<p>Those numbers that you worked out are great. But to make $175K after taxes and malpractice means you would have to make around $400K originally.</p>
<p>While that is still doable, I would say the majority of doctors do not make anywhere close to that amount.</p>
<p>If you want money, and solely money, you should become a stock trader. A stock trading associate at a Bulge Bracket firm can easily make $400k (in the first year-and it'll most likely quadruple in 5 years). And none of it goes to malpractice insurance.</p>
<p>I would say doctors, lawyers, and engineers, while they DO make a ton of money, DO NOT make enough to enter the "upper class" in terms of wealth. A doctor, lawyer, or engineer can easily make upper middle class with a nice house in the suburbs, two nice cars, and a family of four (and maybe a timeshare in VT), but they'll make nowhere as much as businesspeople.</p>
<p>If you hear ANYONE, I mean ANYONE, tell you that they're going into medicine solely for the money, feel free to kick his/her face in, then tell him/her that spiel. BTW, I'm not even in college yet.</p>
<p>u guys are talkin about money and stuff...don't forget if you have kids you will be payin for their education 2 lol...thats quite a bit of cash to take out, especially if ur a doc who most likely won't get any financial aid and ur kid is really smart and ends up at like harvard, hahaha</p>
<p>well when you make $10MM a year, $50k is chump change. U think Donald Trump's kids got financial aid when they went to Wharton?</p>
<p>I don't know where 10MM a year fits into this. No docs make that much that actually practice medicine. Docs who are insurance execs do, but not normal docs. Its become relevant in terms of paying out when you are a doc making 150 grand take home, if you lucky. When you are paying for a house, food, gas, and also kids education it gets to be hard. That money is definitely not what it used to be.</p>
<p>I'm talking about traders.</p>
<p>I wouldn't say that things get "hard" financially as a doctor by any means. You're just not going to have infinite financial possibilities, but a doctor will never struggle financially, (after residency at least), and will never have a "hard" time balancing money.</p>
<p>About doctors not being able to become multimillionaires...doubtful. I'm a friend of Ramesh Japra, who, if you dont recognize the name, is one of the best heart surgeons in the country. He lives in a 24000 sq. ft. house which probably costs on the order of about 10 million dollars...drives a BMW 850, is sending one daughter to berkley med school, one to stanford grad, and his son to an expensive prep school.
I'd say chances to be very rich go with the specialties, like anesthesiology, which is what I want to do.</p>
<p>Not everyone has the talent or skill to be that good. Only a few doctors make it to the top, but that goes the same for every profession.</p>
<p>yeah i got a question what are the chances of being a doctor than a ceo.</p>
<p>As a 1st year med student, son of a family physician and myself an aspiring family physician, one of my main reasons for me entering the field is not so much the money as it is the quality of life. Also note that in this post I'm specifically championing family medicine and drawing off the life of my father as an example.</p>
<p>Seriously, in what other profession are you at the age of 22 essentially guaranteed a future of 40 hour weeks with no overtime, not having to be on call, minimal malpractice insurance compared to other docs, diversity of cases, easy actual work (seriously, find a local FP to shadow and watch what they do in a day's work - it ain't brain surgery), not having a boss, no worries of job security, making enough to live comfortably, all the while making a real difference in people's lives? Name one other job that can guarantee such security at that age AND makes you feel warm inside.</p>
<p>And trust me, doctors make enough. Sure, not when you compare them to top businessman but you're still in the top 1st percentile of the general population. Don't worry, you will get your Lexus just maybe not a yacht.</p>
<p>Family docs - good money, good lifestyle, good karma. You can't go wrong.</p>
<p>Maybe in Canada you have 40 hour work weeks with no overtime, no being on call, and minimal malp insur. Its not so here in the states, some family docs do have that few hours, but not many. There is oncall as a family doc, and malp insurance is cheaper than other specialties but still not tooo cheap. Doctors definitely aren't top 1% of earners in the U.S. not even close. Doctors here are upper middle class.</p>
<p>I don't see how you can say that FP has no call. Family practice almost always includes obstetrics, and I think most people are aware of how rarely babies are born during normal business hours. Now if you choose to avoid the obstetrics part in practice, fine, but that's more General practice or Med-peds, and not the traditional definition of family practice.</p>
<p>As for me, FP lacks the "doing" part that I really like about surgery (or at least think I do). I don't particularly like the idea of just writing scripts to solve the problem, and while FP does have some surgical procedures it will carry out, it's not very extensive. Realize that there are a lot of personality traits that can influence specialty decisions.</p>
<p>Forgive me for my ignorance, but at least in Canada family physicians are private practice so they can work as hard or as little as they want to. My dad worked longer hours earlier in his career and did house calls/delivered babies for the extra money so he was on call before but that was his choice. You don't have to do it if you don't want to, no one's forcing you; you just make less money. Now in his 50s, he works 30 hours a week and does no house calls at all. You can work 7 hours a week or 70 hours. It's all up to you. One of the family docs working with my dad is a young mother and only works once a week. A family friend only works 6 months a year and spends the other 6 doing missions trips. You can also work wherever you want in the country, from the largest cities to rural and remote areas because you're needed everywhere - again, it's all up to you. A businessmen for example might only be able to work in big cities and may be forced to relocate throughout his career. Fine if you like big cities but a lot of people don't.</p>
<p>Family practice certainly isn't for everyone but it doesn't have to come with a lot of the negative factors associated with being a doctor, such as long working hours, stressful working conditions, being on call (unless you want to), big chance of getting sue (although it can happen) or coworker conflicts in the hospital. Negative factors: least prestige among MDs, least pay, boring for some people, etc.</p>
<p>There's the issue. Any private practice can set up their schedules however they'd like. It's not a matter of just being family practice. I promise you there are surgeons in the US in private practice who play golf every afternoon and only do surgery at 9:30am, and are in a large enough practice where call is divided up so that they only take it once a month (letting/forcing the younger physicians in the practice to take it more often). </p>
<p>The message you are really sending is tied far more to how one sets up their practice and espousing the benefits of a private/group practice over being hospital based or with an HMO - rather than having anything to do with family practice. Most people are aware that this sort of choice is available.</p>
<p>Ah, thanks for clearing that up :-) I believe private practice outside of family practice is less prevalent in Canada although it certainly does happen.</p>
<p>People here seem to be a little bit misled about how much more money people in business make than doctors. My dad has been the CFO for several different large companies, so I can tell you that the business world is not all it is cracked up to be. CEOs, for example, work ALL THE TIME, and while they do make very good money, they don't make it consistently their whole lives. People don't just graduate from college and become CEO's. It takes years and years of hard work to get there, usually making only moderate salaries. Then, there is always the risk of being laid off. My dad, for example, has never had a job last more than three years. We've watched many apparantly well-off companies go down the drain. At least with medicine you pretty much know that you are going to be making a decent salary on a regular basis. So, I think it is unfair to compare the salaries of doctors to only the most talented/lucky people in the business world. </p>
<p>Of course, money isn't the only reason one should go into medicine. If you choose a career based only on money, you're setting yourself up for a miserable life.</p>
<p>Last I checked most business execs make in the 100s of thousands per year. Most doctors make in the like low 100s of thousands, if even cracking it, depending on specialty. The with taxes, malp insurance, office costs, etc etc most docs who "make" 300-400 grand take home about 120 grand or less if their lucky. Engineers who have been working for 20 years take home that much, go to school for much less time and work way shorter hours. And I can guarantee you that most business execs take home WAY more than 120 grand per year after taxes. Plus bonuses, etc etc.</p>
<p>The highest paid CEO in America is the CEO of Capital One, who takes home about 10million dollars a year. Now, most CEO's don't even come close to that, even at top places. Many CEO's of average to decently large companies that I have seen make about 100k-300k. Many make in the range of 250k and 200K, but these are people who have established themselves. Put it this way, as a doctor you definitely won't be making millions per year, but you can easily take home around 400K and up, if you have established yourself. By established I mean, running your own succesful practice.</p>
<p>Where'd you find your facts? #1 CEO in 2005 was Terry Semel of Yahoo. He took home $230 million. The average CEO of an S&P 500 company made close to $12 million.</p>
<p>BTW, Richard D. Fairbank, the CEO of Capital One has another $306,299,162 in unexercised stock options from previous years, in addition to the 18 mill he made last year.</p>