<p>Will doctors even make that much in the future? Unless you go into boutique specialties like dermatology and plastic surgery? Theres posts everywhere on forbes wallstreetjournal and even physicians themselves who complain about salary cuts. Opinions?</p>
<p>Honestly I think you need to have a passion for helping people and honestly see yourself dedicating the rest of your life to expanding your education because physicians don’t stop learning after med school…it’s a lifestyle to them. They have to keep up to date on all new information regarding medicine and research and people who are only in it for the money need to seriously reevaluate their decision</p>
<p>IMO, MD’s will always have job security, I mean they never talk about “having a job” like the rest of us, mere “other proffessionals” (engineers, IT, accounting…). Having a job is priority #1, IMO, how much is very secondary. You can adjust your lifestyle to lower income, while it is very hard to adjust to NOT having any income for extensive period of time (I have been there 9 times). Some people will not find a job, period, after loosing one. That is why unemployment rate is going down while number of employed does not go up. Some people will simply stop looking. I have never heard of MD looking for a job.</p>
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<p>They’re idiots. There are many better ways of hitting that 6-figure salary than going through 4+ years of college, 4+ years of medical school, 3+ years of residency, and possibly 1+ years of fellowship, all accompanied by likely 6-figure debt.</p>
<p>If you were to go into medicine for the job security, that I could understand.</p>
<p>“I have never heard of MD looking for a job.”</p>
<p>I have.</p>
<p>Don’t think that as many future doctors will see the wealth and prestige of currently practicing physicians because of the crushing student debt they incur and the changing US health system.
However, if you want to be a doctor, your reward may not be monetary but in self satisfaction of helping others.</p>
<p>Well, everybody who love thier job are satisfied with “helping others”. There is no job that does not involve “helping others”.</p>
<p>Of course there are jobs that do not help others! The banking fiasco happened because people were out to make a buck betting on derivatives with the only benefits going to the bankers. When you talk to docs we do not need to do a lot of outside charity because we do charitable work every day. I know I do at least on free operation every month. </p>
<p>There are a lot of easier ways to make a buck so if you do not love health care do something else. You and your future patients will thank you.</p>
<p>In an ideal world, bankers make money by helping people invest into worthwhile projects, which then (1) become enterprises producing valuable products, (2) return profits to investors, and (3) employ lots of people while doing so.</p>
<p>The fact that our bankers currently don’t do a very good job of this is no different from the fact that large numbers of people get worse, not better, because of medical care. You may blame the financial crisis on poor banking, but 100,000 people die a year because of medical errors.</p>
<p>We have some bad bankers and some bad doctors – and plenty of excellent bankers and physicians who sometimes make very, very serious mistakes. The bottom line is that banking, like medicine, is a profession in which some excellent work and some terrible work gets done.</p>
<p>(Whether you think that the high-paid ones are doing that excellent work, or what you think the relative proportions are – that’s another matter entirely.)</p>
<p>There are some MD’s who are “milking” Medicare, as an example of any profession being open to crooks. Any banker has helped and some of them stray. If government does not stick its nose into where it does not belong, it balances out, bad guys eventually are out. However, all kind of gov. regulations and entitlements literally create great opportunities for this. </p>
<p>So, “helping” others is part of any job, abusing your position is also available to those who are up to it. They will get punishment sooner or later, but policies from the top create more opportunities for them and make it “later” than “sooner”. </p>
<p>Going back to the topic though, I do not believe that original reason for going to Medicine is that important. What is important is what you do when you are there. It does apply to any professional or other job.</p>