Medical School is such a scam

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
VA Hopeful Dr said:
FFS you're exhausting.

But fine, here we go.

My FM residency was probably around 8000 hours total. Med school was probably 7500 hours or so. So let's round up a bit and say total training time is 16000 hours.

Student loans from my time with the interest rate at the time would end up costing around 280k across the lifetime of the loan.

Based on my last year's take home income (which includes all benefits and retirement/HSA contributions across a standard FP career, we're talking just over 8 million dollars. So we subtract the student loan amount and we'll even round down to 7.5 million.

I'm in the office 36 hours per week for let's say 45 weeks per year. So 1620 hours per year. 35 year career brings that to 56700 hours. Add the 16000 training hours. So a total training/working time of just shy of 73k hours so we'll round up to 73k. That ends up all told being just above $100/h after taxes and benefits and whatnot.

Now let's look at teachers.

In my state they start at 43k and increase pretty linearly to 63k. So we'll take the midway point of 53k and multiple by 30. 1.6 million. But that's gross. State pension is 7% pretax, not sure what medical insurance is so we'll call in 1.2k/year (that's 100/month so that seems fair). So take home pay is 38.5k/year. Across 30 years that's actually around 1.2 million. We'll assume no loan burden to give them a leg up.

Teachers here work from around 730 to 330. Many work extra with grading, lesson plans, and so on. But we'll go with that. 8 hours per day. They work 190 days per year. Across a 30 year career that's 45000 hours.

So teachers in SC are getting across a career are around $26/hour after taxes and benefits.

So literally 1/4th of the hourly rate of physicians even when med school and residency are taken into account.

Are you happy now?
Click to expand...
20 bucks says heist doesn't even read this, or at least responds in a way that gives that impression.
Members don't see this ad.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Heist said:
It does. And then they get a group of plumbers etc to help with their business. You guys aren't thinking about this from a different angle in terms of TIME. And it's not slightly earlier. It about a decade earlier. We do a lot more school. And a lot more hours. A ridiculous number of hours.
Click to expand...

Sorry bro, you should have been a plumber or an electrician. As I said, there’s still time, don’t be miserable and leave. You have control over your life, you can leave right now and stop being so unhappy.

For the rest of us, we enjoy being physicians. This is my second career and I have been in a couple of other fields to know that I have it good compared to the average person. Not to mention my job satisfaction rate is immensely higher than a regular Joe.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 5 users
Members don't see this ad :)
Heist said:
Individual 401 k is limited. Very limited. Only 20 k. Peanuts.
Click to expand...

That is for the employee you can also put in the employer and there aren’t many investments that lower your tax you can do 60k and then you can easily get a job in a low tax state or just make less
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
BoardingDoc said:
20 bucks says heist doesn't even read this, or at least responds in a way that gives that impression.
Click to expand...
So we are talking about med school being a scam now, not however many years ago. What's the cost now, what's the interest now? What are today's numbers?
 
VA Hopeful Dr said:
FFS you're exhausting.

But fine, here we go.

My FM residency was probably around 8000 hours total. Med school was probably 7500 hours or so. So let's round up a bit and say total training time is 16000 hours.

Student loans from my time with the interest rate at the time would end up costing around 280k across the lifetime of the loan.

Based on my last year's take home income (which includes all benefits and retirement/HSA contributions across a standard FP career, we're talking just over 8 million dollars. So we subtract the student loan amount and we'll even round down to 7.5 million.

I'm in the office 36 hours per week for let's say 45 weeks per year. So 1620 hours per year. 35 year career brings that to 56700 hours. Add the 16000 training hours. So a total training/working time of just shy of 73k hours so we'll round up to 73k. That ends up all told being just above $100/h after taxes and benefits and whatnot.

Now let's look at teachers.

In my state they start at 43k and increase pretty linearly to 63k. So we'll take the midway point of 53k and multiple by 30. 1.6 million. But that's gross. State pension is 7% pretax, not sure what medical insurance is so we'll call in 1.2k/year (that's 100/month so that seems fair). So take home pay is 38.5k/year. Across 30 years that's actually around 1.2 million. We'll assume no loan burden to give them a leg up.

Teachers here work from around 730 to 330. Many work extra with grading, lesson plans, and so on. But we'll go with that. 8 hours per day. They work 190 days per year. Across a 30 year career that's 45000 hours.

So teachers in SC are getting across a career are around $26/hour after taxes and benefits.

So literally 1/4th of the hourly rate of physicians even when med school and residency are taken into account.

Are you happy now?
Click to expand...
And what about the retirement and pensions teachers get and lifelong healthcare?
 
Heist said:
And what about the retirement and pensions teachers get and lifelong healthcare?
Click to expand...

I mean every doctor who is employed will usually get a employer match.

For example, i get 4% of my income put in as a match.

Let’s round that off to 15k a year of employer contribution, 30 year career, 6 percent annual return - you end with 1.27M of contribution purely from your employer.

I mean…really…if i truly worked for 30 years, my retirement accounts will be worth a lot more than any teacher’s pension.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 users
In 2008 when the market tanked many physicians stocks were terrible and they had to keep working. People with pensions, not so much. How many years for a teacher to qualify for a pension?
 
Heist said:
In 2008 when the market tanked many physicians stocks were terrible and they had to keep working. People with pensions, not so much. How many years for a teacher to qualify for a pension?
Click to expand...

ermm...so? Markets eventually recover. Work for Kaiser if you want a pension. But most bear markets last for 1-2 years, a globally well diversified portfolio should eventually recover.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
Heist said:
And what about the retirement and pensions teachers get and lifelong healthcare?
Click to expand...
I get the exact same pension teachers get so I left that out. And infact given the difference in what they will get out of it and what I do, this will push things much much more in the "doctors have it better" direction.

As for insurance, the monthly premium for a teacher is right at $100/month.

A Medicare supplement plan in SC is going to run about $150/month.

A $600/year cost difference isn't going to make an appreciable difference in those overall numbers.

Nice try though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Since I know this is coming, we'll pretend I don't have access to the state retirement program.

Between my contribution to that, my 401k, and my employers 401k match (which I would get if not enrolled in the pension), I'm getting around 60k/year in retirement savings.. If we assume 6% returns across a 35 year career, we end up with 6.6 million dollars. Let's say that I live for 30 years after I retire (I would be 95 at that point) with no additional growth from that retirement money. That's 220k pre-tax every year.

The state retirement plan pays you 50% of your highest 12 consecutive quarters if you meet the requirements for full benefits. Let's take the 63k/year at the end for the teacher and use that. So around 32k/year until they die. Now a teacher who started right at age 22 could retire with full benefits in my state at 56 years old. If we assume they also live to be 95 (we'll say 96 so the math is easier), total amount from that pension is 1.3 million.

So as I'm growing tired of repeating, its not even close.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
Members don't see this ad :)
Heist said:
So we are talking about med school being a scam now, not however many years ago. What's the cost now, what's the interest now? What are today's numbers?
Click to expand...
At my alma mater loans went from around 160k for 4 years to 240k for 4 years. Interest rate is unchanged.

So let's be generous and say that adds an extra 200k in cost across the life of the loan. That's a drop in the bucket for lifetime physician earnings.

Heist said:
You're very mocking of teachers.
Click to expand...
No, I'm mocking the stupidity of using income to determine hourly rate across a lifetime that includes training.
 
VA Hopeful Dr said:
At my alma mater loans went from around 160k for 4 years to 240k for 4 years. Interest rate is unchanged.

So let's be generous and say that adds an extra 200k in cost across the life of the loan. That's a drop in the bucket for lifetime physician earnings.


No, I'm mocking the stupidity of using income to determine hourly rate across a lifetime that includes training.
Click to expand...
You said 20 dollars is how much teachers make an hour. That was mocking them.
 
Heist said:
You said 20 dollars is how much teachers make an hour. That was mocking them.
Click to expand...
Sorry, my math showed it was $26/hour so I exaggerated slightly to make it work with the post I was responding to. Would you like me to go back and edit that or have you had enough of being proven wrong again and again to concede you were wrong and let this go?
 
Heist said:
The level of responsibility is much less.
Click to expand...

So are you finally conceding that they don’t make more? And now arguing that our job is tougher?

Honestly…. My job is pretty easy compared to a day care teacher. But my job is pretty easy compared to someone working at McDonalds too - fast food is tough work i feel.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 users
Heist said:
The level of responsibility is much less.
Click to expand...
Was your initial argument about responsibility or pay? In many cases, responsibility comes with higher pay. With that said, give me an ED full of patients over a classroom full of students any day of the week.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
To accuse a poster of denigrating teachers and then to claim that it's a low level of responsibility to ensure the (increasingly imperiled) physical and mental wellbeing of our children while also shepherding them along their academic path in the setting of increased public scrutiny...that's "rich"
 
Last edited:
Fran Healy Error GIF by Travis
 
Do you try to be a troll or does it just come naturally to you?
 
VA Hopeful Dr said:
Because when things are cheap the doctor salary lets you do way more.

I'm FM, my wife is IM. So together we probably make about what the middling specialists do.

We live in a reasonably sized old house (love the old glass and high ceilings) in the neighborhood with the best elementary school in the area. But because of both of us working, both kids are in private school (they have extended hours). This year we're spending a week in Aspen, a week at Disney, a week in London. Plus at least a weekend trip locally most months. Just had to get a new roof and car within the last 4 months. Still live very comfortably.

All of the other doctors we know either have much nicer houses (1mil or more) and/or do more frequent or more expensive vacations. Lots of 2nd homes in fun areas.

Sure, we miss out on some of the culture and music scenes that larger metropolitan places get but there's enough around to enjoy between trips.
Click to expand...
Agree... I like my ~280k brand new home (same home would cost 1.5--2 mil in southern California). I can visit NY or CA whenever the f... I want. In fact, this year, I will spend 5 days in NY, 5 days in the Bahamas, 4 days in Barcelona and 8 days in Italy (Rome and probably Florence), and a few days in south FL where I have relatives. It's nice when your mortgage payment is akin to a luxury car payment.
 
Last edited:
Boatswain2PA said:
High pay in VLCOL areas also means you can vacation to any HCOL area you want.
Click to expand...
And anytime if your schedule allows it... ED docs and hospitalists like myself can easily find time in our schedule to do that.

I think medicine is GOOD. I am not aware of that many gigs out there that I could make 400k w/o working myself to death.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Brigade4Radiant said:
Not only that the pay is 50-60k you also have to do meetings for parents and sometimes supply school supplies for your students.

EM pays well and it is far more family friendly than many jobs. You can choose to be a noctornist or just work 6 shifts a month and makes 200k
Click to expand...
People won't believe you if you tell them you make 200k working only 6 nights/month.

Medicine is not sunshine and rainbow, but we have it better than >95% of the country.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 users
Heist said:
Teachers start working much earlier than us. They put money in retirement etc earlier. There's a diagram that they end up making much more than physicians with much less work and responsibilities
Click to expand...
You really think people who make 50k/yr can put a lot $$$ into retirement!
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Heist said:
It does. And then they get a group of plumbers etc to help with their business. You guys aren't thinking about this from a different angle in terms of TIME. And it's not slightly earlier. It about a decade earlier. We do a lot more school. And a lot more hours. A ridiculous number of hours.
Click to expand...
archive.nytimes.com

The Top 1 Percent: What Jobs Do They Have?

Explore the occupations and industries of the nation's wealthiest households.
archive.nytimes.com
 
CoolDoc1729 said:
This is super interesting, thanks for posting
Click to expand...
It is interesting, thought it worth pointing out that it says "live in households in the top 1%".

So, an office clerk that works in the legal office of their lawyer spouse (whose income puts them in the top 1%) would also get representation on this graphic.

That doesn't invalidate it, but it should be considered in the interpretation.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Idk where nurses (meaning RNs) make 400k/yr. The highest I'm aware of is in California , night shift, weekend pay after 31 years of work, 8 hour shifts 11P-7A (Kaiser NorCal). That will max you out at 275k if you charge 5 nights a week and work every weekend in your 50s. Most people probably don't want that... and you have to live in Cali to do that. Otherwise you're talking travel nursing which isn't super compatible with enjoying your non-work life unless you want to be permanently itinerant, sucks to work anyway, and travel isn't paying 300k+ rates anymore on a consistent basis.

Plus, you have to want to be a nurse. I suspect that most people posting here wouldn't want to be. Heck, I don't anymore, which is why I'm here. Kinda tired of being the person permanently assigned to being punched, groped, verbally assaulted, and outranked by every other member of the team.

Grass ain't greener, folks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Splenda88 said:
You really think people who make 50k/yr can put a lot $$$ into retirement!
Click to expand...
Most teachers are in the pension system, their contribution is taken out of their paycheck automatically.

From someone on the fringes of this discussion, I'll offer this perspective - I'll retire in about 2 and a half years from the FD and my "retirement job" will be as an ED or flight nurse working 2 days per week. I made plenty of money as a firefighter, will make an absurd amount of money for 2 days per week once you factor in my pension, and have lived and will continue to live comfortably for the rest of my life.

That said, there are still times I wish I could go back to that day in 2000 when I abandoned my plan for medical school and went to the FD instead.

Sometimes, it's about more than what makes financial sense.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
FiremedicMike said:
Most teachers are in the pension system, their contribution is taken out of their paycheck automatically.

From someone on the fringes of this discussion, I'll offer this perspective - I'll retire in about 2 and a half years from the FD and my "retirement job" will be as an ED or flight nurse working 2 days per week. I made plenty of money as a firefighter, will make an absurd amount of money for 2 days per week once you factor in my pension, and have lived and will continue to live comfortably for the rest of my life.

That said, there are still times I wish I could go back to that day in 2000 when I abandoned my plan for medical school and went to the FD instead.

Sometimes, it's about more than what makes financial sense.
Click to expand...

Fire fighters make significantly more than teachers though right?

Educate me, what’s the starting salary of a fire fighter? What’s the salary 5-10 years in usually?

How many years of service before you get a pension and how much is the monthly benefit for a pension after 20 or 30 years of working?
 
FiremedicMike said:
Most teachers are in the pension system, their contribution is taken out of their paycheck automatically.

From someone on the fringes of this discussion, I'll offer this perspective - I'll retire in about 2 and a half years from the FD and my "retirement job" will be as an ED or flight nurse working 2 days per week. I made plenty of money as a firefighter, will make an absurd amount of money for 2 days per week once you factor in my pension, and have lived and will continue to live comfortably for the rest of my life.

That said, there are still times I wish I could go back to that day in 2000 when I abandoned my plan for medical school and went to the FD instead.

Sometimes, it's about more than what makes financial sense.
Click to expand...
That’s what I did. I finished paramedic school, which I had started after getting EMT-B and hunting a firefighter job. During paramedic school, I decided I wanted to go to med school and my lead instructor tried to convince me to join the fire service, arguing that I’d be a battalion chief within x years, etc. Figured I’d kick myself rest of my life if I didn‘t try. I worked as a volunteer FF/medic while finishing pre-med courses and loved it and now I’m kind of but not 100% sure I made the right choice.
 
cyanide12345678 said:
Fire fighters make significantly more than teachers though right?

Educate me, what’s the starting salary of a fire fighter? What’s the salary 5-10 years in usually?

How many years of service before you get a pension and how much is the monthly benefit for a pension after 20 or 30 years of working?
Click to expand...
I just checked the contract for our teachers, looks like it's fairly close. Obviously they need a degree though, and it takes them longer to get to the top.
 
I think the comparison is a bit off.

There are kids graduating from college making 85k to start.

Med school isn’t a scam cause what you get at the end is a known. There isn’t a switcheroo.

I would Encourage my kids to go into medicine if they liked it but I would push incredibly hard against emergency medicine.

I will say my best friend is an optometrist and he says he wouldn’t let his kids do optometry. I’ll also say he built a super successful practice and now sold it. He made derm type PE money in his sale and he kept the building.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
EctopicFetus said:
I think the comparison is a bit off.

There are kids graduating from college making 85k to start.

Med school isn’t a scam cause what you get at the end is a known. There isn’t a switcheroo.

I would Encourage my kids to go into medicine if they liked it but I would push incredibly hard against emergency medicine.

I will say my best friend is an optometrist and he says he wouldn’t let his kids do optometry. I’ll also say he built a super successful practice and now sold it. He made derm type PE money in his sale and he kept the building.
Click to expand...
You think private equity is bad, imagine being directly employed by Wal-Mart or Costso.

Optometry is a pretty neat field, but the business end can be pretty bad. My dad was a solo practice optometrist, for context.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
bravotwozero said:
I’m about to pay off a $400k house I bought 3 years ago. No way in hell I could have done that on a teachers pay lol
Click to expand...
Financially, medicine is GOOD.

I will reiterate what you said above. I just purchased a house last year for 280k and I can literally pay off that house in 2 yrs, max out all my retirement accounts and still have the typical mid-to-upper middle class lifestyle.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 users
cyanide12345678 said:
Throw some numbers.
Click to expand...
It’s entirely location based, but I’m at 96k base and they’re at 92k.. Midwest state, capital seat and major metro area. Our area cities all pay significantly higher than even the surrounding counties though.
 
FiremedicMike said:
It’s entirely location based, but I’m at 96k base and they’re at 92k.. Midwest state, capital seat and major metro area. Our area cities all pay significantly higher than even the surrounding counties though.
Click to expand...

96k base is starting or after a certain number of years? How many years have you worked to get to this base of 96k.

What’s the monthly benefit for the pension? How many years of service for this particular monthly benefit? Can you only get it after hitting 65 or as soon as you get out of the system?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Next unread thread

Similar threads

FlaminHotER
Ever have such a crappy shift…
Replies
33
Views
2K
Birdstrike
Birdstrike
alpinism
How CMGs such as USACS have taken over ACEP over the past 20 years
Replies
1
Views
1K
RustedFox
RustedFox
GeneralVeers
Mint Physicians Scam
Replies
7
Views
3K
deleted497653
D
RustedFox
USACS share scam.
2 3 4
Replies
159
Views
36K
deleted547339
D
R
No such thing as a stupid question? Challenge accepted!
Replies
5
Views
1K
InternistDO
I
Top