What would you do if you had to start over?

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SoleSucking said:
What about a podiatrist that also does pest control? That could be an interesting combo. Use the knowledge of killing maggots into another career. DPM/Pest control dual degree
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Podiatry isn’t that bad. Just destress and look for another job. Message me the area where you want to practice and I can send you leads on good jobs.
 
I can honestly say I'd never do hard labor.
There is a reason it pays good... forget that noise though.

I'm not young, not old... but I see waaaaaay too many people with sad issues.
It might be a bad back, major intra-artic fractures, crippling arthritis, hearing loss, MVA, sports injury or even just fall in the home, early dementia, other trauma or degenerative conditions at a fairly young age. Some even have tons of $$ but are too wheelchair bound or painful to enjoy travel - or even the gym or trails. It's sad.

That working oil rigs, scaffolds and ladders, driving at night, heavy equipment, etc stuff is not worth any price (to me).
You can always make money in many ways... but you only get one brain, spine, set of knees, etc.
About 1 in 5 people retires not because they want to or enough $$$... but because of disability.
And true, it's a fact of life that your mind or your body will fail at some point, but do jobs that tend to have the body fail early? Nope.
 
I did some plumbing work before going to undergrad. It's tough work even at a young age. On your hands and knees in awkward positions, working out side in the middle of winter digging trenches for underground pipes for new buildings etc... no thanks, wouldn't do it again. Electrician would probably be the route I'd go if it were trades related or mechanical/electrical maintenance like my brother does for a big manufacturing plant.
 
I'd get some form of engineering degree, just 4 years and I'm done and out. Minimal student loans and easily pay it back in no time, and can work my way up. My brother makes 180K with his engineering degree, but I'd be happy making around 100K.
 
DarkPathMedicine said:
I'd get some form of engineering degree, just 4 years and I'm done and out. Minimal student loans and easily pay it back in no time, and can work my way up. My brother makes 180K with his engineering degree, but I'd be happy making around 100K.
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Crazy. Just do PA 2 years then
 
Bluecollarmed said:
i envy 99% of CRNA/anesthesia life. Patient is sleeping and if you did a dodgy pop block guess who has to hear about it for the next week or two...not the anesthesia team.
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Anesthesia would be fine but the call would suck. General surgeons take general surgeon call. Ortho takes ortho call. Podiatry takes podiatry call. Anesthesia takes all call.

No thanks.

Thats why ER is king of medicine. 100% shift work. At 7pm when your shift is done you walk out that door. No follow up. Just treat and street or admit. Done. Bye. 300-400k job.
 
DYK343 said:
Anesthesia would be fine but the call would suck. General surgeons take general surgeon call. Ortho takes ortho call. Podiatry takes podiatry call. Anesthesia takes all call.

No thanks.

Thats why ER is king of medicine. 100% shift work. At 7pm when your shift is done you walk out that door. No follow up. Just treat and street or admit. Done. Bye. 300-400k job.
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The ER position you talk about sounds like a private practice podiatry job except I’m home by noon twice a week and 430 the other three days.

And I don’t work weekends or holidays and if my kids have an athletic/school event I want to go to I can just adjust my schedule.

Man podiatry seems great now.
 
DYK343 said:
...Thats why ER is king of medicine. 100% shift work. At 7pm when your shift is done you walk out that door. No follow up. Just treat and street or admit. Done. Bye. 300-400k job.
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ER's not bad, but they also have to do the flip side (overnight shifts) or even 24hr shifts in many places.
You get many days off (esp if you do those 24s), but it's very rough work after your 30s and certainly after 40s. If they work normal 8 or 10 or 12hr shifts, they don't have a ton of days off. There is little or no potential for ER to do private practice (very hard to make an urgent care getting higher than their good employ jobs as most ER/UC pts have crummy insurance).

They've had their fair share of VC groups or hospital systems that treat the ER docs like nurses - or even like burger flippers.

ER's not a bad specialty, but it's a grass is greener thing. It's average or below popularity in the match.

I honestly think that podiatry, if it were an MD specialty (so not saturated and higher paid), would be average or even more popular... look at ENT, ophtho, derm, uro, plastics, and other procedure/surg specialties that are basically banker hours. They are all above average competitive level in the match.
 
DYK343 said:
Anesthesia would be fine but the call would suck. General surgeons take general surgeon call. Ortho takes ortho call. Podiatry takes podiatry call. Anesthesia takes all call.

No thanks.

Thats why ER is king of medicine. 100% shift work. At 7pm when your shift is done you walk out that door. No follow up. Just treat and street or admit. Done. Bye. 300-400k job.
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You’re just missing the fact that you will undoubtedly do overnight shifts as an ED doc. Their pay isn’t great but I completely agree with the benefits of shift work, knowing what I know now. Honestly Hospitalist work looks better all the time. Same concept, depending on the setup, not drastically more work, and my experience is that overnight floor coverage is done by NPs at a lot of facilities. During the travel $ heyday post-covid we had a hospitalist that wouldn’t take a job unless he was paid $300/hr. And he got it.

Personally I would have gone into finance. Be a lending agent/loan officer at a bank out of college, move into management, and then executive level at a local credit union. Not a terribly difficult journey, we aren’t talking getting to that level at BOA or Chase. You’d start making $80-100k at 22 and be making closer to $200k with no debt by the time a DPM is getting out of residency.
 
DYK343 said:
Anesthesia would be fine but the call would suck. General surgeons take general surgeon call. Ortho takes ortho call. Podiatry takes podiatry call. Anesthesia takes all call.

No thanks.

Thats why ER is king of medicine. 100% shift work. At 7pm when your shift is done you walk out that door. No follow up. Just treat and street or admit. Done. Bye. 300-400k job.
Click to expand...
Anesthesia has mommy track jobs at ASCs. No calls, no nights, no OR or surgeons, and still make around 350k.

I agree ER is slept on. Their full time is 120 hours a month and they make 2x the base hourly rate as hospitalists at my hospital. They also don’t do as many nights as people think (2-3 a month) and they do it in a stretch so the flip isn’t as bad. Definitely gotta do weekends and holidays though.
 
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