<p>Whether this guy makes it into the medical field or not isn’t my problem, but hopefully I never have him. You can become a doctor by just following the money. But you’ll never be a great doctor unless you follow your passion for medicine (if that even exists in you). Business and law make more bank anyway. But if you really insist, I think derm makes a good salary to work hour ratio.</p>
<p>One million dollars.</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - 1 million dollars](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l91ISfcuzDw]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l91ISfcuzDw)</p>
<p>Many “great” doctors struggle to pay overhead charges.</p>
<p>By doing society favors by accepting tons of Medicaid patients, they are struggling to pay for rent, electricity, malpractice, and basic payroll.</p>
<p>“Great doctors” go broke. Self interested ones make a handsome living.</p>
<p>Go look up the story of Ben Carson. He is by no means a doctor for monetary reasons, and he’s not broke. In my opinion you’re choosing a medical path for all the wrong reasons. But whatever floats your boat I guess.</p>
<p>Who are you to decide what is the right or “wrong reason”? </p>
<p>For every story of some doctor making serious $$$ on Medicaid patients, i bet there are a few more who are getting screwed by debt and malpractice (while poor people sue less often, the sheer numbers of medicaid patients doctor are seeing in an attempt to meet basic costs rockets malpractice suits).</p>
<p>I don’t decide what is the right or wrong reason. I’m simply putting forth a suggestion. Good luck to you.</p>
<p>There are two possible criticisms of Jason’s position. </p>
<p>1.) The position is somehow immoral, ultimately unsatisfying, or shallow. That point has been made several times, and I’ll leave it alone here.</p>
<p>The criticism I make is here:
2.) The position is simply factually incorrect. It simply is not the case that any except a tiny handful of doctors are ever going to make as much money as they could have made by hitting Wall St. Becoming a plumber is a more lucrative career than many physicians will ultimately face.</p>
<p>A.) Jason is placing too much emphasis on salary and not enough on lifetime income. Imagine two people: one can earn $50,000 a year for fifty years, and one can earn $200,000 a year for one year. Who has more money?</p>
<p>That’s an extreme example, obviously, but I’ve done the math with real data and I can tell you that the net outcome is that physicians don’t do nearly as well as their partners in corporate law, Wall Street, airline pilots. And, again, some plumbers.</p>
<p>B.) Jason is also ignoring the time value of money. Money is more valuable when you earn it earlier because you have more options for it. Again, the example is obvious. Person A can have $100,000 today. Person B can have $100,000 in ten years. Who is richer?</p>
<p>Again that’s an extreme example, but again I’ve done the math with actual data and I can tell you that physicians fare pretty poorly after this adjustment.</p>
<p>C.) Taxes punish people who “compress” their earnings. If I earn $0 one year and $200,000 the next, I pay a lot more taxes than somebody who earns $100,000 and then another $100,000. Again, this punishes physicians, who spend a long time earning $0 and then get their income compressed.</p>
<hr>
<p>After you adjust for these three things, this is how lifetime earnings come out:</p>
<p>Auto Mechanic: $563K
Chemical Engineer: $539K
Family Practitioner: $641K
Corporate Attorney: $707K
Interventional Cardiologist: $771K
Neurosurgeon: $862K
Corporate Finance: $1.8M</p>
<hr>
<p>Now, here’s the crucial thing: I haven’t yet adjusted for working hours. Auto mechanics make about 16% less than family practice docs, but I bet that they work fewer hours on average. So why would you put yourself through the misery of medical school and residency to earn a LOWER hourly wage? It doesn’t make any sense unless there’s some deeper satisfaction.</p>
<p>The same goes for the neurosurgeon/corporate (e.g. in-house) attorney. The surgeon makes about 20% more, but probably works more than that. So, again, what’s the point if the purpose is financial?</p>
<hr>
<p>The one exception might be plastics. I haven’t run the numbers on that. But what percentage of American medical students go into plastics? Last year, it was 78 out of 20,521 (=.0038).</p>
<p>What idiot would go into medicine counting on a plastics residency?</p>
<p>(And, PS: The median compensation for a plastic surgeon? $230,000.)</p>
<hr>
<p>Don’t want to believe me? That’s fine. My analysis originates from economists’ consensus:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062830522-post108.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062830522-post108.html</a></p>
<p>bdm, how are these lifetime earnings?
I mean $50K x 30 years is $1.5 million. Are you missing a digit? Or is this number something other than lifetime earnings? I understand that you are “adjusting” but…if so , what assumptions are made?</p>
<p>Haha – no no, they’re right. They’re lifetime earnings in “present value.”</p>
<p>Hypothetical: my earnings for year 1, 2, 3, 4 are each $50,000 (total = $200,000). But imagine that there’s a 10% discount rate. So Year 2 is actually $45,000; year 3 is actually $40,500; year 4 is actually $36,450.</p>
<p>So my “total lifetime earnings” are $171,950.</p>
<p>How much are you discounting?</p>
<p>I was using 7% per year. Pretty standard.</p>
<p>I think job security counts for a lot. Hard to beat the job security of a doc.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/884074-worth.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/884074-worth.html</a></p>
<p>Somewhat OT </p>
<p>bdm, I use experts that calculate PV from time to time. As you know , much better than I, the battle becomes the discount (or interest) factor. I don’t think you’d find many arguing for 7% or 10% right now. “What amount of money, if paid in cash today, would compensate Plaintiff for (some loss in the future).” As annuities use the same/similar calculations, maybe you should consider the prevailing annuity rates in your calculations. </p>
<p>It may very well float all the boats, but it will be (IMO) a more accurate projection of the PV of lifetime earnings.</p>
<p>Well, 10% was just the hypothetical. =) I was just using that to explain. A little googling around gives annuity rates of like 4%, which is clearly too low for this sort of calculation–which sort of makes sense. If annuities beat NPV, everybody would always buy them. Annuities are designed for particularly risk-averse investors and are going to be a little too low.</p>
<p>Whether the discount factor should be 5 or 6 or 7%, I have no idea. I was always trained with 7, but it’s possible that things have changed in these economic times or that my professors were just giving hypotheticals.</p>