Is becoming a doctor a 1 million dollar mistake??

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Alvateem

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Recently, I read an article written by CBS which claimed that becoming a doctor was a one million dollar mistake. A mistake in regards to the amount of money you spend for school, and what you could be making if you were working another job during that time. CBS has little credibility when making these claims, however the point they made was worth thinking over, and the comment section was especially important when I reviewed it. The article also speaks about doctor dissatisfaction, and the little interactions that they have with patients due to administrative work. I was just wondering, do you guys agree with their claims, are they true, or is it just rambling nonsense from a news platform.

article: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/1-million-mistake-becoming-a-doctor/
 
Don't become a doctor to accumulate wealth.

That being said, that 1 million dollar gap will be quickly filled by a physician.
And contrarily to the college graduate, a physician has high control over his/her pay. Go work in a rural area for a few years, or in locus/PP/etc and multiply your pay by 1.5 or 2.0, which can be used to repay your debt. A college grad only wish they could do that.

Overall being a physician is worthwhile financially. You'll not be the next Buffett, but you'll have more than enough to live on.
 
there is almost no field that offers the guarantee of income like physicians...a number offer significantly higher possibilities but a field in which literally everyone can make ~200k if they choose? that's pretty much just us
 
Anybody who actually does any math can pretty easily calculate that for all but the lowest-paying of fields, medicine is a lucrative, relatively incredibly stable profession with high job security. It's not the field to go into if you want to be filthy rich, that's incredibly unlikely now-a-days, but if you compare across fields, the lucrative ones usually require advanced degrees, and if they don't, have a grueling barrier-to-entry that you have to get through, then you have to work at the job until you are promoted enough times to actually make the terminal salary that would match or exceed a physicians. It's getting rougher for physicians now, but the dirty truth is that it's getting harder all over. The middle class is disappearing.
 
Medicine is a calling, like being a priest or a fireman. You think those guys are doing it for the pay?
New
Recently, I read an article written by CBS which claimed that becoming a doctor was a one million dollar mistake. A mistake in regards to the amount of money you spend for school, and what you could be making if you were working another job during that time. CBS has little credibility when making these claims, however the point they made was worth thinking over, and the comment section was especially important when I reviewed it. The article also speaks about doctor dissatisfaction, and the little interactions that they have with patients due to administrative work. I was just wondering, do you guys agree with their claims, are they true, or is it just rambling nonsense from a news platform.


Considering that you have 4 years of med school plus say 3-4 years of residency, more like, "go get a $125K job right out of college."

PreciousHamburgers said:
Yeah, just come out of undergrad and go get a job paying $50K. What, like it's hard? Just ask your dad to give you a job in his company.
Click to expand...
 
Alvateem said:
Recently, I read an article written by CBS which claimed that becoming a doctor was a one million dollar mistake. A mistake in regards to the amount of money you spend for school, and what you could be making if you were working another job during that time. CBS has little credibility when making these claims, however the point they made was worth thinking over, and the comment section was especially important when I reviewed it. The article also speaks about doctor dissatisfaction, and the little interactions that they have with patients due to administrative work. I was just wondering, do you guys agree with their claims, are they true, or is it just rambling nonsense from a news platform.

article: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/1-million-mistake-becoming-a-doctor/
Click to expand...

For those of us coming from lucrative prior careers it's probably an even bigger financial hit than that. If you figure a postbac, four years of med school, one of the longer residencies, and/or fellowship, that's over a decade of good income years, raises, bonuses. And you pick up a couple of hundred grand in debt along the way to boot. So yeah it's a piss poor financial decision if you are doing it for the money. But I'd argue it's not a "mistake" if you like it. Enjoying yourself at your job is kind of worth a lot. Most people focusing on money undervalue career satisfaction. You'll spend most of your life at work. What's that time worth? You never get it back.
 
not a bad article and not entirely inaccurate.
 
doc05 said:
not a bad article and not entirely inaccurate.
Click to expand...

The only inaccurate part is where it suggests that you'd be more or less foregoing income completely for a decade. Throughout residency youll be earning in the ballpark of 50k. Which is less than earning 50k starting five years earlier, and with more debt, but it's not zero. And there are always industrious characters that find ways to supplement their income a bit with moonlighting. And you probably save money by not having time to go out and do stuff most weekends. But the gist is correct -- if you can get a good job right out of college, and not rack up debt, you will be way ahead financially. But will you enjoy it? Are you going to be fired up by things at work or counting the minutes until you can go home? because that's the difference between being a winner or loser in this game.
 
Alvateem said:
Recently, I read an article written by CBS which claimed that becoming a doctor was a one million dollar mistake. A mistake in regards to the amount of money you spend for school, and what you could be making if you were working another job during that time. CBS has little credibility when making these claims, however the point they made was worth thinking over, and the comment section was especially important when I reviewed it. The article also speaks about doctor dissatisfaction, and the little interactions that they have with patients due to administrative work. I was just wondering, do you guys agree with their claims, are they true, or is it just rambling nonsense from a news platform.
Click to expand...

A good way to look at a career's earning potential is its lifetime, after tax, after educational debt earnings. A normal person, with just a high school education (still 75% of the nation) will earn barely a million after taxes in an entire lifetime. An average college graduate will make 1.5-2 million after tax after debt. An average physician will make anywhere from 4-25 million, depending on specialty. The higher end of that range is rare, with almost all of us making 4-10 million. Even the worst student loan debt burdens today, BTW, won't cost more than a million in after tax income, if we started subsiding medical school tomorrow ne graduates would instead have 5-25 million of lifetime earning.

I'm not sure how you define that as a 'million dollar mistake', when what you're doing is doubling to quadrupling your lifetime earnings potential. The article writer's math is bizarre: he basically calls the time spent in medical school and college a loss, but then at no point does he acknowledge that you have gained something, financially, by becoming a physician and earning a physician's salary.
 
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30 year repayment at 7.5% interest? I couldn't take the author serious after reading that line. Use a 10-year standard repayment plan and if possible, repay in 5 years. the 167k in 5 years at 7.5% would be ~3350 a month, saving $219,000 compared to the author's ridiculous 30 yr bogus plan. Consolidate your loans, is anything even as high as 7.5% right now?

Running my own analysis on projected loans, I would have to make at least ~100k starting today in order to level out on the same track in the future as a physician. The only time to rethink medicine financially is if you have a solid current high paying job offer and/or you're at a crazy expensive school like tufts and are looking at loaning full COA and already have undergrad debt and will be in the 400k+loans at graduation 600k after residency area
 
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amad01 said:
... The only time to rethink medicine financially is if you have a solid current high paying job offer and/or you're at a crazy expensive school like tufts and are looking at loaning full COA and already have undergrad debt and will be in the 400k+loans at graduation 600k after residency area
Click to expand...

Meh. I think the point is that a lot of the type A people who get into med school could, in fact succeed in other paths much much sooner. And a number of us did leave lucrative jobs to toil for a decade of debt and low pay. In some of our cases the authors numbers of lost wages are even an underestimate. The fact that you personally don't envision losing much doesn't mean it's uncommon not to.
 
Law2Doc said:
Meh. I think the point is that a lot of the type A people who get into med school could, in fact succeed in other paths much much sooner. And a number of us did leave lucrative jobs to toil for a decade of debt and low pay. In some of our cases the authors numbers of lost wages are even an underestimate. The fact that you personally don't envision losing much doesn't mean it's uncommon not to.
Click to expand...

That's what I said.... if you are already in a "lucrative" career, full-blown-loan medicine is probably a poor financial decision. Are you saying it's common to leave 100k+ income to pursue med school @ -500k loans? Is that even 1% of the student body? You would have to absolutely adore medicine / abhor your current field because that would be financial kamikaze. Just because a few envision losing much doesn't make it common...
 
amad01 said:
That's what I said.... if you are already in a "lucrative" career, full-blown-loan medicine is probably a poor financial decision. Are you saying it's common to leave 100k+ income to pursue med school @ -500k loans? Is that even 1% of the student body? You would have to absolutely adore medicine / abhor your current field because that would be financial kamikaze. Just because a few envision losing much doesn't make it common...
Click to expand...
I'm saying it's not uncommon, at least on the nontrad board for people to leave lucrative positions where the authors math is pretty applicable. I'm also saying plenty of people going to med school could get pretty decent incomes out of college or within a couple of years. Not all, but many. Many also have six digit debt. Not 500k but you don't really need that kind of extreme debt to make the authors math work.
 
It makes financial sense for some, but not others. Do calculations for yourself to see if it makes financial sense to you. Gotcha.
 
Eh, ok but that doesnt matter to people who would be unhappy for the rest of their lives if they did anything besides medicine.

The regret would always be there.
 
gonnif said:
For nontraditional students with a decent career, the cost of going to medical school with debt, lost wages, missed benefits, and interest on loans, can easily be a million dollars. There is also a chart I saw at a presentation (by an SDN founder) that calculated UPS driver and average family practice doc didn't even out until like 55 years of age. I will try to find it. Mistake? No. Long term investment in time, money, resources? Yes
Click to expand...

The UPS thing is legit, people used to use it all the time during high school debate when our topic was "Resolved: the costs of a college education outweigh the benefits."

Point is, though, being a physician is truly unlike any other profession out there. Sure, a lot of jobs help people. Hell, being an RN makes an impact on patients' lives, too. But no other profession has YOU being the problem-solver and piecing together the puzzle of patients' symptoms in an attempt to heal.
 
Thanks guys, this is definitely alot to think about but valuable opinions nonetheless.
 
Medicine isn't a mistake. With that being said, I'll be down close to a million dollars by the time I graduate and more by the end of residency... which isn't to factor lost income on investment. CBS isnt that far off for me.
 
Alvateem said:
Recently, I read an article written by CBS which claimed that becoming a doctor was a one million dollar mistake. A mistake in regards to the amount of money you spend for school, and what you could be making if you were working another job during that time. CBS has little credibility when making these claims, however the point they made was worth thinking over, and the comment section was especially important when I reviewed it. The article also speaks about doctor dissatisfaction, and the little interactions that they have with patients due to administrative work. I was just wondering, do you guys agree with their claims, are they true, or is it just rambling nonsense from a news platform.

article: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/1-million-mistake-becoming-a-doctor/
Click to expand...
Yep, being a doctor is a huge mistake 🤣
 
life is provided to you only once. That is why medicine must be a calling. Otherwise, you're going to endure so much (if you get through).
 
Can you imagine what these sort of analyses look like for students getting PhDs in various fields? It's not all about the money, and if maximizing career earnings is a concern for you then there are ways to try to do that in medicine.
 
Was the person who wrote this a doctor? I think it's hilarious when people who have no idea about the profession write about how becoming a doctor isn't worth it. For some, doing what a doctor does is worth the extra time and money it takes to get there. Sure there is all the babble about "lost income" you would have been making if you had worked right out of college in a different field. But who honestly cares? I'd much rather stay in school longer to become a doctor than make a few extra years of income in programming or something.

There's more to being a doctor than the raw numbers. Getting to work with patients and getting to utilize your love of science in that endeavor is a reward whose value is individually determined.

Edit: also, who the hell do people keep interviewing to give the impression that "most doctors" are dissatisfied with the profession? I haven't met a doctor who would have picked a different career. The Medscape survey put overall "would choose medicine again" somewhere in the 60% range, I thought.
 
Why is everything about money to these people? There is no money in being a volunteer coordinator, or social workers, and other careers yet people do it.
No money in the military in the beginning either yet people do it..(E-1 makes 17k)
ANYWAYS...
Average college grad is 22, according to times the median salary is 45k basically for a college grad
http://time.com/money/3829776/heres-what-the-average-grad-makes-right-out-of-college/
Even though you lose out on like 4 years of work, the average college grad won't expect to make 6 figures, or possibly touch 7 figures.
I will run with that 50k amount though.. So a doctor making 200k
It would take 4 years for your average college grad to match that, in 2 years a doctor earning 200k earns 8 years worth of salary.............................
What a big mistake!
Now to factor in loans, I'll say the doctor has 200k in loans...
If the doc lives on 100k or less for two years the loans will be paid off, yet still in the end 4 years of college salary in 2 years if you factor in debt..

This is of course ignoring the fact that some primary care docs may make less, and how many specialists and surgeons make A LOT more... Just take a loot at the BLS average pay
 
iDOliveinMD said:
If someone doesn't mind explaining, what are those things? I'm assuming PP=private practice.
Click to expand...
Yeah, probably private practice. And I think Doudline means locum instead of locus. . . who knows?
 
panda16 said:
The UPS thing is legit, people used to use it all the time during high school debate when our topic was "Resolved: the costs of a college education outweigh the benefits.
Click to expand...

Oh the stupid UPS argument:

People found out that UPS pays their high school educated delivery drivers a shockingly large amount, about 80K with benefits, to drive around handing out boxes. People who aren't deep thinkers think 'education is for suckers, anyone can just get a job driving a truck for 80K!'. People who are deeper thinkers realize if this was true HS grads wouldn't e averaging less than 1 million in liftetime earnings, and look for another explanation

It turns out that the UPS driver job is the carrot that drives the UPS shipping donkey forward. While people will work in McDonalds for minimum wage, it turns out they are more reluctant to to break their backs hurling heavy boxes around a warehouse for the same lack of pay and benifits. How do you get thousands of warehouse workers to work without paying them? What if you offered one job, that was really really good, for around every 20 guys. Now rather than paying all of those guys a good wage you pay one in 20 the equivalent of two good wages, and save the other 18 salaries! UPS driver is that job: you get it if you're a warehouse worker who has been there for 5-15 years and is particularly motivated, responsible, and lucky.

And again, that's for 80K. A slightly better than average college grad lifetime earning, even if you forget about the 10 years of near minimum wage in the warehouse to get the job. The lowliest Pediatrician will make more than twice that in a lifetime.
 
PreciousHamburgers said:
In my experience, the people who tell me that medicine isn't worth it have never had a job where they had to work 80+ hours a week sweating outside, filthy, with no benefits. So, I don't take them too seriously when they preach from their privileged perspectives.
Click to expand...
When you've been a construction laborer, a kitchen worker, and a janitor...medicine is a pretty great upgrade financially
 
sb247 said:
When you've been a construction laborer, a kitchen worker, and a janitor...medicine is a pretty great upgrade financially
Click to expand...

"Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs" by Michael J Collins is a book on my summer reading list about his journey from working in construction to eventually going to medical school. I'm sure after I read it I'll be able to revisit this thread with new insights haha!
 
sb247 said:
When you've been a construction laborer, a kitchen worker, and a janitor...medicine is a pretty great upgrade financially
Click to expand...
PreciousHamburgers said:
In my experience, the people who tell me that medicine isn't worth it have never had a job where they had to work 80+ hours a week sweating outside, filthy, with no benefits. So, I don't take them too seriously when they preach from their privileged perspectives.
Click to expand...

Dr.Q was a farm hand, now he is a neurosurgeon at Hopkins..
See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/brain-surgeon.html
 
sb247 said:
there is almost no field that offers the guarantee of income like physicians...a number offer significantly higher possibilities but a field in which literally everyone can make ~200k if they choose? that's pretty much just us
Click to expand...

Dentistry does.
 
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