Your Total Loan Amount?

[Misterioso]

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I just figured by the time I graduate med school, the total amount of my loans (undergrad + med school) will be roughly $220K.

That seems HUGE. How does that compare with you guys?

 

[tridoc13]

I just figured by the time I graduate med school, the total amount of my loans (undergrad + med school) will be roughly $220K.

That seems HUGE. How does that compare with you guys?

Over $250K including federal loans, private loans and credit card debt. Ok. I'm depressed!

 

[mosche]

I just figured by the time I graduate med school, the total amount of my loans (undergrad + med school) will be roughly $220K.

That seems HUGE. How does that compare with you guys?

Including undergrad: $160,000.! And I went to a state school!

 

[Poety]

240K, including undergrad loans

 

[miko2005]

My undergrad and med school were both private school with really, really generous financial aid packages. No help from parents (too poor)...my total loan amount is ~$100,000!!!! 🙂

 

[Mumpu]

About 85K with undergrad but I lived at home through all of med school which saved about 15K a year.

What impressed me is that according to Graduation Questionnaire results, something like 30% of people graduate with no debt.

 

[futuredo32]

About 250K with undergrad for me. I would love to be part of the 30% graduating with no debt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[USAFGMODOC]

40K- I did an air force scholarship for 3 years though; I wouldn't worry if I were you guys, likely most of you are alot younger than I and will make it up quickly

 

[Trisomy13]

I just figured by the time I graduate med school, the total amount of my loans (undergrad + med school) will be roughly $220K.

That seems HUGE. How does that compare with you guys?

roughly $250 K including grad school, med school, and credit card debt school.

not to mention "beer and stripper school". i passed those courses.

 

[DOtobe]

$185K with med school and undergrad.

 

[elperro]

Me + Wife = 340,000 Grand total.
I didn't marry money, I married negative money.

 

[EctopicFetus]

Me + Wife = 340,000 Grand total.
I didn't marry money, I married negative money.

This is like me and my wife.. Me 286K for ugrad,grad and MD, her 60K (left), she owed about 2x that..We have been making some headway there.

Total 346K... at 6% interest paid over 30 yrs thats almost $2100 per month... OUCH!

Luckily over 1/2 of that is below 3.5% interest.

 

[DrMom]

I have something a bit over $200K, but I don't know the exact total (Mr. DrMom deals with those details for me 🙂) Wasn't planning on anything near that amount, but I didn't figure on 5 digit medical expenses (just during MS2 year alone) and Mr being laid off & subsequently choosing to become a stay-at-home dad for 2 1/2 years.

 

[Poety]

Stay @ Home Dad's rock - I have a half timer 😀 But the money is TOUGH!!

 

[DrMom]

Oh, I'm glad he's home. Life is much better for all of us! We'll just live a bit tighter while we're paying off the loans.

 

[EctopicFetus]

DrMom... Once you become an ED attending even with loans you can live pretty well. Say you make 200K (low for Oklahoma) after taxes, retirement etc you get say 144K (for math) 12K per month, your payments will be around $1200 (low min payment), say you go for 2K per month that still leaves 10K per month to live on! It wont get you a Bentley but you can have a nice house and nice car!

 

[DrMom]

I know. I'm not worried. Mr is a finance guy & he says that we'll have no problem paying it off...and doing so relatively quickly.

And, yes, right now $200K is low for an ED attending in OK. 🙂

 

[hermione]

I'm also at 250k with undergrad and med school loans. Scares the crap out of me. That is a VERY NICE house (where I'm from, anyway). But I still rent a tiny little apartment, and my car burns oil. I can't wait to start making POSITIVE money!!

 

[MDgonnabe]

😱 and i thought the $125,000 i had taken out was too much! thank you, living at home during med school!

 

[njbmd]

Hi there,
About $40K for me. I had a full-ride tuition scholarship and only borrowed for living expenses.
njbmd 🙂

 

[EctopicFetus]

Hi there,
About $40K for me. I had a full-ride tuition scholarship and only borrowed for living expenses.
njbmd 🙂

Lucky (or perhaps smart) guy!!

 

[GoPistons]

ohhh my God... I feel sorry for you guys with >200k in debt... whoa!! Medicine is definitely becoming a great way to get in the poor house...

not only have you lost 10 years of potential investment returns, you are entering a field that is subject to huge cuts from congress year in and year out...

every year congress votes to increase their own salaries... surprising??... when at the same time they vote to freeze all medicare payments to physicians... it has been happening every year...

when these baby boomers all qualify for medicare expect even more drastic cuts... nobody is going to pay for their care... the simple solution is to just cut reimbursements... it is faulty to presume greater demand = greater pay... in medicine it is the exact opposite... orthopedics, rads, anesthesia, any of them, all specialties are on the chopping block... no specialty is immune... peds and internal medicine were just hit first...

financially speaking, medicine is probably one of the poorest choices one could make right after undergrad... the only poorer ones are probably PhD in something that has no economic viability (such as PhD in French)...

not only will you guys ironically be in the highest tax bracket when you are finished with residency, you will have more debt than any other profession by far...

of course you can say this is great! I'm an MD... yeah... all the respect and whatever that comes with... just don't expect to be the richest person on your block, you will probably be one of the poorest until maybe your 55th birthday... and then you will realize that everyone else around you has a pension (minimal need for a sizeable nest egg) and you have been funding your retirement yourself for all these years...

I would definitely not recommend medicine to anyone in this day and age unless they truly would do medicine even if it paid minimum wage...

 

[Lonestar]

$146,000 and up. With interest after another 3 yrs, probably will owe about 180K.

 

[EctopicFetus]

when these baby boomers all qualify for medicare expect even more drastic cuts... nobody is going to pay for their care... the simple solution is to just cut reimbursements... it is faulty to presume greater demand = greater pay... in medicine it is the exact opposite... orthopedics, rads, anesthesia, any of them, all specialties are on the chopping block... no specialty is immune... peds and internal medicine were just hit first...

financially speaking, medicine is probably one of the poorest choices one could make right after undergrad... the only poorer ones are probably PhD in something that has no economic viability (such as PhD in French)...
not only will you guys ironically be in the highest tax bracket when you are finished with residency, you will have more debt than any other profession by far...

I would definitely not recommend medicine to anyone in this day and age unless they truly would do medicine even if it paid minimum wage...

Pistons are you an MD or in MD school? Just curious..

What is interesting is you are about 99% right. the thing is there are tons of docs who will be retiring soon. so the opportunity to see patients will be there. Keep in mind that it is the old farts who are voting. I dont think they will be happy when their waits increase to 3-4 months. While I dont think a ton more money will be out there I think the drug co's will be screwed 1st. We may very well get screwed but i dont see docs getting totally rocked. We are doing ok right now and if insurance can get fixed (HUGE immense if) and tort reform then things will even out.

As far as a PhD in french they arent as screwed cause most PhDs get paid to do that. They finish with little to no debt.

If you are in Medicine for the $ and $ alone then you are right. there is much more to it than that.

 

[funkless]

I'll probably end up with $120k, including a little bit from undergrad. (Both = state schools.)

My wife has a great job, so we're just borrowing to cover tuition, books, PDA, and computer.

 

[Amygdali-lama]

sdn

 

[DrMom]

sorry to say, but you'd have to be a part of affirmative action to be in this percentage!!

The ones I know graduating without debt have largely done so by having mom & dad pay for everything.

A big exception is a friend of mine who has worked full time (actually, overtime) during college & med school taking care of an elderly couple at their home. She has not only paid for private college & public med school this way, but she also owns her own home & has a really cool Mercedes convertible. Somehow, she did all this & kept decent grades. It is quite impressive.

 

[GoPistons]

An MD in Radiology

 

[robotsonic]

The key is to have poor parents and go to schools with good financial aid packages. I will owe a little less than $100,000 for undergrad and med school, mostly because my parents couldn't contribute anything and most of my expenses were covered by scholarships and grants through the school.

And like DrMom said, the people who have NO debt tend to be the really rich kids whose parents pay for it. Poor students who get financial aid generally end up with at least some debt, since schools often require you to accept a certain amount in loans before you qualify for their grants. The ones who end up with a huge amount of debt are generally middle class, since they make too much to qualify for the financial aid grants but don't make enough to cover all expenses. There are exceptions, of course, but this seems to be the general trend.

 

[3dtp]

We may very well get screwed but i dont see docs getting totally rocked. We are doing ok right now and if insurance can get fixed (HUGE immense if) and tort reform then things will even out.

Tort reform is a big red herring and a gift to insurance companies. Classmates are now actuaries in the big firms in NYC (or were there before the walls came tumbing down on 9/11). Their take: Insurance companies charge premiums based on what they don't make in investments, liability claims and payouts are level relative to the general trends in the economy and number of procedures and contacts made, but with the financial markets in disarray, returns on premium investments down substantially, they raise premiums to make sure the return to their shareholders are constant.

All insurance premiums (auto/med-mal/liability/boat) have gone up a fair amount when the stock market stopped returning its huge returns.

My debt is fairly low, since I worked for a few years before med school and had some insurance money when my spouse died. I'd rather be in more debt, but it seemed like a good use of the policy at the time. Call it $67k

 

[EctopicFetus]

Tort reform is a big red herring and a gift to insurance companies. Classmates are now actuaries in the big firms in NYC (or were there before the walls came tumbing down on 9/11). Their take: Insurance companies charge premiums based on what they don't make in investments, liability claims and payouts are level relative to the general trends in the economy and number of procedures and contacts made, but with the financial markets in disarray, returns on premium investments down substantially, they raise premiums to make sure the return to their shareholders are constant.

All insurance premiums (auto/med-mal/liability/boat) have gone up a fair amount when the stock market stopped returning its huge returns.

My debt is fairly low, since I worked for a few years before med school and had some insurance money when my spouse died. I'd rather be in more debt, but it seemed like a good use of the policy at the time. Call it $67k

NOt sure why but your post struck me as a little grim.. I know how insurance companies work but I think a lot of that stuff is simply bs, med mal insurance is a free market and if money could be made in it people would be jumping in like they do for cars and life insurance. Dont you think if these guys wanted to make money they would just push into fields where they can make it already. I just dont fully buy the insurance argument. I know it is a part of it and I know they have to provide their investors with a decent ROI but I think plaintiffs attorneys blow a lot of smoke up the butts of pre-meds, meds and MDs.

For the record my car insurance as well as that for my parents and my best friends have all gone down or stayed the same.. or if it has increased it has been by very very little as in less than 5%.

 

[3dtp]

NOt sure why but your post struck me as a little grim.. I know how insurance companies work but I think a lot of that stuff is simply bs, med mal insurance is a free market and if money could be made in it people would be jumping in like they do for cars and life insurance. Dont you think if these guys wanted to make money they would just push into fields where they can make it already. I just dont fully buy the insurance argument. I know it is a part of it and I know they have to provide their investors with a decent ROI but I think plaintiffs attorneys blow a lot of smoke up the butts of pre-meds, meds and MDs.

For the record my car insurance as well as that for my parents and my best friends have all gone down or stayed the same.. or if it has increased it has been by very very little as in less than 5%.

I beg to differ. I served on a jury, and they gave us a little tape to educate us in the process. One of the interesting things (and I have no reason to believe the county is lying about this), they said, was that lawsuits per capita are lower than they have been since the mid 19th century. Contrary to doc Holiday and the OK Coral stories we didn't shoot each other in the old west, we sued each other. Still happens, but not as often if the stats they told us were true.

There has been a significant consolidation in the reinsurance business. Aircraft insurance has gone up about 30 percent in 3 years, that's 10%/year. Marine insurance the same, for pleasure and business non-commercial use. Commercial aircraft insurance much more, like about double. My business indemnity policy (never start a business while you're in med school!) and worker's comp has gone up roughly 40% corresponding with the same decrease in returns in the stock market. My actuary buddies say this is not a coincidence. My corporate atty agrees.

Not an area I'm an expert on, but I spend (personal, business and healthcare - I buy a group policy for about 15 people, no hmos in my company!) a wheelbarrel full of money on insurance. By the way, what's a plaintiff's attorney?

 

[bigeyedfish]

I beg to differ. I served on a jury, and they gave us a little tape to educate us in the process. One of the interesting things (and I have no reason to believe the county is lying about this), they said, was that lawsuits per capita are lower than they have been since the mid 19th century. Contrary to doc Holiday and the OK Coral stories we didn't shoot each other in the old west, we sued each other. Still happens, but not as often if the stats they told us were true.

There has been a significant consolidation in the reinsurance business. Aircraft insurance has gone up about 30 percent in 3 years, that's 10%/year. Marine insurance the same, for pleasure and business non-commercial use. Commercial aircraft insurance much more, like about double. My business indemnity policy (never start a business while you're in med school!) and worker's comp has gone up roughly 40% corresponding with the same decrease in returns in the stock market. My actuary buddies say this is not a coincidence. My corporate atty agrees.

Not an area I'm an expert on, but I spend (personal, business and healthcare - I buy a group policy for about 15 people, no hmos in my company!) a wheelbarrel full of money on insurance. By the way, what's a plaintiff's attorney?

Are medical lawsuits lower than in the mid 19th century? I doubt it. Why is there such disparity in premiums between states? We all use the same stock market. This is an entirely different thread, but medical tort reform is hardly a red herring.

I'll have about 200k total. With about 90K consolidated at 2.5% over 30 years. So, no worries. 🙂

 

[EctopicFetus]

I beg to differ. I served on a jury, and they gave us a little tape to educate us in the process. One of the interesting things (and I have no reason to believe the county is lying about this), they said, was that lawsuits per capita are lower than they have been since the mid 19th century. Contrary to doc Holiday and the OK Coral stories we didn't shoot each other in the old west, we sued each other. Still happens, but not as often if the stats they told us were true.

As people said are medical lawsuits down.. the other thing this "education" probably left out is that the amount rewarded IS growing. So if a doc got sued 10 times for 1K per and lost every time thats only 10K. The AVERAGE med mal award is like 700K.. about 28% of cases are won by the plaintiff or settled. So IMO your point above is invalid.

Not an area I'm an expert on, but I spend (personal, business and healthcare - I buy a group policy for about 15 people, no hmos in my company!) a wheelbarrel full of money on insurance. By the way, what's a plaintiff's attorney?

I am sure you do spend a ton.. a plaintiffs attorney is someone like this..http://corboydemetrio.com/

Best in chicago.. from their web site.. Here is a blip from their history section..

Corboy & Demetrio, founded by nationally acclaimed personal injury trial lawyer Philip H. Corboy, is one of the country’s premier plaintiffs’ personal injury and civil trial practice firms.

So I dont know if you were trying to flame.. but a plaintiffs attorney is someone who doesnt defend people but rather sues them.. usually in a civil sense. Others call them "trial attorneys".

Some food for thought..

 

[Doctor Bagel]

Tort reform is a big red herring and a gift to insurance companies. Classmates are now actuaries in the big firms in NYC (or were there before the walls came tumbing down on 9/11). Their take: Insurance companies charge premiums based on what they don't make in investments, liability claims and payouts are level relative to the general trends in the economy and number of procedures and contacts made, but with the financial markets in disarray, returns on premium investments down substantially, they raise premiums to make sure the return to their shareholders are constant.

All insurance premiums (auto/med-mal/liability/boat) have gone up a fair amount when the stock market stopped returning its huge returns.

fair observation, and i one agree with based on my work for an insurance company. insurance premiums have increased in everything over the past few years, not just malpractice insurance, and a big cause is lack of stability in the market. you're right, insurance companies have two big sources of revenue -- premiums and market returns. when the latter goes down, sure, they're going to want to up the former. also, most insurance companies are for-profit. their primary obligation is to their stock holders, not to their policy holders, so why do we trust them to charge a fair premium that's no more than necessary to service your policy?

 

[EctopicFetus]

exlawgrrl,

The reason they have to charge a "fair" price is because insurance is a free market system, and while I realize the barriers to entry are huge there are a ton of insurers in the US and if they could undercut their competitors and make a profit they would.

 

[NonTradMed]

Including undergrad: $160,000.! And I went to a state school!

Ok, what were you smoking during school? 😀

I attended a private undergrad and will (probabaly) attend a private med school and I will probably end up with that much barring any financial aid/grants from school! Whew....

About 85K with undergrad but I lived at home through all of med school which saved about 15K a year.

What impressed me is that according to Graduation Questionnaire results, something like 30% of people graduate with no debt.

30%? I guess it's possible if you have frugal middle class parents or upper class parents and/or you live at home and/or attend local state school. My parents said if I get into my state school, I could graduate with almost no debt since I would live at home and the instate tuition is almost doable with their income.

 

[EctopicFetus]

How can you finish private med school with 160K? Private med school will run 50K for tuition living books etc. That over 4 yrs is 200K. Is there some secret cheap med school i dont know about or are you planning on living at home with your parents.

 

[EctopicFetus]

The reason 30% or so go without loans is that Docs tend to have kids who are docs. This gives them numerous advantages not the least of which is the fact that their parent makes a lot of money and can therefore afford to pay it esp when you consider people entering med school now were born in the mid 80's and the stock market and housing markets have been very generous.. As such they prob have enough $$$ to pay for these things.

 

[jetproppilot]

ohhh my God... I feel sorry for you guys with >200k in debt... whoa!! Medicine is definitely becoming a great way to get in the poor house...

not only have you lost 10 years of potential investment returns, you are entering a field that is subject to huge cuts from congress year in and year out...

every year congress votes to increase their own salaries... surprising??... when at the same time they vote to freeze all medicare payments to physicians... it has been happening every year...

when these baby boomers all qualify for medicare expect even more drastic cuts... nobody is going to pay for their care... the simple solution is to just cut reimbursements... it is faulty to presume greater demand = greater pay... in medicine it is the exact opposite... orthopedics, rads, anesthesia, any of them, all specialties are on the chopping block... no specialty is immune... peds and internal medicine were just hit first...

financially speaking, medicine is probably one of the poorest choices one could make right after undergrad... the only poorer ones are probably PhD in something that has no economic viability (such as PhD in French)...

not only will you guys ironically be in the highest tax bracket when you are finished with residency, you will have more debt than any other profession by far...

of course you can say this is great! I'm an MD... yeah... all the respect and whatever that comes with... just don't expect to be the richest person on your block, you will probably be one of the poorest until maybe your 55th birthday... and then you will realize that everyone else around you has a pension (minimal need for a sizeable nest egg) and you have been funding your retirement yourself for all these years...

I would definitely not recommend medicine to anyone in this day and age unless they truly would do medicine even if it paid minimum wage...

Not exactly true.

I was in the 200k club, lived where I didnt wanna live for 7.5 years after residency, paid off all my debt in 5 years, put a buncha money in the bank, then moved where I (well, where my boss...a.k.a. wifey) wanted to live.

You CAN pay off your debt if you are willing to make geographical sacrifices for 5-10 years.

I do not agree with the philosophy of "its low interest, so dont worry about it"....debt is an anchor....

SO, now I'm 41, no debt, great retirement account, great job.

You can make this happen too.

 

[DrMom]

Not exactly true.

I was in the 200k club, lived where I didnt wanna live for 7.5 years after residency, paid off all my debt in 5 years, put a buncha money in the bank, then moved where I (well, where my boss...a.k.a. wifey) wanted to live.

You CAN pay off your debt if you are willing to make geographical sacrifices for 5-10 years.

I do not agree with the philosophy of "its low interest, so dont worry about it"....debt is an anchor....

SO, now I'm 41, no debt, great retirement account, great job.

You can make this happen too.

Yep. My financial advisor hubby says that we can most definitely do precisely what you did. We have every intention of having my loans paid off in a similar timeframe. I'll be thrilled to have it gone.

 

[hermione]

Yep. My financial advisor hubby says that we can most definitely do precisely what you did. We have every intention of having my loans paid off in a similar timeframe. I'll be thrilled to have it gone.

Me too! I agree that when people say its low interest blah blah blah, its still debt, and I don't want it! Lucky for me I actually want to practice in my hometown, which is not a booming mecca of society by any stretch. I can't begin to comprehend what my loan payments will be, or the fact that I will actually make enough money to MAKE said payments. It all seems so close, yet so far away....

 

[daisygirl]

150,000. I'm going into gsurg and will likely pursue a fellowship, so I'll be in training for practically another decade. My debt status will likely remain high for quite awhile

 

[3dtp]

As people said are medical lawsuits down.. the other thing this "education" probably left out is that the amount rewarded IS growing. So if a doc got sued 10 times for 1K per and lost every time thats only 10K. The AVERAGE med mal award is like 700K.. about 28% of cases are won by the plaintiff or settled. So IMO your point above is invalid.


So I dont know if you were trying to flame..

Some food for thought..

Munch munch...wasn't trying to flame, just a lame joke...I think everyone here knows what a plaintiff's atty is. 🙂


As for averages, as I think Mark Twain said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

Average is an interesting concept. I think it'd be more informative to look at the distribution. I'd bet that it is likely not gaussian, but maybe poisson or perhaps bimodal/multimodal. I've never seen the whole story on this, just the one-liners that the tort-reformers quote.

The next comment concerns your note on AVERAGE Award. The reality is that large awards are seldom paid. They are reduced on appeal, at settlement, so, I think the real number quoted should be the mean, median, standard deviation of the amount paid to the plaintiff by the defendants when the check is finally written.

I think that if the claim paid amount is increasing faster than the rate of increase in the spending on health care, exclusive of the costs of additional care due to adjudged liability, then you do have a valid concern. I'd really like to see all the numbers before I'd change my mind based on a single measure without seeing validating evidence.

munch...munch... 🙂

 

[3dtp]

exlawgrrl,

The reason they have to charge a "fair" price is because insurance is a free market system, and while I realize the barriers to entry are huge there are a ton of insurers in the US and if they could undercut their competitors and make a profit they would.

Thanks, exlaw,

Ectopic, you are correct, if the market forces are generally at work. They are in the auto-insurance business, something like 3/4 billion cars/trucks/fleets to insure. In other sectors this is decidedly not true.

There are a relatively few insurers in the US, for most non-consumer insurance commodities. Several years ago there were significant consolidations in the aviation underwriting insurance markets. Today there are fewer than 10 that write general aircraft insurance. There are only about 200k airplanes and 600k active pilots in the US. Care to guess how that compares to the MD supply? Prices went up to the point where my aircraft insurance costs almost as much as my 10 year old car insurance. Before that it was half.

The number of med-mal insurers has also decreased. Fewer suppliers = less competition when coupled with stable demand (or I gotta have it or I can't work) = price the market will bear or must spend or get out of the doctoring business, which is, in fact what many obgs have done.

Same's true with gasoline. 6 years ago, there were four times the number of oil companies in the world as there are now. Guess why Exxon/Mobil was able to make a $40B profit and gas prices are now $2.50 +/-10% everywhere in the country and oil at the wellhead is now $60/bbl. It sure ain't because the cost of pumping it out of the ground and distilling it suddenly overnight got very expensive. They own the wells, they buy it from themselves, refine it themselves and set a price at the pump, which they can do because you can't go out and dig yourself a well, pump oil into a chemistry set and make your own. Teddy Roosevelt split up the old Standard Oil Monopoly and suddenly oil dropped to true market levels when there were a couple of dozen companies compared to one.


But I have far digressed from the OP topic. My apologies. Perhaps if someone wanted to start a med mal topic/tort reform, as an independent thread?