The MBA has not as much debt.. on top of that lets be real honest here and I may get flamed for this.. You have to spew the medicine as a calling, i want to be a pcp nonsense to get into school. Then to get into residency you continue to talk about working for the underserved etc. At some point some portion of this has to impact some people whereby they believe this. All the while the money folks use these truths to further abuse docs and make pulp out of them.
Now that being said my main site has a significantly higher amount of self pay than the national avg. I do a ton of charity work / donate money but when I hear the hospital asking for money or free labor to make them look better i never do. Why? They wont do the basics to staff the ED to take care of people cause it takes money. They want me to donate my time and they want the credit.
I refuse to do work for free that financially benefits someone else. Want me to go to ecuador thru my church and work a week for free.. I have to buy my own airfare etc.. no problem. Want me to donate my time so you can get free advertising, go F yourself.
That being said and you know i generally agree with you.. Too many docs “aren’t into money” but then they get burnt out and need a contingency plan because money didnt matter.
I worked with one of these resdients. I helped her find a great job near her desired location. She and her hubby were like that. They didnt grow up with money and didnt feel like they were smart with money. They reached out to me to discuss. I told them… “If someone was going to give you 10-15M+ do you think it is your responsibility to learn how to manage the money”. Her eyes lit up and was like of course. I said the 2 of you will earn at least 600k a year (He wasnt a doc but had a 6 figure job) x 20 years.. thats 12m”.
The light went on.. I think financial education is not interesting to docs.. they sometimes need to understand the big picture to understand how important it is.
I’m lucky, my dad was a finance guy, I became disenchanted early enough in how i saw medicine i knew i needed to get to FI ASAP. My initial goal was age 51.. i hit FATFI well before that. Work is infinitely more enjoyable with FU money.
You are essentially Echoing my point. 400K loans doesn't change the thesis if you are making 400K. You can wipe out 400K loans in 3 years and still live a great life but most docs don't chose to. Even if you want to pay over typical 10 yrs, its $4500 or $55K/yr. Even with this, you still have about 250K take home.
This is why we need to be educated. Medicine is a job #1 and a calling #2. If your calling is to help people, then you would do 10X more good finishing college and joining a mission. Docs who says its a calling is just trying to make themselves feel or appear better than everyone else. Volunteering in a 3rd world country mission is infinitely more giving than being a doctor with a 400K salary. 99% of docs who says its a calling #1 is lying to themselves because if they reduced their salary to teacher's wages, they would be out of that calling.
With this said, Docs have a huge shovel and if we were taught in med school to treat our job as a business, there would be much left burn out. Once you get a 400K salary, start on an exit plan. Create passive income, FIRE and you will have very little burn out because you work b/c you want to work and not have to work. Two docs working the same amount of hours with one needing to work vs one wanting to work is a huge mental difference. Once you hit FIRE, life just becomes many times more enjoyable doing the same things.
I was an attending at 27. Cleared my 100K loan in a year, debt free at 28 making 400K/yr. After 15 yrs at age 43, I had a net worth of about 1M, 2M if you include my home having just my 1099 Work income. Quite pathetic looking back, and have no idea where the money went. In 7 years afer, I have increased my net worth many times over once I figured out to make my money work, taking calculated risk. My income is 70% passive. I can stop working tomorrow but working is 10x more fun when you don't need to work. I wish I could turn back the clock and started this at 28 because I would prob be pushing 30-50M net worth. MBAs have my past 7 yrs mentality. Docs think like my first 15 years.
I preach to docs all the time on how to do it, but some still have analysis by paralysis or risk adverse. The most important driver of future wealth is your shovel, and not many have a docs shovel.
