Making a living as a public servant physician?

[technocrat626]

I'm currently just a pre-med student, but I already know what my career goal is in medicine. I want to complete a combined residency in Family Medicine and Psychiatry. Once I complete all of my schooling, I would ideally like to practice 3 days a week in an inner city clinic serving homeless populations, and commute 2 days a week to a rural clinic. I want to provide integrated medical and mental health care in both settings. Is this a feasible way to practice and still make a living? I worry that since one job would be in a small community and the other would be in a low-income clinic, it would be difficult to pay the bills this way. Am I right? Or do physicians in clinics which serve underserved populations get paid better than I think?

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[xroc]

I'm currently just a pre-med student, but I already know what my career goal is in medicine. I want to complete a combined residency in Family Medicine and Psychiatry. Once I complete all of my schooling, I would ideally like to practice 3 days a week in an inner city clinic serving homeless populations, and commute 2 days a week to a rural clinic. I want to provide integrated medical and mental health care in both settings. Is this a feasible way to practice and still make a living? I worry that since one job would be in a small community and the other would be in a low-income clinic, it would be difficult to pay the bills this way. Am I right? Or do physicians in clinics which serve underserved populations get paid better than I think?

get into med school first. you don't know what can happen down the road.

 

[Mazdave]

I'm currently just a pre-med student, but I already know what my career goal is in medicine. I want to complete a combined residency in Family Medicine and Psychiatry. Once I complete all of my schooling, I would ideally like to practice 3 days a week in an inner city clinic serving homeless populations, and commute 2 days a week to a rural clinic. I want to provide integrated medical and mental health care in both settings. Is this a feasible way to practice and still make a living? I worry that since one job would be in a small community and the other would be in a low-income clinic, it would be difficult to pay the bills this way. Am I right? Or do physicians in clinics which serve underserved populations get paid better than I think?

A) That is an incredibly specific goal to have this early in your career.

B) If you are completely committed to primary care/underserved populations, there are programs to help pay for med school, but there are obvious downsides (i.e. if you discover a passion for derm in med school you're pretty much screwed).

 

[technocrat626]

A) That is an incredibly specific goal to have this early in your career.

B) If you are completely committed to primary care/underserved populations, there are programs to help pay for med school, but there are obvious downsides (i.e. if you discover a passion for derm in med school you're pretty much screwed).

A) I get what you're saying. I grew up in rural areas with severe physician shortages, and I have personally experienced chronic homelessness brought about by mental illness. My primary motivation to go to medical school is to serve these communities. So that's why I have such clear direction this early on.

B) I have considered the NHSC scholarship. I've chosen not to apply, as they do not allow their scholars to do FM/Psych combined residencies.

 

[xroc]

A) I get what you're saying. I grew up in rural areas with severe physician shortages, and I have personally experienced chronic homelessness brought about by mental illness. My primary motivation to go to medical school is to serve these communities. So that's why I have such clear direction this early on.

B) I have considered the NHSC scholarship. I've chosen not to apply, as they do not allow their scholars to do FM/Psych combined residencies.

That makes more sense should have included that initially. And I would say it would be hard at first depending on how much debt you have but in the end, once you pay off your loans, I'm sure you would end up making enough money to live on a day to day basis and then some.

 

[Mazdave]

A) I get what you're saying. I grew up in rural areas with severe physician shortages, and I have personally experienced chronic homelessness brought about by mental illness. My primary motivation to go to medical school is to serve these communities. So that's why I have such clear direction this early on.

B) I have considered the NHSC scholarship. I've chosen not to apply, as they do not allow their scholars to do FM/Psych combined residencies.

There are others, including school-specific ones (PSAP at Jefferson is one that comes to mind). If you can communicate a clear desire to work with underserved populations through your ECs and application narrative in general, that might carry some weight at some schools when it comes time to apply. But, yeah, focus on getting in first.

 

[kduck]

There may be other scholarships that help out people committed to primary care. For example, the Generalist scholars program at UVa. I'm sure there are others.

 

[curlyfry1]

The way healthcare is going there are going to be more financial incentives to go into primary care. I think this is definitely a feasible goal. I spend a lot of time working for a nonprofit that provides medical care to the homeless and many of our doctors put a lot of time working without pay and have done things similar to what you are talking about. I think its very honorable that you want to do that. I want to work with underserved communities as well. Good luck!

 

[Roguelyn]

You could probably be fine with FM and doing a bunch of psych electives.