Is medicine worth doing? when the IT industry is blooming?

[lmay0001]

Hi im a medical student, and i ask my self why i bother doing medicine. After seeing the dirt and grit it can become sometimes i envy my friends in the IT industry doing software development. My friends who graduated after 3 years with a Bsc in computing science are now making huge bucks working on projects and they get to have an easy life style.

Although i love the science of medicine and find it facinating i think it takes too long to become a specialist and the overall salary is not that great when you consider how much you invest in time and money. people i know doing Finance and Software development in the UK work few hour a week and get to live it up (travel, nice hotels, can eat well) on the other hand im stuck in a course were i cant even get to eat decent food yet alone relax and go on holiday.

plus the salary of a Doctor in the UK (junior Doctor) is only 23000 British pounds which is quite frankly rubbish. compared to 37000 pound starting software engineer. Plus demand for software developers is Huge

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[DerpStore]

Hi im a medical student, and i ask my self why i bother doing medicine. After seeing the dirt and grit it can become sometimes i envy my friends in the IT industry doing software development. My friends who graduated after 3 years with a Bsc in computing science are now making huge bucks working on projects and they get to have an easy life style.

Although i love the science of medicine and find it facinating i think it takes too long to become a specialist and the overall salary is not that great when you consider how much you invest in time and money. people i know doing Finance and Software development in the UK work few hour a week and get to live it up (travel, nice hotels, can eat well) on the other hand im stuck in a course were i cant even get to eat decent food yet alone relax and go on holiday.

plus the salary of a Doctor in the UK (junior Doctor) is only 23000 British pounds which is quite frankly rubbish. compared to 37000 pound starting software engineer. Plus demand for software developers is Huge

IB>IT>MBA>NP>PA>ND>DO>MD

 

[lmay0001]

What is preventing you from switching careers and paying off your loans with the big bucks you'd make as a software developer? Medicine hasn't changed since you started medical school. You're getting what you signed up for...

 

[Goro]

Hi im a medical student, and i ask my self why i bother doing medicine. After seeing the dirt and grit it can become sometimes i envy my friends in the IT industry doing software development. My friends who graduated after 3 years with a Bsc in computing science are now making huge bucks working on projects and they get to have an easy life style.

Although i love the science of medicine and find it facinating i think it takes too long to become a specialist and the overall salary is not that great when you consider how much you invest in time and money. people i know doing Finance and Software development in the UK work few hour a week and get to live it up (travel, nice hotels, can eat well) on the other hand im stuck in a course were i cant even get to eat decent food yet alone relax and go on holiday.

plus the salary of a Doctor in the UK (junior Doctor) is only 23000 British pounds which is quite frankly rubbish. compared to 37000 pound starting software engineer. Plus demand for software developers is Huge

Medicine is a calling

 

[lmay0001]

supply vs Demand. Reality is that even medicine is becoming saturated. IT sector is booming as everything needs IT software, even thr ECho machine you will be using and the surgical apparatus, ECGs, CT scanners ect....

 

[lmay0001]

Medicine is a calling

I love studying medicine its amazing. But again most of it is repetitive task work and filling up forms. is filling in insurance forms a calling?? is seening what drug to prescribe due to guidelines anything to do with autonomy of prescribing medication. All doctors do is follow standard SOPS and just copy the prescribing trends,

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

supply vs Demand. Reality is that even medicine is becoming saturated. IT sector is booming as everything needs IT software, even thr ECho machine you will be using and the surgical apparatus, ECGs, CT scanners ect....

Hahahahahahaha.

Wait, we're you serious?

 

[Foot Fetish]

Yeah, that's bullsh*t.

In the United States at least, MD/DO is hands down the most financially lucrative degree, and it's not even close. I emphasize "degree" because, unlike in IB or tech, merely completing the degree and a residency essentially guarantees you a $200,000+ salary. In contrast, the vast majority of people who major in finance or computer science cap out around $100,000. Our bottom 5% is making what their top 5% is making. The only ones making doctor equivalent salaries are the cream of the crop. You better work on Wall Street or for Google if you want to make what an orthopedic surgeon makes. Otherwise, you'll more than likely just end up at some no-name company as a code-monkey or accountant making $80,000/year for the rest of your life. In medicine, arguably the hardest part is simply getting into medical school. After that, the path to a high salary is paved for you - you just need to stay in your lane. No other career offers this sort of "brute force" path to massive salaries.

 

[flapjack3d]

No other career has the same combo of security and salary as medicine. I'd probably still do medicine even if it didn't have that, because I couldn't see myself happy doing anything else, but the financial stuff is a huge plus over other risky paths like tech and banking where you might come out with nothing after all your hard work.

 

[flapjack3d]

I love studying medicine its amazing. But again most of it is repetitive task work and filling up forms. is filling in insurance forms a calling?? is seening what drug to prescribe due to guidelines anything to do with autonomy of prescribing medication. All doctors do is follow standard SOPS and just copy the prescribing trends,

Have you ever shadowed? I feel like 2 hours in a clinic will show you that literally everything you just wrote is incorrect, or only a part of the most dismal practices with uninspired physicians.

 

[Mad Jack]

I love studying medicine its amazing. But again most of it is repetitive task work and filling up forms. is filling in insurance forms a calling?? is seening what drug to prescribe due to guidelines anything to do with autonomy of prescribing medication. All doctors do is follow standard SOPS and just copy the prescribing trends,

Yeah, you don't know what you're talking about but it's cool, we forgive you.

The percentage of issues in my hopeful field of choice that can be approached with hard and fast guidelines is damn near nil.

 

[Tenk]

He’s talking about UK which is a terrible system for doctors when you compare it to the states. No way in hell I’d be a doctor over there. It’s getting as bad as China. Overworked, underpaid, under appreciated.

 

[VincentAdultman]

I think doing a total hip replacement or rodding a femur fracture or Fixing a rotator cuff through three tiny incisions is pretty bad ass.

But hey some people like staring at a computer screen for twelve hours writing code and that's ok too i suppose.

 

[RunawayGrape]

It's worth doing if you want to be a doctor.

 

[Giovanotto]

Hahahahahahaha.

Wait, we're you serious?

?

 

[cbrons]

It's worth it if you love it.

If you just kinda like it (or the idea of it), or you just want a high paying job, then it's definitely not worth it at all.

The above statement applies only to medicine, not nursing or going PA route. The latter options are much, much shorter and require astronomically less sacrifice, and from the looks of it, they will soon be doing exactly the same thing as physicians in all fields with gradually increasing autonomy (including in surgery and advanced sub-specialties).

 

[toros102]

Yes if you want to be a doctor? Seriously, aren't we all excited to not have some boring desk job?

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

?

Medicine is in no way becoming saturated.

 

[IlDestriero]

I love studying medicine its amazing. But again most of it is repetitive task work and filling up forms. is filling in insurance forms a calling?? is seening what drug to prescribe due to guidelines anything to do with autonomy of prescribing medication. All doctors do is follow standard SOPS and just copy the prescribing trends,

That’s not what I do.
Do you want to help people with medical problems or sit in a cubicle staring at a box.
CS was blowing up when I was in college. It was obviously going to be a great career. But there’s no way I could do that.


--
Il Destriero

 

[mk04447]

Medicine is a calling

Possibly, I predict we will find out soon. From 2014 to 2016 the avg. loan burden on new doctors jumped from approximately (from memory, but close) 120K to 180K. Current medical students will dwarf these figures, possibly doubling them. There will either be a shift in compensation, repayment options, or cost... or, we'll see if there are enough do gooders to meet the demand.

 

[Redpancreas]

In order to get a good job, you need to be pretty talented. My friend from an international school was hired as a software engineer at Google. He had to do an internship 50+ other people from his school were doing and in the end, only he got the job. He consistently demonstrated his intelligence and made the news regularly here and abroad for scoring the highest on standardized exams, etc. You think our interviews are tough? His consisted of actual coding questions where he had to showcase his skill on a white board in additional to all the behavioral questions/etc. Salary's 300K (a good amount being stock options/bonuses) though so that's nice . The thing is, not everyone's that good at math, coding, and computer science. Also, with regards to stress, it may not seem like there's much because the people who do these jobs are insanely talented and see new challenges as interesting, however, when I asked my friend what happens if you can't do projects well, he seemed puzzled as to how that could happen but admitted that if you consistently struggle, you'd probably be fired.

He's a unique case, but going back to medicine, there's no other career where you're basically guaranteed a salary in that range with just hard work and a resilient attitude. It just takes 8 more years, but ideally it's what you love so it should be nbd.

 

[Peach Newport]

From a purely job-market perspective, programming is a bubble just waiting to burst.

Remember when everyone thought going to law school was an easy ticket to a fat paycheck? It’s the same thing. High pay + booming job market + extremely low barrier to entry (boot camps are popping up everywhere) = rapid saturation.

You’d better get it while the gettin’s good... and you’d better have an exit strategy.

 

[Localnative]

Hi im a medical student, and i ask my self why i bother doing medicine. After seeing the dirt and grit it can become sometimes i envy my friends in the IT industry doing software development. My friends who graduated after 3 years with a Bsc in computing science are now making huge bucks working on projects and they get to have an easy life style.

Although i love the science of medicine and find it facinating i think it takes too long to become a specialist and the overall salary is not that great when you consider how much you invest in time and money. people i know doing Finance and Software development in the UK work few hour a week and get to live it up (travel, nice hotels, can eat well) on the other hand im stuck in a course were i cant even get to eat decent food yet alone relax and go on holiday.

plus the salary of a Doctor in the UK (junior Doctor) is only 23000 British pounds which is quite frankly rubbish. compared to 37000 pound starting software engineer. Plus demand for software developers is Huge

Hey mate-

I foresee a career in laptop investing. Just sign up for E-trade- focus on REIT/data storage and cybersecurity and you will wreck it. My 0.02 pounds.

M

 

[Giovanotto]

Medicine is in no way becoming saturated.

But we're producing more physicians than ever...demonstrated by the rapid increase in DO/MD school expansion.

 

[Foot Fetish]

But we're producing more physicians than ever...demonstrated by the rapid increase in DO/MD school expansion.

That fact in isolation is pretty meaningless. You need to compare it to the population growth and demand for medical care, which are also at all-time highs. The question is if the supply is outstripping the demand. It's a rate of change problem.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

That fact in isolation is pretty meaningless. You need to compare it to the population growth and demand for medical care, which are also at all-time highs. The question is if the supply is outstripping the demand. It's a rate of change problem.

Yep, and it is not.

 

[Giovanotto]

Yep, and it is not.

That's not really the point though. We weren't really speaking about absolute saturation. Any increase in supply relative to demand will worsen conditions for the physician job market. And that market, is undoubtedly, about to become way more saturated than it ever has. How much that will affect an individual physician is entirely up to debate, but if we consider cities that are already fairly saturated, that small difference becomes significant. Also, we spend 10+ years training, I don't/shouldn't care much for the current situation, but 15 years from now, will your belief still hold true?

This is all also ignoring the ever changing political climate. A single payer system will undoubtedly bring about a heck of a lot of consolidation.

 

[DrWhozits]

That's not really the point though. We weren't really speaking about absolute saturation. Any increase in supply relative to demand will worsen conditions for the physician job market. And that market, is undoubtedly, about to become way more saturated than it ever has. How much that will affect an individual physician is entirely up to debate, but if we consider cities that are already fairly saturated, that small difference becomes significant. Also, we spend 10+ years training, I don't/shouldn't care much for the current situation, but 15 years from now, will your belief still hold true?

This is all also ignoring the ever changing political climate. A single payer system will undoubtedly bring about a heck of a lot of consolidation.

A single payer system would theoretically call for more providers than currently exist.

 

[Peach Newport]

That's not really the point though. We weren't really speaking about absolute saturation. Any increase in supply relative to demand will worsen conditions for the physician job market. And that market, is undoubtedly, about to become way more saturated than it ever has. How much that will affect an individual physician is entirely up to debate, but if we consider cities that are already fairly saturated, that small difference becomes significant. Also, we spend 10+ years training, I don't/shouldn't care much for the current situation, but 15 years from now, will your belief still hold true?

This is all also ignoring the ever changing political climate. A single payer system will undoubtedly bring about a heck of a lot of consolidation.

I’m not sure you can say that “the job market is more saturated than ever.” Even in “saturated” urban areas, the population and demand for healthcare is growing faster than the number of physicians.

Saying “any increase in relative supply will make things worse for doctors” is being unnecessarily pessimistic.

A single payer system would theoretically call for more providers than currently exist.

Yup. It would also drastically cut pay and increase working hours. If the government controls all reimbursement, doctors can take what the government offers, or find a new career. Somehow I doubt the US government would just give doctors 6 figure salaries or forgive student loans out of the kindness of their hearts.

 

[zero0]

That's not really the point though. We weren't really speaking about absolute saturation. Any increase in supply relative to demand will worsen conditions for the physician job market. And that market, is undoubtedly, about to become way more saturated than it ever has. How much that will affect an individual physician is entirely up to debate, but if we consider cities that are already fairly saturated, that small difference becomes significant. Also, we spend 10+ years training, I don't/shouldn't care much for the current situation, but 15 years from now, will your belief still hold true?

This is all also ignoring the ever changing political climate. A single payer system will undoubtedly bring about a heck of a lot of consolidation.

More med schools aren't really increasing the supply. All that's happening is residency spots that would have gone to FMGs are now going to domestic grads. Worry once they start increasing residencies, something that absolutely should NOT be done despite the pleas of a few short-sighted people.

 

[Fyiii20]

If you wanted to go into IB or IT, it would be more difficult making the transition plus you'd probably be in more debt. IB isn't guaranteed high paying. However, if you prove you're the next Michael Burry or that you attended a top university (along with internships and of course a 3.6+ gpa) then I'm sure you could get in somewhere. To obtain that high paying salary, you would need to work your butt off. You'd be looking at about 90-100 hours week of work (some deals you'd be working more than 100 hours a week). The starting pay is about $85k starting as an analyst at most BB (bulge bracket with AUM over $5 billion) banks and post tax it would be pretty low since most of these high paying salaries are in New York. To start making some serious cash, you need to be at least be a VP (without bonus) or an Associate (with bonus); however, if you're not consistently performing you'd be fired in a heart beat.

IT, would be difficult as well (easier than IB though). You'd have to self-learn a lot of languages though (Python, Ruby on rails, Javascript, Java, R, C#, C++, etc.) with no internship or previous work you'd probably start out at approximately $65-70k.

It doesn't seem entirely worth it to forfeit your medical education to pursue a new career path simply because your friends are making more. Unless you have prior learning experience with these two fields, transitioning would be very difficult and expensive.

 

[WingedOx]

If you wanted to go into IB or IT, it would be more difficult making the transition plus you'd probably be in more debt. IB isn't guaranteed high paying. However, if you prove you're the next Michael Burry or that you attended a top university (along with internships and of course a 3.6+ gpa) then I'm sure you could get in somewhere. To obtain that high paying salary, you would need to work your butt off. You'd be looking at about 90-100 hours week of work (some deals you'd be working more than 100 hours a week). The starting pay is about $85k starting as an analyst at most BB (bulge bracket with AUM over $5 billion) banks and post tax it would be pretty low since most of these high paying salaries are in New York. To start making some serious cash, you need to be at least be a VP (without bonus) or an Associate (with bonus); however, if you're not consistently performing you'd be fired in a heart beat.

IT, would be difficult as well (easier than IB though). You'd have to self-learn a lot of languages though (Python, Ruby on rails, Javascript, Java, R, C#, C++, etc.) with no internship or previous work you'd probably start out at approximately $65-70k.

It doesn't seem entirely worth it to forfeit your medical education to pursue a new career path simply because your friends are making more. Unless you have prior learning experience with these two fields, transitioning would be very difficult and expensive.

Plus, get to be my age and you start seeing a lot of people who've washed out of IB and trading.

 

[Lnghrn]

About me since I have almost no street cred: Frequent reader of these threads here who has done the introspection on medicine and whose brother is a family physician who did a fellowship in surgery to be the small town doc in the states. I like to provide the outsider perspective.

So based on what my brother did, I will say that the end of the tunnel has A LOT of light. Having the ability to live anywhere and make a lot of dough is quite the perk. Also, as others have noted, the job security is really nice, but IMO, if you work hard for even a few months in corporate America, you’ll have job security to make >$100k; you just need to know how to market yourself. However, the fact that my brother’s work deals with people (pros and cons to that) can be nice when you compare it to the 8 hours per day with sometimes minimal human interaction (although the diagnostic rads would disagree here lol). You have to work your butt off to get to the end of the MD but it’s almost guaranteed (for now) that you’ll get $180k Plus the locational flexibility and even flexibility in schedule if you want it. Expect to work at least 50 hours a week in corporate America. I have doctor friends who work weekends only or who work 32 hours per week and it is considered full time. That’s part time in corporate America.

As far as going into medicine and it being “a calling” as others have brought up here, I could say the same about almost any field depending on what your life’s intentions are. Certainly, you need a calling of some sort to make it through the MD/DO path. the tech game has allowed for significant gains in the medical space so for those EEs and Software guys who made it happen - their calling is equally important in my book.

 

[mistafab]

Everyone thinks IT is some holy grail.

Dude you sit in front of a computer for like 14 hours a day until your project is done. Then you rinse/repeat because nothing is working.

How much do you hate your life right now?

 

[DubbiDoctor]

Yep, and it is not.

This report is worth reading or at least browsing:
https://aamc-black.global.ssl.fastl...orkforce_projections_update_april_11_2018.pdf
Physician demand is projected to exceed supply by a large margin, but high use of midlevels could change that, particularly in primary care and other fields that extensively use midlevels.

 

[siliso]

It’s a weird comparison to me. I never even considered a career in IT, holds no interest or appeal to me whatever. So the prospects for that career have no relevance to me, no more than the prospects for an actuary or a welder or a lobsterman. Are you that undecided, still at this stage of the game?

 

[NuttyEngDude]

Coming from the engineering world, there was always complaints that there were not enough engineers. This was simply not true, there were just not enough exploitable cheap engineers:
The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

Hearing the same about physicians, I wonder if it is just a similar argument to have an increase cheaper midlevels.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

This report is worth reading or at least browsing:
https://aamc-black.global.ssl.fastl...orkforce_projections_update_april_11_2018.pdf
Physician demand is projected to exceed supply by a large margin, but high use of midlevels could change that, particularly in primary care and other fields that extensively use midlevels.

I'm not worried. Patients want to see a doctor. They'll often pay more/wait longer to do so.

 

[Dr. Bruce Banner]

don't do medicine for money, fame, or respect. There are better ways to do that. For example, i'm a third-yr med student in tremedous debt, while one of my former roommates is now a vice-president at a small company, another roommate is managing millions of dollars everyday for the biggest academic endowment in the world, another is working for one of the biggest new york advertising firms for one of the most prominent figures in advertising. Am I jealous? A little, mostly because they are making a lot of money now and have a lot of time outside of work to do things they like. But would I trade? no, I love medicine, and I can't imagine doing anything else.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

Yup. It would also drastically cut pay and increase working hours. If the government controls all reimbursement, doctors can take what the government offers, or find a new career. Somehow I doubt the US government would just give doctors 6 figure salaries or forgive student loans out of the kindness of their hearts.

I would disagree with this. One of the things people forget is that even in the most aggressive single payer Bernie-esque schemes (which would never become law) they do still need to actually provide healthcare to people.

Look at Obamacare. Slight tweaks in how people got their care (from the consumer prospective Very little changed for the worse) and a good chunk of democratic congressmen lost their jobs.

Now imagine what would happen if they socialized all of medicine and the government wasn’t able to retain enough physicians because of abysmal pay. Political heads would role.

Now that’s not to say in 50 years we couldn’t end up like the NHS. That’s entirely possible. But trying to predict that far into the future is a fools erand IMO.

 

[W19]

The Top 1 Percent: What Jobs Do They Have?

 

[mk04447]

I would disagree with this. One of the things people forget is that even in the most aggressive single payer Bernie-esque schemes (which would never become law) they do still need to actually provide healthcare to people.

Look at Obamacare. Slight tweaks in how people got their care (from the consumer prospective Very little changed for the worse) and a good chunk of democratic congressmen lost their jobs.

Now imagine what would happen if they socialized all of medicine and the government wasn’t able to retain enough physicians because of abysmal pay. Political heads would role.

Now that’s not to say in 50 years we couldn’t end up like the NHS. That’s entirely possible. But trying to predict that far into the future is a fools erand IMO.

Been to the VA? There's socialized medicine in practice, pays not great and they do have some problems retaining good doctors, but the care is the problem, it's abysmal. I halfway hope the idiots that want this garbage, get it, heads will literally roll long before money becomes a problem, they'll be rolling on a gurney to the morgue.

 

[NuttyEngDude]

The Top 1 Percent: What Jobs Do They Have?

...and school teachers in the top 1% through a stunning upset!

On a more serious note, I find it unsurprising that the professions that make our lives miserable, managers and lawyers, are in the top 1%.


Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

Been to the VA? There's socialized medicine in practice, pays not great and they do have some problems retaining good doctors, but the care is the problem, it's abysmal. I halfway hope the idiots that want this garbage, get it, heads will literally roll long before money becomes a problem, they'll be rolling on a gurney to the morgue.

I actually have - the Miami VA is one of our rotation sites for many of the core clerkships.

Yes there are CERTAINLY problems (epic burocracy, inefficiency, some lazy ancillary staff) but overall the care delivered is actually quite good IMO. It is certainly superior to the county hospital we rotate at, and is probably slightly inferior to the private hospital we rotate at.

The myth of how terrible the VA is seems to stem from some of its issues with delivery/rationing of primary care which will certainly be a huge problem in any single payer scheme. But overall VA is not half as bad as people make it out to be. The doctors I’ve worked with have been very happy and the patients are greatful to get treatment for free.

Edit: Another point - MANY hospitals have real struggles with the issues the VA has. While ivory tower academic places and Cush private hospitals may be well run and spotless, I would say a plurality of US hospitals have the same basic issues the VA has (medical errors, staffing problems, administrative red tape)

 

[mk04447]

I actually have - the Miami VA is one of our rotation sites for many of the core clerkships.

Yes there are CERTAINLY problems (epic burocracy, inefficiency, some lazy ancillary staff) but overall the care delivered is actually quite good IMO. It is certainly superior to the county hospital we rotate at, and is probably slightly inferior to the private hospital we rotate at.

The myth of how terrible the VA is seems to stem from some of its issues with delivery/rationing of primary care which will certainly be a huge problem in any single payer scheme. But overall VA is not half as bad as people make it out to be. The doctors I’ve worked with have been very happy and the patients are greatful to get treatment for free.

Edit: Another point - MANY hospitals have real struggles with the issues the VA has. While ivory tower academic places and Cush private hospitals may be well run and spotless, I would say a plurality of US hospitals have the same basic issues the VA has (medical errors, staffing problems, administrative red tape)

Next time you're there, check out the scheduler notes in CPRS, especially ones for consults. Your absolutely correct the people you SEE in the hospital are getting appropriate care and some docs even give better than average care, I'm referring to the care people aren't getting. Two things happen with disgusting regularity... First, it's a capitation system, patients who received care at a different facility have tremendous difficulty getting anything done elsewhere, the hospital doesn't get paid for that patient and they get pushed off. Also, insurance companies are bad enough, P2P's, outright denials, etc. but make a decent argument and you can get what you need usually; at the VA, they are the insurance, rules to get a DMARD or PET are archaic and absolute, no P2P, no appeal, do not pass go.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

Next time you're there, check out the scheduler notes in CPRS, especially ones for consults. Your absolutely correct the people you SEE in the hospital are getting appropriate care and some docs even give better than average care, I'm referring to the care people aren't getting. Two things happen with disgusting regularity... First, it's a capitation system, patients who received care at a different facility have tremendous difficulty getting anything done elsewhere, the hospital doesn't get paid for that patient and they get pushed off. Also, insurance companies are bad enough, P2P's, outright denials, etc. but make a decent argument and you can get what you need usually; at the VA, they are the insurance, rules to get a DMARD or PET are archaic and absolute, no P2P, no appeal, do not pass go.

I think this is a fair point.

Although I would still argue that this is a problem with many healthcare systems - not just the VA

 

[Lnsean]

Coming from the engineering world, there was always complaints that there were not enough engineers. This was simply not true, there were just not enough exploitable cheap engineers:
The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

Hearing the same about physicians, I wonder if it is just a similar argument to have an increase cheaper midlevels.

This right here. It happened with pharmacy as well...and seems to be happening with NPs and now MDs.

It's scary how many people think there's a shortage of MDs. I think it's more of an allocation problem and midlevels will crush us with that.

 

[jeffk805dent]

. For example, i'm a third-yr med student in tremedous debt, while one of my former roommates is now a vice-president at a small company, another roommate is managing millions of dollars everyday for the biggest academic endowment in the world, another is working for one of the biggest new york advertising firms for one of the most prominent figures in advertising. .

for every successful person in management/hedge fund/etc. there are probably 5-10 people in that career route struggling to reach that kind of success. The hard fact is medical school is the only career that can guarantee 200k job ANYWHERE in the US. Sure those bankers may be rolling in good money but you might want to check out the cost of a 1 bedroom/1 bathroom apartment in Russian Hill, San Francisco.

 

[mk04447]

This right here. It happened with pharmacy as well...and seems to be happening with NPs and now MDs.

It's scary how many people think there's a shortage of MDs. I think it's more of an allocation problem and midlevels will crush us with that.

You know you have problems when they begin waiving the entrance exam for professional school. To my knowledge they still demand the MCAT, so for now doctors are fine. That's the ironclad litmus test.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

Depends where they are. If you come to long island, IM doctors are struggling to find permanent jobs, FM gets job offers but income ranges at ~140k-160k working ridiculous hours, and EM docs are working at urgent care for ~200k pay. EM/Gas/Rads groups are not offering equity/partner tracks anymore either.

Only Ortho, Derm, and Psych are chugging along happily.


Edit: my view may be a bit skewed. These are the experiences of the graduating residents at my core hospital

I spent 90 seconds and found an FM job on Long Island that starts at 190k M-F 8-5.

And you think not offering partnership means the job market is bad?