Radiology - ain't easy except to non-radiology residents. Sure some attendings have it good, but bad gigs are present too. Radiology is getting a cut in outpt imaging. Sucks for them. I personally think it makes no sense to pick out of Paul's pocket to pay Peter.
Ophthalmology - I was thinking about as a student briefly. However, one small organ gets boring. And their pay stinks on the way out. General ophtho is like 90-110K (primary care docs get more). Specialists like glaucoma can make near 175K in reasonable living area. Obviously more can be made in rural locations or getting lucky, but that applies to everybody.
Anesthesia - It's hardwork but it's a matter of liking it too. Some people hate clinic and patient education so they do things like rads, anesthesia, surgery. Less talk, more work. Take your pick and look at your personality. Sure there are CRNAs, but what about DNPs at your local Walmart. Everybody has to go at the old farts who are making big cash at our expense and letting the midlevels get more rights. F'in NBME.
Derm - has it good FOR NOW. Remember, medicare will take a bite out of their a$$ real soon. They get a lot for no risk procedures. A biopsy can be like 200 bucks in 5 mins (isn't that what a surgeon makes on an appendix?). And I'm sure most simple things can be done by primary docs even biopsies of melanomas.
ROAD specialties just currently offer a lot better ROI than non-ROAD specialties. You can make a lot of money I guess in medicine subspecialties like cardio, but you gotta get lucky and some say the time may not be worth it. Cardiology is not an easy fellowship and can get nuts even more than R and A. Reimbursement also is not so pretty unless you spend the extra 2 years doing stents or pacemakers. 4+3+3+2=10 years = ouch!!
So....1.) get a hold of legislators and defend your med school debt 2.) tell all the high schoolers and college kids to F medicine 3.) save your money now and try to get at that debt 4.) make sure to hound ASA for their balls-less actions. I think medical school students across the US can have better cohesion. 5.) try the Lotto out once a week
They shouldn't be raising primary care reimbursement at the expense of specialists and vice versa. They should put more into the system or get HMO/PPO out, other middlemen..... OR maybe like make only 40 F22 raptors rather than 200. Military spending is ridiculous only because we are too many steps ahead of others.
