the stock market was just starting to take off in what would eventually become known as the dot-com boom. I recalled how in 5th grade, we had had a "play the stock market" competition in a class at school, and the kids who won did it as a total joke, by just randomly picking penny stocks. I thought, hey, maybe I could double my money overnight. I had been doing a bunch of reading on The Motley Fool, an investment website that advocated ignoring the so-called experts, educating yourself, and choosing your own investments that were right for you. I thought, as long as I learn the basics of investing, how could I go wrong? The Motley Fool advocated the PEG (price/earnings to growth ratio) as a good way to judge the value of a stock, so I did some screening and chose a company with a good PEG ratio. What's more, it was a semiconductor company--guaranteed to do well with the rise of the internet just getting started, right? Furthermore, it was a bull market in general. I thought I couldn't lose. So I bought some stock in this company. I only had a few hundred dollars to spare, so I probably only bought 10 shares or so; I don't remember.

Over the summer, I bought a newspaper every few days to see how my stock was doing. Each time I checked, it had gone DOWN. Just my luck, I thought. Fall semester of 1998, I desperately needed some cash, so I had no choice but to sell it at a loss. I don't remember how bad it was; possibly as much as 50%.

Now, any wise investor, Warren Buffett included, would tell you never to count on any sort of return in such a short time frame. But they would also tell you never to count on a 150% return over 4 years as stud247 believes he can get. It turned out that if I had been able to wait another year and a half, I could have doubled my money. But my experience shows you the foolishness of "investing" when you're a full-time student living on borrowed money.

 

[Insulinshock]

This is one of the better threads I've ever read on SDN 👍

 

[Kaustikos]

Now, any wise investor, Warren Buffett included, would tell you never to count on any sort of return in such a short time frame. But they would also tell you never to count on a 150% return over 4 years as stud247 believes he can get. It turned out that if I had been able to wait another year and a half, I could have doubled my money. But my experience shows you the foolishness of "investing" when you're a full-time student living on borrowed money.

Long story short; if you have money to save, put it in a savings account. Or buy bonds.

 

[DrJosephKim]

Keep in mind that it's so easy to get burned out if you pursue a demanding career. You can make a hefty income if you're seeing a ton of patients, but you won't have much of a life if you work like that.

I hope that people won't pursue careers in medicine just for monetary reasons. I've met too many people who have chosen to leave clinical medicine because they become so dissatisfied with their medical career.

 

[Ignition]

The only guy who got a 25 percent annual return is Bernie Madoff and he is in prison for the rest of his life. No, wait a minute, not even Bernie could pull off a 25 percent return, even with a Ponzie scheme.

You know I was thinking this exact same thing throughout the entire thread. Especially when I saw that one guy who posted about 250% returns

Also, a lack of diversification when investing is an enormous risk. It's not impossible to get 10-13% returns with proper financial planning and diversification, but risking huge amounts of borrowed money on single stocks on which even the best investors sometimes lose big time is just asking for bankruptcy and life-destroying consequences.