If you were paid minimum wage, would you still aspire to be a doctor?

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Miclops

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Let's be honest folks.

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GTFO my thread. If you think it's bad, don't post. Is it that hard to understand?
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Residents make less than minimum wage per hour. FACT
 
Subthreshold minimum wage customer service. It's like working at McDonalds, except you get sued.
 
We've had this a million times before.

With current debt levels, absolutely no way. Any person who says otherwise is lying or has zero financial sense.

With no debt, the answer is maybe. I love medicine and am really excited to start school. But saying that medicine is my only interest in life and I couldn't be happy in another career would be a lie. For someone who wants to have a family some day, financial stability is important, especially if I'm already giving up valuable family time with the tough hours of medicine.

And please spare me "if you can see yourself doing something other than medicine, do that" bs because that kind of black and white view is not grounded in reality.
 
This is such a stupid question. Even those of us tempted to say, "Yes, medicine is my passion, I'd do it anyway," can't say for sure how much we're being subconsciously influenced by the perks of a doctor's salary and the accompanying prestige.
 
We've had this a million times before.

With current debt levels, absolutely no way. Any person who says otherwise is lying or has zero financial sense.

With no debt, the answer is maybe. I love medicine and am really excited to start school. But saying that medicine is my only interest in life and I couldn't be happy in another career would be a lie. For someone who wants to have a family some day, financial stability is important, especially if I'm already giving up valuable family time with the tough hours of medicine.

And please spare me "if you can see yourself doing something other than medicine, do that" bs because that kind of black and white view is not grounded in reality.
:thumbup:
 
I often find that such questions are often racy and ingite people, but absolutely useless to ask these kind of questions because they bluntly ignore or don't understand the REALITY and the economics and politics of the healthcare industry and the 'doctor' profession in our time and age of human civilization.
 
Residents make less than minimum wage per hour. FACT

Not fact, myth.

At $7.25/hour a resident would have to work 120 hours/week or 17 hours/day X 365 days to earn the $45k an intern makes. Sorry, doesnt happen.

As for OP, if the student loans didn't exist yes without a doubt. I will be 60 before I recover the $$ I'm losing over the next 10 yrs of training versus what I was making before I quit. Anyone that does medicine for the money is a fool.
 
Three years ago I started a thread about this exact topic.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
This is such a stupid question. Even those of us tempted to say, "Yes, medicine is my passion, I'd do it anyway," can't say for sure how much we're being subconsciously influenced by the perks of a doctor's salary and the accompanying prestige.

For real. I love how two commonly stated things on this forum are
- I wanna be a doctor just because I love helping people. Money is nothing!
- When deciding between two different schools you should always go with the cheaper one. Money is everything!
 
If paid minimum wage, would you?

1. Devote over a decade towards your education/training.
2. Go into huge debt.
3. Delay starting a family.
4. Live on ramen for years.
5. Endure huge stress, like me waiting on MCAT score scheduled to be released today.
6. Risk being sued.
7. Live in fear of getting something on your record.

No.
 
oh-look-its-this-thread-again1.jpg


http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=759890
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=236356
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=693430
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=11154660
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=340380
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=181164
 
If paid minimum wage, would you?

1. Devote over a decade towards your education/training.
2. Go into huge debt.
3. Delay starting a family.
4. Live on ramen for years.
5. Endure huge stress, like me waiting on MCAT score scheduled to be released today.
6. Risk being sued.
7. Live in fear of getting something on your record.
Probably.
 
Would it be a disaster if an interviewee says that he's going into medicine for the money when he is asked "why do you want to be a doctor," by the interviewer?
 
Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25
Assuming Premium Wage of 150% after 40 hours
Working 88 hours per week(for those programs with waivers)

(7.25*40+7.25*1.5*48)*52=$42,224

Which is less than what many PGY-1's get paid

Assuming they work 88 hours a week.. which probably isn't that great of an assumption.
 
Not minimum wage. But if I was paid enough to cover student debt and then enough to have an average house, average car, and to not go to bed hungry then yes I'd do it.

It confuses me when people say, well, yeah, everyone is doing it for the financial stability, but that is definently not true. Why do people in other countries go into medicine when their doctors don't get paid nearly as much as our doctors here?

I want to go to medical school because there is no other route to become a pathologist. If there was, I'd take that route.
 
Only reason some people hate these threads is because they know they're in medicine for the money. It's not a secret. 99% of students are fueled by the money. Anyways, stop posting these images on my thread. It's very annoying.
 
I don't think anyone, no matter how passionate they are about medicine, would want to be a physician if they made minimum wage burdened with a debt of ~150k or more
 
Only reason some people hate these threads is because they know they're in medicine for the money. It's not a secret. 99% of students are fueled by the money. Anyways, stop posting these images on my thread. It's very annoying.

Troll on the count of a BS statistic and the fact that he answered his own question with said statistic.

Go ahead and take out 200k in loans and try to pay that back, in a reasonable amount of time I might add, using only minimum wage. You obviously find yourself in the quote-on-quote "1%" of students who go into medicine for the love and passion of helping people, right? :love:
 
Only reason some people hate these threads is because they know they're in medicine for the money. It's not a secret. 99% of students are fueled by the money. Anyways, stop posting these images on my thread. It's very annoying.

yao-ming-meme.jpg
 
Troll is upset that we are posting images cuz his 56K connection can't load the pages fast enough...

that's what happens when you can't pay for a good internet connection...penile implants are expensive.
 
Only reason some people hate these threads is because they know they're in medicine for the money. It's not a secret. 99% of students are fueled by the money. Anyways, stop posting these images on my thread. It's very annoying.
People hate these threads because the question is ridiculous. Just because you shouldn't do medicine for the money, doesn't mean you should be willing to be a doctor for minimum wage. If you think everyone here is a socialist who hates money and wants doctors to be altruistic martyrs, then maybe this question would make sense. But that's not how this board is. It's a ridiculous question.
 
Troll is upset that we are posting images cuz his 56K connection can't load the pages fast enough...

that's what happens when you can't pay for a good internet connection...penile implants are expensive.

Whoa there! I think you're confused.



...OP's case is clearly a penisectomy.
 
When did I ever say that you shouldn't do it for the money?

I'm just fed up with people saying that money is not a motivational factor.
 
Only reason some people hate these threads is because they know they're in medicine for the money. It's not a secret. 99% of students are fueled by the money. Anyways, stop posting these images on my thread. It's very annoying.

boombertseverywhere.gif
 
When did I ever say that you shouldn't do it for the money?

I'm just fed up with people saying that money is not a motivational factor.

It's definitely a motivational factor...

...if you have 200k+ in loans.
 
maybe....if it came with a free milkshake and combination plate
 
Only reason some people hate these threads is because they know they're in medicine for the money. It's not a secret. 99% of students are fueled by the money. Anyways, stop posting these images on my thread. It's very annoying.

-An 18-22 year old who has never had a real job in his life.
 
No, regardless of loans. People just love money. No need to sugarcoat it. :)

Then your question has no factual basis in an actual discussion or a conversation. You simply cannot disregard loans. They exist. Please remove yourself from this thread. :)
 
No, regardless of loans. People just love money. No need to sugarcoat it. :)

No, I just love women.

In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.
 
No, regardless of loans. People just love money. No need to sugarcoat it. :)

Damn straight. When I dropped out of college for health reasons, I thought I was going to be stuck working minimum wage jobs for the rest of my life. I clawed my way back into college and have been doing great recently, but you're not kidding that money is a motivation. I want to be able to provide for my parents when they get old, I want to be able to save for retirement, I want to be financially independent, I don't want to be living paycheck to paycheck at the age of sixty, afraid that any health crisis could impoverish me and leave me eating cat food. The social safety net in the US is not great, and the best way to avoid having to deal with the soul-sucking, mind-numbing daily grind that is poverty is to be ambitious and to succeed professionally.

And I also want to help people and do something worthwhile and that's just as important to me as the money, but no, I would not do this if I did not think my hard work would be rewarded with good pay.
 
For real. I love how two commonly stated things on this forum are
- I wanna be a doctor just because I love helping people. Money is nothing!
- When deciding between two different schools you should always go with the cheaper one. Money is everything!

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :thumbup:
 
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