If doctors earned minimum wage, would you still go into medicine?

[Wildboyz]

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My answer to the OP's question:

HELL NO!

 

[dally1025]

Some say if your answer is no, then you should not go into medicine.

I would lay a bet that those you’re referring to have never lived off minimum wage (without help from their parents). Being perpetually broke and having to scrounge around for money every month is a miserable existence. I’ve never had a problem paying for food or the most essential items but not being able to go out for a drink or a meal on occasion gets old really quickly. Don’t get me wrong, I love medicine and do not have expensive tastes but if I had to live from paycheck to paycheck the rest of my life I’d go crazy.

 

[ANF1986]

I'll be brutally honest...If I were forced to live on anything less than 6 figures, I would most likely be miserable. Although, many pre-meds might choose medicine SOLELY BASED on some honorable altruistic tip...There are those of us who are interested in medicine AND maintaining or increasing our current quality of life. It's a highly hypocritical double standard applied to medical professionals (specifically physicians), that because they help people they should not make a higher then average income. Honestly, if I wanted to help people and be poor, I would have become a cop and went to the academy for 6 months. Instead, I choose to go to school for 8 years and rack up student loans higher then most peoples homesost.

Being brutally honest, if I had to live on my own at anything less than $100,000/year, I would be seriously cutting back on my lifestyle and not be very happy. What is a "comfortable living" and a "comfortable income" to one person may not be to the other. Just as there are people in America who could probably not fathom living on $350,000-$500,000/year. Some people spend that a year on gas to fuel their yacht, or shoes, or some other such nonsense that we would find absurd. You really should not have a problem with this unless you're a member of the socialist/communist party. Real Americans who believe in capitolism accept that people are permitted to earn as much income as they can.

 

[kevster2001]

Hell ****ing no. Not given the amount of hours drs put in and the amount of training/money required

 

[MilkmanAl]

Real Americans who believe in capitolism accept that people are permitted to earn as much income as they can.

You always have to include that one line in your posts that throws me for a loop. Otherwise, as usual, we're on the same page. Living on less than 6 figures would in no way inhibit my current lifestyle, but damn if I'm going through all this just to be paid an average to above-average salary. F*ck that.

 

[ANF1986]

You always have to include that one line in your posts that throws me for a loop. Otherwise, as usual, we're on the same page. Living on less than 6 figures would in no way inhibit my current lifestyle, but damn if I'm going through all this just to be paid an average to above-average salary. F*ck that.

😀 lol...I have an axe to grind! Hey in reality, we dont even do minimum wage jobs for minimum wage, we hire people from outside of the country. Or at least that seems to be the trend...

 

[pancakesyrup]

Being brutally honest, if I had to live on my own at anything less than $100,000/year, I would be seriously cutting back on my lifestyle and not be very happy.

Well I hate to break it to you, but there are many doctors living on less than $100K. Sure they may earn 140K or whatever, but after taxes and student loan payments, it really is not that much, especially for 7-11 years of education and training beyond college.

 

[ANF1986]

Well I hate to break it to you, but there are many doctors living on less than $100K. Sure they may earn 140K or whatever, but after taxes and student loan payments, it really is not that much, especially for 7-11 years of education and training beyond college.

Break what to me? In any profession there are people earning above and below the median range of income for that profession. Just as I am personally friends with a corporate lawyer who makes 700k a year, there are surely many lawyers still making $75,000 a year... The type of law you practice, and your ability to practice it well, and how large of a firm you work for are all factors in determining what your income will be. It's not much different in medicine, the type of medicine you practice, where, and for who, are all contributing factors. If there are doctors who are happy making less than $100k/year, good for them. A friend of mine was internal med, and making about $90k/year before taxes...He took a job as a pharm sales rep, and now makes $200k/year. My point being that it isn't all doom and gloom and that we're destined to be paupers...lol

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

"If doctors earned minimum wage, would you still go into medicine?"

Hell no.

 

[Omyss]

LOL at the ppl who said yes

 

[45408]

Well I hate to break it to you, but there are many doctors living on less than $100K. Sure they may earn 140K or whatever, but after taxes and student loan payments, it really is not that much, especially for 7-11 years of education and training beyond college.

Then aren't they making six figures? Did you even read the post you were responding to?


🙄

 

[pancakesyrup]

Then aren't they making six figures? Did you even read the post you were responding to?


🙄

Its 6 figures BEFORE taxes and student loans, did you even read the rest of that post?
🙄

 

[ILikeFood]

Well I hate to break it to you, but there are many doctors living on less than $100K. Sure they may earn 140K or whatever, but after taxes and student loan payments, it really is not that much, especially for 7-11 years of education and training beyond college.

So what. Jesus, have you ever held a real job?

 

[Wylde]

You are very very naive if you say "yes".

Making minimum wage means that you will be lucky to be living in an apartment for the rest of your life. There is no way you could afford to pay for kids to go to school or retirement.

I don't care what the job is (it could be playing my favorite video game all day), I want to retire one day and be a sovereign house owner.

 

[ANF1986]

You are very very naive if you say "yes".

Making minimum wage means that you will be lucky to be living in an apartment for the rest of your life. There is no way you could afford to pay for kids to go to school or retirement.

I don't care what the job is (it could be playing my favorite video game all day), I want to retire one day and be a sovereign house owner.

I have the feeling that some people who voted yes would preferr you live in an apartment the rest of your life, in order to save the whales. They'd probably like it even more if all housing was state owned and everyone was equal, living in an ideal egalitarian society where no one was better than anyone else, where we all earned the same income no matter what the job, where currency eventually disappeard...Soon after we'd all sit around the campfire singing koom-bay-ya and roastiing marshmellows.... **Cough*Socialism*Cough***.....

 

[Kaustikos]

You are very very naive if you say "yes".

Making minimum wage means that you will be lucky to be living in an apartment for the rest of your life. There is no way you could afford to pay for kids to go to school or retirement.

I don't care what the job is (it could be playing my favorite video game all day), I want to retire one day and be a sovereign house owner.

You can forget about owning a car with minimum wage, hell forget about living. And would you still have to pay malpractice insurance?

 

[45408]

Its 6 figures BEFORE taxes and student loans, did you even read the rest of that post?
🙄

No ****, Sherlock. Everybody quotes income figures BEFORE taxes, student loans, mortgage, car payment, health insurance, and day care costs. Randomly subtracting them out of the equation was pointless.

 

[NoMoreAMCAS]

So the vote is 26 for socialized medicine, and 212 against it.

I'm glad we all agree😍

 

[Maxwell Edison]

I really, really, hate these hypothetical salary-centric posts. Isn't there anything hypothetical actually worth talking about?

 

[ANF1986]

I really, really, hate these hypothetical salary-centric posts. Isn't there anything hypothetical actually worth talking about?

Hypothetically...If 26 Communists voted, and 212 Americans... If those numbers compared to the entire adult population of the United States (270,000,000), what percentage of Americans support the communist party?

 

[Maxwell Edison]

Hypothetically...If 26 Communists voted, and 212 Americans... If those numbers compared to the entire adult population of the United States (270,000,000), what percentage of Americans support the communist party?

So, let me get this straight...minimum wage = communism.

Let's revise your statement: if 26 somewhat naive but unabashedly idealistic people voted and 212 brutally honest yet sterilely pragmatic [...] what percentage of Americans would take on a priest-like vow of poverty to practice medicine?