<p>Not diminishing the efforts, many of othersin different occupations are going thru lots and lots knowing that at the end they may or may not have a job, they may move in back with parents, they may bag groceries instead of working at their “dream” job, they might absolutely hate to live in NYC or similar place, but have no choices because they will live where jobs are, they may lose their jobs close to 10 times or even more (9 times for me). They will have to find another job (if they have personality), taking ANY job (including 50% cut and traveling hour+ one way every day in any weather), learning brand new techonology, business culture, people, customers, industry at every single job, sometime trying very hard to forget what they knew before because it might an obstacle in new position. They might go on frequent business trips, leaving family behind for weeks at a time, which will create frictions or even cause divorce. They might need to work 60+ hours every single week (no days off) without any kind of compensation, since the salary covers only 40 hrs / week…and yes, they will get about about 20% or less of MD’s compensation for all of that.<br>
MD job is vary demanding and stressful, but do not kid yourself that all other occupations a walk in a park. One thing MD has that nobody else does is job security. I have not met unemployed MD yet and I know very many of them. I also know very many engineers, IT professionals, some scientists (working in industry) and there are plenty of them who have been unemployed numerous times, sometime for very long periods and there are spouses who live in different cities, even countries, meeting hopefully on the weekends if distance permits. Many of them also have student loans, but it is very much depends on personal decision making. If one decided to go to UG for free (Merit awards) instead of choosing school with “fancy” name, this might save lots of $$ and parents might even consider paying for Med. School in appreciation for showing maturity in choosing UG.<br>
Not discounting difficulties and obstacles in MD field, please, do not look thru rosy glasses at everything else, it is by far not as rosy as it might seem from outside.</p>