Studying medicine mainly for the lifestyle/salary is still worth it.

[Dynam0]

That is so long as one can tolerate it. It is funny to see the common refrain of "go into finance if you want to make money, not medicine!", as if the average finance graduate will ever earn anywhere near as much over a lifetime as an MD who was at bottom of their class. The fact of the matter is, medicine and a select other few fields you can count one hand (i.e dentistry) are the only fields where one's raw academic performance translates directly to a comfortable and promising lifestyle for them and their future families.

In finance/business, to make anywhere near an MD earns you generally have to attend a very prestigious school, have a near perfect GPA along with extraordinary ECs that far exceed anything the average medical student has, have connections out the wazoo, have carefully constructed internships at major firms during your undergraduate, and all of this to only have the chance to interview at a place and possibly not even get the job. You can do everything right and be perfect on paper and even in the interview, but many things will be out of your control such as the interviewer not liking your "tie", or graduating into a terrible economy, and many other things that will force you to languish like the typical business/finance graduate in a bank teller role or an accounting position that pays $10/hr.

In the natural and biological sciences, same story to a lesser degree. You can be absolutely exceptional with a near perfect GPA, multiple research publications, have a PI who is the foremost expert in the world in his field, glowing letters of recommendations, and all-in-all an exceptional scientist but that still won't be good enough to get a professorship and thus you will languish as a post-doc slave living in poverty in many places. If you decide to go into industry and you are extremely fortunate by landing one of those extremely rare R&D positions that requires major connections and networking as well, you will be a wage slave for management and will constantly be told to be grateful you even have a job even if the secretaries are earning more than you for if you don't like it, they can easily hire some third-world PhD who will gladly work for peanuts and no benefits. Things are a little better in engineering, but the story these days is more comparable to finance where you now need to be perfect on paper and also have the right connections to get the job in most cases. There are countless examples of people who graduated with near perfect GPAs and stellar research experience and were rebuffed by employers for not being a "good corporate fit" and instead the guy who barely passed but whose father was in the same fraternity as the CEO of the company gets the job. Nepotism is rampant in this field.


To conclude, we live in a brave new world where the average person will no longer earn a decent and reasonable living. The middle class is poised to most probably die out assuming current trends continue. In light of that, medicine still remains to be one of the only fields where academic performance will almost always be rewarded with a comfortable lifestyle. I can see how things are not as gravy as they used to be 20 or 30 years ago, which is true for practically all other fields, but medicine still seems to be a field that will still reward you in proportion to your hard work and perseverance, which is unfortunately not true for most other fields where this was once the case. I know I will be attacked by disgruntled residents and medical students and told I am just a premed who doesn't know anything about the real world (I am not a premed, btw), and I certainly have no shortage of anecdotes and even hard data that can support everything I have said here. If you think you have it bad, just walk to the biology or chemistry department at your school and you will see true horror stories. People in their 30s and 40s who have been training 10+ years for their role and not earning much more than the cleaning staff and there is no light at the tunnel for them where all of their hard work eventually pays off. That will really open your eyes to just how good you have it. There are no greener pastures, just a desolate wasteland.

---

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[Taco Time]

 

[summergirl]

I just love how you over-generalize people like you literally met every person on this planet.

 

[Dynam0]

I just love how you over-generalize people like you literally met every person on this planet.

Generalizations are important and meaningful in certain circumstances. This is one of them. You are not a special snowflake. Most people are mediocre at whatever they do. Being a mediocre physician is still a much, much better lot in life than being a mediocre "________".

 

[summergirl]

Generalizations are important and meaningful in certain circumstances. This is one of them. You are not a special snowflake. Most people are mediocre at whatever they do. Being a mediocre physician is still a much, much better lot in life than being a mediocre "________".

Mediocrity among physicians is not the same thing as mediocrity within most other fields. But, the point is, if writing up this gigantic post makes you happy, so be it. Nobody really cares, so, as long it made you happy.

 

[DetectiveAlonzo]

Didn't even read what you wrote.

If you wanna do it for the money, go the RN ---> CRNA route.

make $250,000+ and work only 40 hours a week. No call. No liability.

 

[Dynam0]

Mediocrity among physicians is not the same thing as mediocrity within most other fields. But, the point is, if writing up this gigantic post makes you happy, so be it. Nobody really cares, so, as long it made you happy.

While I would agree with that sentiment, I will gladly raise the ante:

A terrible physician still has a much better lot in life than even a decent "_________".

And yes, refuting a fallacious worldview that has gained popular traction on a large forum as this does make me quite happy, indeed. Premeds, medical students, and even physicians generally have a myopic worldview and very little experience when it comes to other fields and just how terrible the job market has become for most other professions. Just as no one likes to hear a trust-fund baby whine about how bad they have it, physicians and medical students whining about how bad they have it and leaving medicine seems almost just as ridiculous to the average person out there who is languishing. And when I mean "average person" here, I am talking about someone who could have went to medical school if they didn't choose their current profession, like the average chemistry postdoc for example.

 

[Dynam0]

Didn't even read what you wrote.

If you wanna do it for the money, go the RN ---> CRNA route.

make $250,000+ and work only 40 hours a week. No call. No liability.

I believe that boat has already sailed. In a few years, when all of these people filling themselves in these programs graduate and saturate the field, the picture I imagine will be a lot different. Low barrier to entry plus a highly politically charged environment which could easily see the undoing of all the lobbying these interest groups have done make it an unstable career choice. You have the whole situation with petroleum engineering. Everyone enrolled when all of those salaries topped those generic media articles of "top 10 earning college degrees", and now the field is saturated with very few prospects for most graduates.


Medicine has the huge benefit of large barriers to enrollment, which naturally places a strong cap on the supply of physicians unlike most other fields where once a boom is taking place a few years later it will predictably bust due to a saturation of graduates.

 

[Law2Doc]

It's not worth it if you don't enjoy it. You'll be working long intense hours with a lot of emotional strain and enormous life and death responsibility. This will be your life more than your bank account balance ever will. You'll be spending most of your awake life doing this career, and will be exhausted from and preoccupied by work a lot of the remainder. So if you don't enjoy it, you've just suckered yourself out of your life.

People smart enough to get into and through med school have choices in life, so pick something you like. Saying the "average" person in other fields doesn't always make it, or that people get screwed over by nepotism or the economy in other fields is simply a weak cop-out excuse to avoid trying something you probably would like better. Those people would not have gotten into and through med school and so pegging yourself to their failures is selling yourself short to make your argument. You are really saying " I'm too lazy to see what else is out there so I'll just pretend I'd probably be a failure, a victim of nepotism and the economy and being average in everything else". It's a suckers play. If you want something you have to work for it in every field, and last I looked there were still people rising to the top in these other fields by not being average.

Finally, there are no guarantees in medicine. Plenty of doctors have been laid off, gone bankrupt or been unable to retire due to bad economies. It's a premed illusion that this field is a guaranty for people to throw high salary at you for the rest of your life. It's better than some fields, worse than others, but this shouldn't drive your career choice. And the threats of midlevels and reimbursement cuts are very real. So you might be in the job market either way but at least be looking for a job you enjoy.

 

[Lost in Translation]

My dream is to live in 432 Park. That ain't happening with the kind of money I'll be making as a doctor.

But I also think surgery is sweet, so I don't care if I make absolute **** as long as I get to be able to pay back my loans.

 

[piii]

What a sensationalistic crap post. 3/10

 

[Sardinia]

@piii Don't be mean. He's still a pre-med.
@Dynam0 You're still a pre-med.

 

[JustAPhD]

Everything OP said is true. I'm currently looking out my lab window at a barren, desolate wasteland. It's raining fire and the world is about to end. All because I never went to medical school. Don't let this happen to you! There's only one path in life that will lead you to success and happiness.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Everything OP said is true. I'm currently looking out my lab window at a barren, desolate wasteland. It's raining fire and the world is about to end. All because I never went to medical school. Don't let this happen to you! There's only one path in life that will lead you to success and happiness.

Although to be fair, my friend is a scientist at a drug company and tells me all the time that if his daughter wants to become a scientist, he's going to tell her to do something else.

 

[JustAPhD]

Although to be fair, my friend is a scientist at a drug company and tells me all the time that if his daughter wants to become a scientist, he's going to tell her to do something else.

Oh for sure; science is in a not-so-good spot right now in our country. I was just trying to be as ridiculous as OP was.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Oh for sure science is in a not-so-good spot right now in our country. I was just trying to be as ridiculous as OP was.

Yeah, I got that. It just reminded me of the doom and gloom my friend is always talking about lol.

 

[Lucca]

When will we get the thread about the sky still being blue

 

[Goro]

Please restrain your ignorance of the job prospects of PhDs in academic tracks. Yes, getting a tenure track job in a research venue at an MD school or a UG major university IS hard...it takes having grant money to land a position nowadays, even at smaller med schools.

That said, there are still faculty jobs out there if one is willing to reinvent oneself, like, I did, for one, and take a job with primarily teaching responsibilities. Dental, pharmacy, PA programs, lab tech training programs all get overlooked when one is only thinking about playing the Majors. Life at AAA or AA ball isn't bad. One just has to be in the right place at the right time.

I have a friend who has been in several post-doc positions who recently has had a ton of interviews...meaning, she's getting on short lists right away. Her main drawback is that she has a rather wooden, if sweet, personality, and no fire in the belly for research, and most schools want you to so SOME type of scholarly activity.

In the natural and biological sciences, same story to a lesser degree. You can be absolutely exceptional with a near perfect GPA, multiple research publications, have a PI who is the foremost expert in the world in his field, glowing letters of recommendations, and all-in-all an exceptional scientist but that still won't be good enough to get a professorship and thus you will languish as a post-doc slave living in poverty in many places.

 

[DetectiveAlonzo]

I believe that boat has already sailed. In a few years, when all of these people filling themselves in these programs graduate and saturate the field, the picture I imagine will be a lot different. Low barrier to entry plus a highly politically charged environment which could easily see the undoing of all the lobbying these interest groups have done make it an unstable career choice. You have the whole situation with petroleum engineering. Everyone enrolled when all of those salaries topped those generic media articles of "top 10 earning college degrees", and now the field is saturated with very few prospects for most graduates.


Medicine has the huge benefit of large barriers to enrollment, which naturally places a strong cap on the supply of physicians unlike most other fields where once a boom is taking place a few years later it will predictably bust due to a saturation of graduates.

The last thing we need is more doctors.

Guys. Do nursing or PA.

 

[DetectiveAlonzo]

When will we get the thread about the sky still being blue

Not gonna happen cause in real life the sky is gray as ****.

Please make sure you guys choose this route for the right reason and are exposed to other routes within medicine without the high loan burden, liability, and stress.

 

[wizzed101]

 

[Dynam0]

Everything OP said is true. I'm currently looking out my lab window at a barren, desolate wasteland. It's raining fire and the world is about to end. All because I never went to medical school. Don't let this happen to you! There's only one path in life that will lead you to success and happiness.

Feel free to stay delusional and to listen to the soothing words of academics far removed from the workforce like @Goro. Reality will smack you in the face with a hard bag of bricks once you try to find a job and are essentially unemployable for anything outside of an adjunct position that will have you living on food stamps.

Because after many years of graduate work, with annual stipends often below $30,000 and frequent expectations of working significantly more than 40 hours per week, almost any kind of work would be appealing to a freshly minted Ph.D. In other words, many Ph.D.s take jobs that are likely far from their ideal. The increasing number of adjunct faculty members, for example, suggests that Ph.D.s are willing to accept part-time, low-paid positions. As an educated, experienced population with a diverse skillset, we should not be surprised that most Ph.D.s can find some employment, but this fact alone does not justify their training.

The fool's gold of Ph.D. employment data

But, who knows? Like many PhDs these days you might actually enjoy being a postdoc/adjunct academic slave earning less than the janitors cleaning your tiny office space, in which case please disregard everything I have said above!

 

[Dynam0]

Please restrain your ignorance of the job prospects of PhDs in academic tracks. Yes, getting a tenure track job in a research venue at an MD school or a UG major university IS hard...it takes having grant money to land a position nowadays, even at smaller med schools.

That said, there are still faculty jobs out there if one is willing to reinvent oneself, like, I did, for one, and take a job with primarily teaching responsibilities. Dental, pharmacy, PA programs, lab tech training programs all get overlooked when one is only thinking about playing the Majors. Life at AAA or AA ball isn't bad. One just has to be in the right place at the right time.

I have a friend who has been in several post-doc positions who recently has had a ton of interviews...meaning, she's getting on short lists right away. Her main drawback is that she has a rather wooden, if sweet, personality, and no fire in the belly for research, and most schools want you to so SOME type of scholarly activity.

Like the typical fossilized academic. You are so far disconnected from reality that it is laughable. I do not deny that a select minority of exceptional academics are still gaining tenure and winning the academic rat race, but this is demonstrably not true for the vast majority of PhDs or the average PhD

How many PhDs actually get to become college professors?

The available data on long-term career outcomes for Ph.D.'s aren't great. But back in 1999, a study titled Ph.D.'s -- Ten Years Later surveyed thousands of one-time doctoral students about how they'd fared in the workforce a decade or more after graduation day. These were men and women who'd received their diplomas sometime between 1982 and 1985, when the market was a bit less red in tooth and claw. And even in those days, their experience showed that without a fast early start, your chances of successfully scaling the ivory tower and reaching tenure were pretty slim. At the time 53 percent of all Ph.D.'s said they had intended to become professors. As this table (apologies for the awkward angle) showed, only about half of that group had obtained tenure within ten-to-fourteen years, while 33 percent weren't in academia at all.

The data that is being produced at all levels just does not seem to support any part of the picture you are trying to paint here, I'm afraid. A typical PhD can reinvent themselves and toil away as hard as they will to try to secure even a permanent staff scientist position in a group, and not even the coveted tenure-track position, and that will still be largely a pipe dream for the overwhelming majority.

 

[Dynam0]

What a sensationalistic crap post. 3/10

The harsh truth and the reality of the world out there is not something most people find comfortable accepting.

The sad reality is that only an sheltered premed and disgruntled physicians would disagree with the OP. I would imagine most non-trads, while perhaps lamenting the sensationalism, would agree wholeheartedly about the spirit of the post as applied to their particular fields outside of healthcare.

 

[Sardinia]

@Dynam0 @Goro blatantly stated that getting a tenured track job position is hard. He even used caps to designate it. Nothing in the article by the Atlantic directly contrasts any of the comments he made. Reinvention often involves working under a job titles that do not get recognized and it doesn't seem astounding that several PhD's would pursue opportunities in the private sector instead of being tied down to academia. 33% not being present in academia isn't analogous to a desolate wasteland when the oasis lies within corporations looking for effective PhD's to work privately within R&D or whatever role they play. Both you and Goro acknowledge that obtaining PhD is not an easy street to a job within academia and being able to work the system is an essential component to making starting a career. This does not deviate far from the expectations most people have with any degree they obtain.

 

[Sardinia]

@Dynam0 I currently work outside of healthcare. Your post honestly just gives the impression that you are going to graduate or just graduated and are working a crappy job. You are unable to make an adequate comparison to what the lifestyle is like working as a physician because you've never worked as a physician. The same goes for me. I wouldn't even bother drawing comparisons until I experienced it personally and even then my perspective is only n=1. I used to be a medical student and I was miserable. I can tell you the strengths I have within my current work place weren't directly analogous to the skills that were required of me as a student and I saw the writing on the wall. I can plan, I can compartmentalize, I can work long hours, and I'm good with working with other people. However, I would struggle every single exam and borderline pass. Every. Single. Time.

Medical school and being a physician is not for everyone. I'm thick skinned. I've tasted homelessness and what it's like to spent a month without a fixed address. But I can't stomach what it means to be responsible for others when I'm barely able to hold out on my own. It's absurd to me that people attempt to draw correlations between apples and oranges without having even tasted an apple or an orange.

 

[Dynam0]

@Dynam0 @Goro blatantly stated that getting a tenured track job position is hard. He even used caps to designate it. Nothing in the article by the Atlantic directly contrasts any of the comments he made. Reinvention often involves working under a job titles that do not get recognized and it doesn't seem astounding that several PhD's would pursue opportunities in the private sector instead of being tied down to academia. 33% not being present in academia isn't analogous to a desolate wasteland when the oasis lies within corporations looking for effective PhD's to work privately within R&D or whatever role they play. Both you and Goro acknowledge that obtaining PhD is not an easy street to a job within academia and being able to work the system is an essential component to making starting a career. This does not deviate far from the expectations most people have with any degree they obtain.

There's a difference between saying it is "hard" and actually admitting the reality that is practically impossible. One is recounting the actual truth, and the other is intellectual dishonesty. It's no different to saying jumping to the moon in your shoes is "hard". That doesn't even come close to capturing the reality of the situation. In truth, I don't expect Goro to be honest about this. Like most tenured academics, he/she directly benefits from the academic gravy train and has a vested interest keeping the delusion of the PhD going with sheer naive idealism and feel-good half-truths.


Secondly, there is absolutely no evidence that there is this plethora of corporations seeking PhDs for their alleged skills and depth. That is another naive concoction pushed by professors to continue to reel in their bait. Almost all jobs in industry can be done by someone with a BS or an MS with industrial experience, and in fact from what I and many others have observed, corporations actually prefer someone with a BS or MS and industrial experience who understands the methods and ways of the corporate world over some unemployable academic locked in their ivory tower and has no concept of business acumen. In many cases, a PhD is actually liability to getting a job in industry and one must actually explain why they will be a good fit, which in this environment is a rather losing proposition. That doesn't even acknowledge yet the massive problem of globalization and how your research department will always be under threat to be moved away to third-world by some MBA with no scientific training, and hence an appreciation for the quality differential between the two camps, looking to prop up their profit margins for short-term gain.

 

[Dynam0]

@Dynam0 I currently work outside of healthcare. Your post honestly just gives the impression that you are going to graduate or just graduated and are working a crappy job. You are unable to make an adequate comparison to what the lifestyle is like working as a physician because you've never worked as a physician. The same goes for me. I wouldn't even bother drawing comparisons until I experienced it personally and even then my perspective is only n=1. I used to be a medical student and I was miserable. I can tell you the strengths I have within my current work place weren't directly analogous to the skills that were required of me as a student and I saw the writing on the wall. I can plan, I can compartmentalize, I can work long hours, and I'm good with working with other people. However, I would struggle every single exam and borderline pass. Every. Single. Time.

Medical school and being a physician is not for everyone. I'm thick skinned. I've tasted homelessness and what it's like to spent a month without a fixed address. But I can't stomach what it means to be responsible for others when I'm barely able to hold out on my own. It's absurd to me that people attempt to draw correlations between apples and oranges without having even tasted an apple or an orange.

People love to get personal on here, don't they? I like that strawman, though. I never claimed that medicine is directly analogous to other professions and has its own independent perks and drawbacks, just like any field. However, the objective truth is, medicine is largely insulated from the forces that have caused the erosion of most other professions. No one can deny or argue this point regardless of their personal attacks or claims I don't have experience in the field. If we take a sufficiently motivated and intelligent student, what field besides possibly dentistry will they be guaranteed a comfortable lifestyle so long as their academic performance has been sufficient? What field has that 1:1 transformation of academic performance and hard work into a comfortable upper middle-class lifestyle regardless of one's lack of social skills, socioeconomic status, and family/personal connections? That is essentially all I am saying here. I am not saying the profession is all roses and, undoubtedly, there have been negative changes that affected it like all fields, but the magnitude of those negative changes is nowhere near what has essentially hollowed countless other professions.


I also like how you paint me as the typical ignorant and sheltered premed still struggling with the trivial O-chem material. I am probably older than you with more life experiences, and I certainly know I have more experience both in industry and academia across multiple disciplines to know what I am saying has certain merit. The mere fact that the only people in this thread disagreeing are essentially disgruntled physicians and medical students, and their sheltered premed lackeys trying to get in their good graces. Try talking to non-trads more from a diverse set of fields and the picture you get will be a lot more consistent with what I am saying in this thread.

 

[holycrap]

I don't think you're completely wrong but there's alot more to it

 

[Tenk]

100% true. Even if I hated my job I would still do it because the lifestyle is baller. Luckily I don't hate my job so that's good.

I honestly think that all pre-meds should have to do several months of construction or manual labor so that when they become physicians they will know how good they have it, and they won't be such whiny brats when they get presented with more work day after day. Work is work is work is work. Suck it up and get it done.

 

[DetectiveAlonzo]

100% true. Even if I hated my job I would still do it because the lifestyle is baller. Luckily I don't hate my job so that's good.

I honestly think that all pre-meds should have to do several months of construction or manual labor so that when they become physicians they will know how good they have it, and they won't be such whiny brats when they get presented with more work day after day. Work is work is work is work. Suck it up and get it done.

The ****ing truth.

Main reason I don't talk to half of my med school class is cause all they do is bitch and bitch and bitch.

"There's too many lecture slides... omggg... anatomy is killing me... errmaggawwdd... Professor so-and-so talks too fastttt... I couldn't keep up... Med school is so hard".

Suck it up. Life is seriously very hard when everything is handed to you in these powerpoint slides and all you have to do is read.

Tough life.

I ****ing love med school more than undergrad. There's more handholding here than I've experienced throughout all of my education thus far.

 

[Kr#36]

100% true. Even if I hated my job I would still do it because the lifestyle is baller. Luckily I don't hate my job so that's good.

I honestly think that all pre-meds should have to do several months of construction or manual labor so that when they become physicians they will know how good they have it, and they won't be such whiny brats when they get presented with more work day after day. Work is work is work is work. Suck it up and get it done.

Never agreed with a post more in my life. I'm only a non-trad getting ready to apply, but spending time around pre-meds and (some) docs has made it tough to bite my tongue. Coming from a background where I truly learned the meaning of "grind," I think some people could benefit from learning that "they can always hurt you more."

 

[Law2Doc]

...
I honestly think that all pre-meds should have to do several months of construction or manual labor so that when they become physicians they will know how good they have it, and they won't be such whiny brats when they get presented with more work day after day. Work is work is work is work. Suck it up and get it done.

Um no. While I somewhat agree with the "whiny brat" aspect of the post I disagree with everything else you've written. The choice of the premed isn't between manual construction labor and being a doctor. It's between one of the thousand jobs people with college or more education might consider. People who got into and through med school have a multitude of choices in life, while the guy who ends up doing construction usually doesn't. It's good honest work but it's not the die many of us on here were cast so it's a pointless analogy. Yes the construction worker can say "work is work" because frankly he is taking one of a handful of what most consider less desirable jobs, working 9-5 and living for his weekends. The work is just his vehicle to pay the bills and fund his weekend activities, he often invests nothing more of himself into it. And that's fine but not our lot.

The budding professional however has lots of career options, will spend a much longer percentage of their day at their job, which is absolutely not 9/5, and really can't live for the weekend because some only get a few weekend days a month. When I, a lawyer was contemplating a career change I looked at a multitude of career options, all with positives and negatives, and none involving manual labor. Why? Because we on here are blessed with choices in life. We aren't forced to do a job just to pay the bills. We are privileged to have a component of choice the construction worker never gets. Use it wisely. We will spend most of our awake life doing a career like medicine, so you need to like it or it's more of a squandering of your life than you realize. And don't ever take the "a job is a job" approach -- that's for people who can't reach the brass rings on this career merry go round. For premeds it's a cop out. You don't get to pretend your choices in life are so limited.

 

[sharpstickie]

Not related to OP, but did LostInTranslation really get banned?!

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

There's a difference between saying it is "hard" and actually admitting the reality that is practically impossible. One is recounting the actual truth, and the other is intellectual dishonesty. It's no different to saying jumping to the moon in your shoes is "hard". That doesn't even come close to capturing the reality of the situation. In truth, I don't expect Goro to be honest about this. Like most tenured academics, he/she directly benefits from the academic gravy train and has a vested interest keeping the delusion of the PhD going with sheer naive idealism and feel-good half-truths.


Secondly, there is absolutely no evidence that there is this plethora of corporations seeking PhDs for their alleged skills and depth. That is another naive concoction pushed by professors to continue to reel in their bait. Almost all jobs in industry can be done by someone with a BS or an MS with industrial experience, and in fact from what I and many others have observed, corporations actually prefer someone with a BS or MS and industrial experience who understands the methods and ways of the corporate world over some unemployable academic locked in their ivory tower and has no concept of business acumen. In many cases, a PhD is actually liability to getting a job in industry and one must actually explain why they will be a good fit, which in this environment is a rather losing proposition. That doesn't even acknowledge yet the massive problem of globalization and how your research department will always be under threat to be moved away to third-world by some MBA with no scientific training, and hence an appreciation for the quality differential between the two camps, looking to prop up their profit margins for short-term gain.

It's another case of anecdotal evidence, but I am friends with severa PhDs, and none of them are without work. My friend is a PhD in the private sector because he had no interest in teaching. He actually doesn't like his job, but it has to do with the nature of being a private sector scientist, not how difficult it was to find work.

I also know a few academics. None of them had trouble finding professor jobs after finishing their PhDs. They were just flexible (we are in Cali, and one of them had to move to Boston).

My sister-in-law is finishing her PhD in England and already has a job lined up (will admit that hers is in the humanities though).

The only one who doesn't have a job is my younger sister, but she just passed quals last year, so she had plenty of time.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Um no. While I somewhat agree with the "whiny brat" aspect of the post I disagree with everything else you've written. The choice of the premed isn't between manual construction labor and being a doctor. It's between one of the thousand jobs people with college or more education might consider. People who got into and through med school have a multitude of choices in life, while the guy who ends up doing construction usually doesn't. It's good honest work but it's not the die many of us on here were cast so it's a pointless analogy. Yes the construction worker can say "work is work" because frankly he is taking one of a handful of what most consider less desirable jobs, working 9-5 and living for his weekends. The work is just his vehicle to pay the bills and fund his weekend activities, he often invests nothing more of himself into it. And that's fine but not our lot.

The budding professional however has lots of career options, will spend a much longer percentage of their day at their job, which is absolutely not 9/5, and really can't live for the weekend because some only get a few weekend days a month. When I, a lawyer was contemplating a career change I looked at a multitude of career options, all with positives and negatives, and none involving manual labor. Why? Because we on here are blessed with choices in life. We aren't forced to do a job just to pay the bills. We are privileged to have a component of choice the construction worker never gets. Use it wisely. We will spend most of our awake life doing a career like medicine, so you need to like it or it's more of a squandering of your life than you realize. And don't ever take the "a job is a job" approach -- that's for people who can't reach the brass rings on this career merry go round. For premeds it's a cop out. You don't get to pretend your choices in life are so limited.

I don't necessarily think everyone should have to do manual labor, but I do support mandatory public service for a year or two (military, fire/rescue, phs, something). I also think that as many people as possible should get out of this country and see how the majority of the world lives.

So many college kids are whiny, entitled ****s with no sense of responsibility or hard work. I was like that too, until I got a nice dose of reality. It made me a better student, but more importantly, it made me a better (and less annoying) person.

 

[Med Ed]

That is so long as one can tolerate it. It is funny to see the common refrain of "go into finance if you want to make money, not medicine!", as if the average finance graduate will ever earn anywhere near as much over a lifetime as an MD who was at bottom of their class. The fact of the matter is, medicine and a select other few fields you can count one hand (i.e dentistry) are the only fields where one's raw academic performance translates directly to a comfortable and promising lifestyle for them and their future families.

In finance/business, to make anywhere near an MD earns you generally have to attend a very prestigious school, have a near perfect GPA along with extraordinary ECs that far exceed anything the average medical student has, have connections out the wazoo, have carefully constructed internships at major firms during your undergraduate, and all of this to only have the chance to interview at a place and possibly not even get the job. You can do everything right and be perfect on paper and even in the interview, but many things will be out of your control such as the interviewer not liking your "tie", or graduating into a terrible economy, and many other things that will force you to languish like the typical business/finance graduate in a bank teller role or an accounting position that pays $10/hr.

In the natural and biological sciences, same story to a lesser degree. You can be absolutely exceptional with a near perfect GPA, multiple research publications, have a PI who is the foremost expert in the world in his field, glowing letters of recommendations, and all-in-all an exceptional scientist but that still won't be good enough to get a professorship and thus you will languish as a post-doc slave living in poverty in many places. If you decide to go into industry and you are extremely fortunate by landing one of those extremely rare R&D positions that requires major connections and networking as well, you will be a wage slave for management and will constantly be told to be grateful you even have a job even if the secretaries are earning more than you for if you don't like it, they can easily hire some third-world PhD who will gladly work for peanuts and no benefits. Things are a little better in engineering, but the story these days is more comparable to finance where you now need to be perfect on paper and also have the right connections to get the job in most cases. There are countless examples of people who graduated with near perfect GPAs and stellar research experience and were rebuffed by employers for not being a "good corporate fit" and instead the guy who barely passed but whose father was in the same fraternity as the CEO of the company gets the job. Nepotism is rampant in this field.


To conclude, we live in a brave new world where the average person will no longer earn a decent and reasonable living. The middle class is poised to most probably die out assuming current trends continue. In light of that, medicine still remains to be one of the only fields where academic performance will almost always be rewarded with a comfortable lifestyle. I can see how things are not as gravy as they used to be 20 or 30 years ago, which is true for practically all other fields, but medicine still seems to be a field that will still reward you in proportion to your hard work and perseverance, which is unfortunately not true for most other fields where this was once the case. I know I will be attacked by disgruntled residents and medical students and told I am just a premed who doesn't know anything about the real world (I am not a premed, btw), and I certainly have no shortage of anecdotes and even hard data that can support everything I have said here. If you think you have it bad, just walk to the biology or chemistry department at your school and you will see true horror stories. People in their 30s and 40s who have been training 10+ years for their role and not earning much more than the cleaning staff and there is no light at the tunnel for them where all of their hard work eventually pays off. That will really open your eyes to just how good you have it. There are no greener pastures, just a desolate wasteland.

Strong work on the scale of triteness, definitely an A+, I'd give it a 98/100. Only discernible improvement would be to start off with "Since the dawn of time..."

 

[Tenk]

Um no. While I somewhat agree with the "whiny brat" aspect of the post I disagree with everything else you've written. The choice of the premed isn't between manual construction labor and being a doctor. It's between one of the thousand jobs people with college or more education might consider. People who got into and through med school have a multitude of choices in life, while the guy who ends up doing construction usually doesn't. It's good honest work but it's not the die many of us on here were cast so it's a pointless analogy. Yes the construction worker can say "work is work" because frankly he is taking one of a handful of what most consider less desirable jobs, working 9-5 and living for his weekends. The work is just his vehicle to pay the bills and fund his weekend activities, he often invests nothing more of himself into it. And that's fine but not our lot.

The budding professional however has lots of career options, will spend a much longer percentage of their day at their job, which is absolutely not 9/5, and really can't live for the weekend because some only get a few weekend days a month. When I, a lawyer was contemplating a career change I looked at a multitude of career options, all with positives and negatives, and none involving manual labor. Why? Because we on here are blessed with choices in life. We aren't forced to do a job just to pay the bills. We are privileged to have a component of choice the construction worker never gets. Use it wisely. We will spend most of our awake life doing a career like medicine, so you need to like it or it's more of a squandering of your life than you realize. And don't ever take the "a job is a job" approach -- that's for people who can't reach the brass rings on this career merry go round. For premeds it's a cop out. You don't get to pretend your choices in life are so limited.

I think you missed the point of my post so I will clarify, but first I will ask you a question: have you ever been paid to do construction or other forms of heavy manual labor? I have done manual labor in my life and it did two things for me:

1) It gave me a good, strong work ethic that I see SO many of my colleagues fail to possess. "Why are you consulting me on this patient?" "What do you expect me to do?" "wah wah wah!" The never ending cycle of whining frustrates me to no end. Most physicians need stronger work ethics and less whining.
2) It made me realize how freaking awesome I have it. Like how AMAZING my life currently is. Even the worst days of the ED, I just remember the hours spent shoveling dirt and I'm like: hey this is pretty good.

I've had many, many jobs in my life but none of them stung like manual labor. It is a different beast. I currently make more in one hour than I did during a whole days work in labor and yet I worked harder in one hour as a laborer than I do in an entire ED shift currently.

You don't have to believe me, that's fine. I just wish that more physicians would have a better work ethic and realize how absolutely blessed they are to have the jobs they currently have. Maybe that would make them start helping each other instead of constantly bickering, insulting, and whining about how hard their life is. That's all.

 

[JustAPhD]

I think you missed the point of my post so I will clarify, but first I will ask you a question: have you ever been paid to do construction or other forms of heavy manual labor? I have done manual labor in my life and it did two things for me:

1) It gave me a good, strong work ethic that I see SO many of my colleagues fail to possess. "Why are you consulting me on this patient?" "What do you expect me to do?" "wah wah wah!" The never ending cycle of whining frustrates me to no end. Most physicians need stronger work ethics and less whining.
2) It made me realize how freaking awesome I have it. Like how AMAZING my life currently is. Even the worst days of the ED, I just remember the hours spent shoveling dirt and I'm like: hey this is pretty good.

I've had many, many jobs in my life but none of them stung like manual labor. It is a different beast. I currently make more in one hour than I did during a whole days work in labor and yet I worked harder in one hour as a laborer than I do in an entire ED shift currently.

You don't have to believe me, that's fine. I just wish that more physicians would have a better work ethic and realize how absolutely blessed they are to have the jobs they currently have. Maybe that would make them start helping each other instead of constantly bickering, insulting, and whining about how hard their life is. That's all.

I 100% agree. During undergrad, before the years I did summer research, I did manual labor (mostly working the fields on local farms and also some landscaping) and it was probably one of the best experiences I've had. Later down the road, you realize working the long hours in a setting such as a lab (or the ED for you) is much more of a blessing than it first appears...and you know I'm making my future son do it too.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I 100% agree. During undergrad, before the years I did summer research, I did manual labor (mostly working the fields on local farms and also some landscaping) and it was probably one of the best experiences I've had. Later down the road, you realize working the long hours in a setting such as a lab (or the ED for you) is much more of a blessing than it first appears...and you know I'm making my future son do it too.

Funny how all the people who have worked manual labor jobs view the "hard" work of a physician or scientist as a blessing.

 

[Goro]

I think it's more "worked real jobs instead of being professional students"

Funny how all the people who have worked manual labor jobs view the "hard" work of a physician or scientist as a blessing.

 

[Goro]

Go back re-read what I wrote, especially about the part of my job hunting friend.

Good reading skills are require for success on MCAT. Remember that when you sit down for the CARS section. I'm not so far way from the pulse of the PhD job market that I'm unaware, as I stated above, that most PhDs are, like thoroughbreds, trained for one thing and one thing only: to get a research lab and a tenure track position. This mindset persists despite the fact that more people have been going into industry than Academia for the past 15-20 years.

Be that as it may, there are jobs out there, outside of endless post-doc positions, IF one is willing to veer off the racetrack. My wife got burnt out on teaching Chemistry early on, got a well paying lab tech/mgr job for awhile, then went into Tech Support, and she's making more money that I am....and I have a nice salary!

Gravy train indeed. I'm a teacher first, then a researcher.

Like the typical fossilized academic. You are so far disconnected from reality that it is laughable. I do not deny that a select minority of exceptional academics are still gaining tenure and winning the academic rat race, but this is demonstrably not true for the vast majority of PhDs or the average PhD

How many PhDs actually get to become college professors?

The available data on long-term career outcomes for Ph.D.'s aren't great. But back in 1999, a study titled Ph.D.'s -- Ten Years Later surveyed thousands of one-time doctoral students about how they'd fared in the workforce a decade or more after graduation day. These were men and women who'd received their diplomas sometime between 1982 and 1985, when the market was a bit less red in tooth and claw. And even in those days, their experience showed that without a fast early start, your chances of successfully scaling the ivory tower and reaching tenure were pretty slim. At the time 53 percent of all Ph.D.'s said they had intended to become professors. As this table (apologies for the awkward angle) showed, only about half of that group had obtained tenure within ten-to-fourteen years, while 33 percent weren't in academia at all.

The data that is being produced at all levels just does not seem to support any part of the picture you are trying to paint here, I'm afraid. A typical PhD can reinvent themselves and toil away as hard as they will to try to secure even a permanent staff scientist position in a group, and not even the coveted tenure-track position, and that will still be largely a pipe dream for the overwhelming majority.

 

[Member314159]

IMO, it's not worth it. Salary and prestige are parts of my motive, but more like tertiary. I think the time commitment, the long hours, the being treated like garbage for an extended period of time, the re-certifications, etc could only be manageable if you were pursuing it for a greater purpose.

I do appreciate the honesty, there are many applicants who don't have the bluntness to say that they're taking on this path for the cash flow/prestige/family pressure and are forced to conceive some half-true story about wanting to help people.

I think an MBA may be what you're looking for. You are doing interesting/difficult work, make a good salary, fly first/business class, wear suits etc. Or if you're more low key maybe the tech sector where its more t-shirt and jeans but you still have the first class flights.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I think it's more "worked real jobs instead of being professional students"

I worked a real job while I went to school, but there's nothing like manual labor and near-death experiences to humble you.

 

[Goro]

As Tenk alluded to, more people are showing up in residency where residency is their first real employment. As such they have poor job skills, like expecting to go on vacation after a week on the job, or wanting to leave promptly at 5PM.

I worked a real job while I went to school, but there's nothing like manual labor and near-death experiences to humble you.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

As Tenk alluded to, more people are showing up in residency where residency is their first real employment. As such they have poor job skills, like expecting to go on vacation after a week on the job, or wanting to leave promptly at 5PM.

Yep. It's sad.

 

[JOHNBROCHILL]

I don't think anybody shows up to residency expecting to leave promptly. It's more like medical students show up to rotation and don't want to call outside hospitals to get records or make photocopies or other 'scut' non learning work that is important for the team and patient care. MS3/4 is more about job training than academic learning.

Anyways, OP writes a very true statement that the idealists on this board will vehemently deny. Personally, I will gladly bust my butt for prestige, respect, money, status with women, and social status in life. Medicine is a near certain way of achieving all of those goals with something I've always been good at...school. It was always the obvious choice for me. I could have done other routes to try and obtain these things, but they are less certain. I know I test well on multiple choice exams. Medicine is safe and checks my boxes. Why would I do anything else..?

 

[MDProspect]

Um no. While I somewhat agree with the "whiny brat" aspect of the post I disagree with everything else you've written. The choice of the premed isn't between manual construction labor and being a doctor. It's between one of the thousand jobs people with college or more education might consider. People who got into and through med school have a multitude of choices in life, while the guy who ends up doing construction usually doesn't. It's good honest work but it's not the die many of us on here were cast so it's a pointless analogy. Yes the construction worker can say "work is work" because frankly he is taking one of a handful of what most consider less desirable jobs, working 9-5 and living for his weekends. The work is just his vehicle to pay the bills and fund his weekend activities, he often invests nothing more of himself into it. And that's fine but not our lot.

The budding professional however has lots of career options, will spend a much longer percentage of their day at their job, which is absolutely not 9/5, and really can't live for the weekend because some only get a few weekend days a month. When I, a lawyer was contemplating a career change I looked at a multitude of career options, all with positives and negatives, and none involving manual labor. Why? Because we on here are blessed with choices in life. We aren't forced to do a job just to pay the bills. We are privileged to have a component of choice the construction worker never gets. Use it wisely. We will spend most of our awake life doing a career like medicine, so you need to like it or it's more of a squandering of your life than you realize. And don't ever take the "a job is a job" approach -- that's for people who can't reach the brass rings on this career merry go round. For premeds it's a cop out. You don't get to pretend your choices in life are so limited.

I don't know your entire work history, but as your name suggests, you went from one white collar job to another. Until you have tried manual labor, then you don't know what it is like. Not every construction worker will only live for their weekends nor only invest what is required of them. A lot of people that I worked with were doing construction jobs in order to save money and start their own businesses. The type of construction worker that you are describing are usually immigrants who have limited employment opportunities due to their limited language abilities, or someone who is complacent with their lifestyle and does not want to work harder to change their situation. Personally, I am thankful that my parents forced me to find employment at the age of 15. Not only did I learn the value of money, but every time I want to slack off, I start thinking about the time when I had to pull wires through fiberglass in sweltering heat. Yes, premeds have vast job opportunities, but how many of them actually put any effort into seizing those opportunities? Many, if not most of my classmates in undergrad coasted of their parents or only worked in clean, office jobs for pocket money.

 

[dafuturesurgeon]

If your willing to do the work and you dont hate the idea of being a doctor.. go ahead but I wont come visit you just to be super safe

 

[Goro]

What OP is posting is the mere baseline for anyone going into Medicine. Everybody wants to make a good salary, be respected and be the Big Cheese. We're just trying to point out that with all of the sacrifices involved, if there aren't extra reasons, like being willing to serve others, that one will be a miserable doctor. Just look at the recent post by @JustPlainBill about having to deal with "Dr Google", or any of our EM residents who have to deal with drug seekers...especially lowlife drug seekers.

I don't think anybody shows up to residency expecting to leave promptly. It's more like medical students show up to rotation and don't want to call outside hospitals to get records or make photocopies or other 'scut' non learning work that is important for the team and patient care. MS3/4 is more about job training than academic learning.

Anyways, OP writes a very true statement that the idealists on this board will vehemently deny. Personally, I will gladly bust my butt for prestige, respect, money, status with women, and social status in life. Medicine is a near certain way of achieving all of those goals with something I've always been good at...school. It was always the obvious choice for me. I could have done other routes to try and obtain these things, but they are less certain. I know I test well on multiple choice exams. Medicine is safe and checks my boxes. Why would I do anything else..?