What have you heard about the lifestyle?

[atomi]

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[shindotp]

If you 'expect' any sort of salary, you are in for a rude awakening. You don't get paid just because you graduated medical school. You get paid because you are competent and your services are valuable.

Graduating medical school (and completing a residency) implies competence.

Working in any field in medicine implies valuable services.

So yeah, you should expect a salary for graduating medical school and completing a residency.... After all, doctors do get paid relatively well.

I guess I'm in for a rude awakening when I become a doctor and get a starting salary of exactly what I predict

 

[Law2Doc]

If you 'expect' any sort of salary, you are in for a rude awakening. You don't get paid just because you graduated medical school. You get paid because you are competent and your services are valuable.

Well, I agree with your sentiment that you shouldn't count your chickens before they hatch, and also that not everybody attains the average. But I think that if things don't change in the next few years, the prior poster is probably right in his guestimate of where his post residency income will fall, for the simple fact that there are currently a bit of a shortage of physicians. So yes, if you finish med school, pass the boards, and complete your residency, you will be taking advantage of a seller's market for your services. So you needn't have really proved anything beyond that you made it through a residency and you will generally be able to earn a comfortable living.

 

[shindotp]

To the OP: What is it about finance that made you want to change? Thinking about how much I love analyzing data on excel, I was starting to become more open minded about I-banking...

To Law2Doc - what about law made you want to change careers to medicine?

 

[Law2Doc]

...
To Law2Doc - what about law made you want to change careers to medicine?

Nothing about law. It was more things about medicine. Law was fine and lucrative, and at times fun. Medicine seemed like more fun.

 

[Lokhtar]

Dunno, I worked 80-90 hours a week average for 4-5 years, and I was going to work that much as a career. I am fine with working that much, if I enjoy what I am doing.

The issue is if I will actually enjoy medicine - I think I will, but it has to be academic medicine. I don't think I would enjoy private practice as much, as I definitely want to be involved heavily in research, if not bench or translational, then clinical. I love that aspect of it, just as much as patient care.

I think coming from a career when I did have to work long hours, weekends, on call nights, etc will help me. It obviously wasn't nearly as stressful as medicine will be (of course!), but I'm used to being away from family and friends and work being my sole focus.

So I'm probably more prepared than most, though obviously time will tell how much that holds true when it actually starts.

 

[Forthegood]

The public thinks doctors are rich, and politicians first and foremost want to keep the public happy.

No. Do a survey for yourself and see if the public thinks their physician is overpaid. Ask them what pay the physician should recieve. Then, ask the folks in the ICU watching the doctor spend 24 hours striaight trying to keep their daughters heart beating how much they think the physician should be payed. Bottom line, the public IS willing to pay for care. They are just NOT willing to pay for the insurance middlemen, liason attorneys, white-coat-nurses with desk jobs, corporates, and others who provide no clinical significance and are just another line on payroll.

I thought you knew better.

Agreed.

Just a few things:

5) There are certain areas of law which are pretty awesome, and if you know your stuff in areas like IP in the biotech industry, you get used to all the old tricks and you can take on a client and practice some cookbook steps and get a great fee while delivering high quality results without pulling out your hair. Disclaimer: this seems to be the exception, not the rule.

The law thing... my experience goes like this. Yes, a good business (General counsel for example) attorney can make MUCH more than a physician. But this is not necessarily fulfilling the OPs requirement of HELPING PEOPLE SCIENTIFICALLY. Neither are banking/investment or a host of other specialties. The attorneys that DO help people are not as few as most would imagine. (They are not all scum, just like all doctors aren't riddled by malpractice suits.) But the ones that are scum are the public persona, and portrayed by the media as such.

An attorney that helps the people yet makes a good salary is, for instance, a federal district prosecutor. These do-gooders can expect to make around 75k (which is slave labor for a GOOD attorney). There are other careers in law that can help people, but most make around 100k or less.

I know SDN and most of medicine has a bad taste in their mouth for attorneys. Surely watching the bastards advertising on TV has made this much worse (it is equally unprofessional for physicians to advertise on TV). And surely there are a lot of money-hungry attorneys. But these broad generalizations of saying they are all rich, selfish spawns-of-satan are EMBARASSING to us as future physicians. This is EXACTLY what physicians are being labelled as also, and neither is true and both are ridiculous oversimplified stereotypes. It is time professionals started acting like professionals again.

Keep your mouths shut about other specialties you know nothing about. It makes us all look stupid by association.