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There are no faster and easier ways to make more money. Medicine is the surest route to $175k/year+.
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Very Discouraging....
Started by acromonkey
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There are no faster and easier ways to make more money. Medicine is the surest route to $175k/year+.
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I totally disagree with that.
Sure, there is long term job security - I agree with that. The salary is great too - I agree with that. It's a sure route, but not the fastest.
All my friends (from college with equal GPA, intellect , drive as med students) are going to be making over that way before I'm done with residency. Most are already around or over $100k 1-2 years out with a lot of room for growth. You have to compare apples to apples. A high achieving college grad with serious academics, dedication, and well-rounded EC's on par with medical school students is able to have a career paying equal to that (without 8+ year doctoral level training and debt).
That being said, I wouldn't do anything else but med so it doesn't matter to me.
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Well it's probably not the best way to think about things, but you could always work until your loans are paid off if you find out the profession truly isn't for you. Then find something else to do. It's life, it happens. It really won't be the end of the world.
I disagree, or else you have a very special group of "all my friends." The only 1-2 year post-grad job that will pay that kind of salary is junior analyst in finance or banking, which is a job with good pay and terrible prospects because one, you work like a dog for those 2-4 years, and two because the pyramid above gets very tight. There isn't a VP job for every one of those analysts.
While I generally agree that 6 digit salary jobs a few years out of UG don't grow on trees, there certainly are some outside of the finance realm. Consulting and project management is a pretty big field, and pays very well. You have to travel, work crazy hours and generally feel unappreciated as an employee, but they pay well. That being said, to get the good gigs, you have to have a pretty stellar application - the company I worked for out of UG only hired ~ 2% of applicants.
Prestigious consulting firms don't hire kids from State U. They hire almost exclusively from top schools.
On finance:
This. McKinsey and Booz aren't at Indiana State trying to find the best and brightest new juniors for the grist mill.
PS: In those consulting gigs, you work/travel hours on par with medical education.
Funny, most of my State U friends are either unemployed or are making $25-35k/year doing manual labor or low-level white collar crap.
Haha, that's what the parenthesis were for - friends will equivalent drive, academic pursuits, etc. Clearly not everyone I know.
I guess I'm maybe biased because I'm in a big city with high salaries, but there are plenty of other careers that allow you to hit $175k before 8 years (med school + residency average), especially if you put the amount of work in comparable to those years of medical training. There's at least 10 million Americans making over $175k a year... they are not all investment bankers and doctors.
Not trying to incite a debate, just pointing out that many docs I've heard from/ read about are saying the hours worked/ difficulty of work/ years of training don't equate to pay and that is a reason some are discouraged. Not saying I agree or disagree with that, but it's what I think some of the OPs anecdotes are getting at.
Alright, alright. Of course, the majority of my friends are working in similar positions. My gap year job is in that pay range.
Point is, I'm comparing high achieving students and I guess from schools that are most represented in medical school acceptances to be fair. If people put all the hours of research, volunteering, shadowing, grinding for grades, etc into an alternative career path it's very possible to end up with a career that pays $175k after a certain number of years. That's what I've seen in my experience. The average college student is not going to be a doctor just like they aren't going to end up with a high paying job in another career. A person that has the drive an intellect to make a career in medicine is going to be able to make a lucrative career elsewhere as well.
And I'm saying that those docs who are complaining about hours worked/difficulty/years of training don't know the first thing about those other professions because they've never worked one of those other jobs. EVERYONE feels like that, it is baked into every job. Jobs that have high salaries have salaries to compel you to show every day to do hard and valuable work. Otherwise, you'd just say "this sucks" and not show. You don't pull down a high salary to show up and referee the Puppy Bowl because there's nothing bad about that job that requires compensation to offset. All high salary jobs have things that suck, badly. They also aren't easy to get or maintain, else there would be zero middle school teachers and tons of consultants.
Also, the bulk of those 10 million stat you cited are small business owners. I'll leave it to you to suggest what the ratio of small business owners over the last 5-10 years who made >$175k is to small business owners who made less than that. Then do the same thing for physicians. Those ratios will not be similar.
Exactly the same for me.
OP, all these grand finance gigs paying 100+ right out of UG. Dude you're trading 70+ hrs in the hospital for MS3-residency and you will definitely make six figures when youre done for 70+ hours being someones bi**h in finance to make six figures for a few years and hope you don't get laid off. Yea, those jobs exist, but you will work just as hard, doing crappy work, with less job security.
News flash, you're an adult, you're going to be busting your butt at something for the next 50 years. At least medicine is cool and keeps you from being in front of a computer.
All the friends I have from UG that were offered high paying finance gigs have already experienced stints of unemployment.
I went to a state school - actually a Central X State school. You have to actively go out and work to get the jobs when you come from that situation, but I worked with lots of kids from state schools. I also took a different route (worked at a Healthcare IT company, then went into consulting), but the company I worked at employs thousands, and has pretty high turnover (just as many others like it).
So, my point is that while it is absolutely a misnomer that it is soooo easy to make bundles of money in so many fields without very much education, but so is the idea that only finance tycoons are able to break six digits early - the truth is somewhere in between. The jobs aren't super common, but they also aren't crazy rare.
You are absolutely correct about the hours, though. You get paid well, but they bleed it from you, and the work is generally pretty unfulfilling.
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I think there might be a slight population bias in this forum regarding the amazing benefits of being a doctor 🙄😀 ... I agree with everything, just sayin' 😛
I highly doubt that.
I have exactly 2 friends that are very successful; the rest are in stable but ultimately dead-end jobs (eg small business owner, teachers, back-office banking). And I graduated college in 2005 during a relatively strong economy. If all your friends are making 100k straight out of college, they are either incredibly lucky or have insane connections. The average college graduate doesn't even crack 50k out of college.
Medicine is the surest way to 150k+. If there was an easier way, then that path would be even more competitive than medicine. As a general rule, all other professional schools are getting easier to get into (eg law) rather than harder. That is, except for medicine.
You can tell this thread was made by a bunch of kids that have upper middle class parents.
Medicine is my ticket to financial security and stability. I will never have to worry about putting food on my table. Or having enough money to pay my bills.
50-60 hours is nothing.
Look at the truckers, factory workers, retail managers, regular people. They routinely work 40-50 hours a week for virtually nothing. My mom works overtime as a nurse 50 hours a week for 40,000 a year. A family friend that is a trucker makes a few thousand more but is never home to see his kids. Listen, medicine isn't perfect but medicine pays a lot of money. You need to understand that most people work 40-50 hours a week for 30,000 a year. The average doc works the same amount of hours for three times that.
You will not become Mark Zuckerberg as a doctor (most likely) your ignorance is showing. Chances are you won't e on food stamps either.
Medicine is my ticket to financial security and stability. I will never have to worry about putting food on my table. Or having enough money to pay my bills.
50-60 hours is nothing.
Look at the truckers, factory workers, retail managers, regular people. They routinely work 40-50 hours a week for virtually nothing. My mom works overtime as a nurse 50 hours a week for 40,000 a year. A family friend that is a trucker makes a few thousand more but is never home to see his kids. Listen, medicine isn't perfect but medicine pays a lot of money. You need to understand that most people work 40-50 hours a week for 30,000 a year. The average doc works the same amount of hours for three times that.
You will not become Mark Zuckerberg as a doctor (most likely) your ignorance is showing. Chances are you won't e on food stamps either.
The guy right above me said the average college grad makes 50k.
I'll be sure to tell that my programmer friends making 150k+ 2 years out of undergrad. That being said, I agree that their situation is far from the norm.
That's far from the normal even for programmers in some of the highest paying markets e.g. Silicon Valley.
Yeah. I didn't go to school with them and I don't know anything about programming so I can't really judge their abilities, but I assume getting recruited by top tech companies on the west coast probably means that they're legit.
I totally agree. We're on the same page about the heart of this thread. "The grass is always greener" mentality.
Medicine provides a combination of job security, controllability of lifestyle, and financial compensation that is unmatched by any other field. (And now all of the idiots are thinking "oh yeah, what about being a CEO of a fortune 500 company!!??")
Hopefully no one thinks that since there are only 500 of them by definition and average $12 million a year. Not even slightly comparable to physicians.
Preach.
I was just going to reply this. No one is raking in the cash they used to.
I would add, if you find a young, disgruntled physician they probably didn't know what they were getting themselves into or had the crap kicked out of them in residency.
At this point, beginning residency in a few days, I would not tell anyone to avoid medicine, as long as they knew what they were getting themselves into (somewhat).
I'm going to quote this in a year and see what you have to say then
Good points/good post though 👍
That's not fair. I'll be a disgruntled-soon-to-be PGY2, but will still be overall happy with my life. I also finish the year with O/P peds, radiology, and NF with 3-4 golden weekends dabbled in over 2 months. That might have me somewhat chipper.I'm going to quote this in a year and see what you have to say then
Good points/good post though 👍
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Oh I know, I was kidding. I actually did put a reminder in my calendar to bump this thread in a year though.
Best of luck! I hope you still find time to post occasionally 🙂
I think it's the time investment to salary pay out ratio. You spend 4 years in med school then have at least 3 years of 40k as a resident. Compared to something like pharmacy or dental, with a better time investment to salary pay out ratio. Like you can do a 0-6 or 2-4 or even just do it 4-4 for pharmacy and it would still be a quicker pay out. And dental is just 4 years and you're making a decent living already.
I know how you feel, I have met with quite a few physicians, and out of the 20 or so, only one or two has encouraged medicine as well. The rest have said, "get out while you can". I dont let it bother me though, I enjoy the environment, and I plan on doing rural med, so hopefully my loans will be paid off. I listen to it, but dont let it get to you.
The overwhelming majority of people in the U.S won't even come close to making 150K a year...or even in 3 years. 80K a year is a highly sought out salary to the average American 😛
Yes, there are bitter people. There are bitter people in every field. It's good to see them so that you know that medicine isn't always sunshine and rainbows. However, don't let cynics be the only side of medicine you see...cause thats just depressing. For every boo-hoo depressive doctor, there are happy go lucky content physicians as well.
Yes, there are bitter people. There are bitter people in every field. It's good to see them so that you know that medicine isn't always sunshine and rainbows. However, don't let cynics be the only side of medicine you see...cause thats just depressing. For every boo-hoo depressive doctor, there are happy go lucky content physicians as well.
I worked in the medical field in the military for 5 years. I never met a doctor who didn't enjoy and gain satisfaction from their job. Was every second sunshine and roses? Of course not, no job is (that's why you get paid
). Every military doctor who I told I was going to try for medical school encouraged me and told me I'd make a great doctor. So n=1 on the other end.I'm not sure the military's the best focus group, of course. It tends to weed out the whiney malcontents (I definitely met some of them in basic officer training, but they were mostly reservists).
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