Is a career in medicine really worth it?

Pre-Med & Medical School Careers in Medicine
461

<p>BDM and All,</p>

<p>I can understand your views. Nonetheless, I think that you automatically assume that the student is also very capable in law, in business, etc. If a student is indeed very talented in other fields, I think that medicine may not be a good career goal for him/her exactly for the reasons stated by many. McLean, Jobs, Affleck, Gates, and many super-talented individuals did not finish their college education. For very-talented individuals, medical school/residency could be a torture also. However, I think that for a student who is not particularly talented in other fields but who is good at/interested in sciences, a medical doctor is a great career goal. The student would have little regret, in medical school/residency, watching his/her more talented friends enjoying their careers in law and business while knowing that he/she would have a stable job and decent life. BTW, there are a lot of law graduates, with huge debt, can’t find a rewarding job. MD, on average, still beats all other careers especially for most who are not so very talented.</p>

462

<p>The beauty about the medical school route is that it is not very dependent on subjective stuff like family background,which may provide the suavity and verbal fluency needed to excel at the pinnacle of finance and law.At least in medicine and technology,brainpower alone can get one to the very top without the social capital of an upper class background</p>

463

<p>I think #462 is a valid point. I do think that #461 may be overestimating the difference between the fields. With the exception of cultural or language barriers (i.e. 462), I don’t know anybody in medicine who would not also be able to function in law or business.</p>

<p>In fact, business is getting so quant-heavy nowadays that in some ways it’s actually easier for math/science majors to get into that sector. You’d be surprised how first-generation-heavy those areas are if you took a look.</p>

<p>It is true that many law grads are doing poorly, but for the most part most of the would-be medical students I run into are the sorts who’d be going to pretty good law schools.</p>

<hr>

<p>With that said, however, the problem isn’t necessarily the comparison to business or law. The problem is that many doctors lose even when you compare them to jobs like plumbers and auto mechanics.</p>

<p>Imagine a career finances “footrace.” Doctors run faster (have higher incomes) than, say, garbagemen, but they have to spend the first part of the race going backwards (medical school) and then the second part of it running with weights tied around their ankles (residency). That puts them into a very severe hole when it comes to winning this particular race.</p>

464

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</p>

<p>I am rethinking this statement now. I may retract it after a little bit of thought.</p>

465

<p>What if we change the equation a little bit.Situation 1:The doctor had a full ride in undergrad.2.He also gets a full scholarship in med school(i have heard some schools with such an arrangement for those with high GPAs,plus 39+ MCATs).3.both 1&2 happen.Does this change the financial game for the doctor?Financially,could he or she be ahead of peers taking the law or business route?</p>

466

<p>1.) Presumably, such a student would also have a full ride in undergrad if he were going into business or law.</p>

<p>2.) It could even things out, but it’s unlikely.</p>

<p>What’s really killing young doctors is not tuition but years. Lawyers start their careers at age 25. Physicians could start their careers around age 30, but it’s often much older than that depending on the specialty. Neurosurgeons, for example, would start around 35 or so if they go straight through (they usually don’t).</p>

<p>Physicians aren’t really in the hole because of the $40,000 they’re paying in medical school tuition. They’re in the hole because of the $160,000 their lawyer friends are making.</p>

<p>In other words, compare them at age 26:</p>

<p>A: Medical Student, paying tuition: -$48,000
B: Medical Student, free tuition: $0
C: Lawyer, first-year, big firm: $160,000</p>

<p>So A-to-C has a gap of $208,000. But B-to-C still has a gap of $160,000. B has closed part of that gap, sure, but not by any means all of it. And that doesn’t solve the problem at ages 27 through 33:</p>

<p>Age 27:
A & B: Medical Resident, scholarship now moot: $45,000
C: Second Year Lawyer, big firm: $180,000</p>

<p>Age 32:
A&B: Medical Resident or Fellow, scholarship now moot: $55,000
C: Seventh Year Lawyer, big firm: $265,000 plus bonus</p>

<hr>

<p>Typical Big Firm Payscale:</p>

<p>[Morrison</a> & Foerster LLP](<a href=“http://www.infirmation.com/shared/lss/one-payscale.tcl?employer_id=NY2260&firm_name=Morrison%20%26%20Foerster%20LLP]Morrison”>http://www.infirmation.com/shared/lss/one-payscale.tcl?employer_id=NY2260&firm_name=Morrison%20%26%20Foerster%20LLP)</p>

467

<p>I should also add: full-tuition scholarships to medical school exist, but are extraordinarily rare. They are MUCH more common for law school, where they are STILL extraordinarily rare.</p>

468

<p>Looks like I slightly underestimated resident salaries in NYC. One example: [Mount</a> Sinai - Department of Psychiatry](<a href=“http://www.cgdms.org/psychiatry/residency/resident_life_benefits.shtml#AnnualSalary]Mount”>http://www.cgdms.org/psychiatry/residency/resident_life_benefits.shtml#AnnualSalary)</p>

<p>Law firm bonus structure:
[Breaking:</a> Cravath Bonuses Are Out (and Down) Above the Law: A Legal Tabloid - News, Gossip, and Colorful Commentary on Law Firms and the Legal Profession](<a href=“http://abovethelaw.com/2009/11/breaking_cravath_bonuses_are_o.php]Breaking:”>http://abovethelaw.com/2009/11/breaking_cravath_bonuses_are_o.php)</p>

469

<p>Persuasive.I had never really thought about law school.Can you make a calculation for law VS Business?</p>

470

<p>Sadly, no. Business is so varied that you’d have to be a lot more specific. Business is also much less predictable than law, and in addition I know it much less well.</p>

<p>You could google around for McKinsey’s salary structure or something like that, just to take a look. But payscales are not nearly so standard in “business” as they are in either medicine or law.</p>

471

<p>I guess that improves the situation for the doctor.Now,if one factors in the fact that he never has to worry a lot about economic downturns</p>

472

<p>Medicine doesn’t have to worry about economic downturns, but lawyers aren’t vulnerable to Medicare cuts.</p>

<p>[amednews:</a> Medicare pay: SGR fatigue :: May 3, 2010 … American Medical News](<a href=“http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/05/03/gvsa0503.htm]amednews:”>http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/05/03/gvsa0503.htm)</p>

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</p>

<hr>

<p>I wanted to update the residency pay scale just for the sake of accuracy. A $10,000 correction when we’re talking about a $200,000 gap really isn’t that significant.</p>

473

<p>Point taken.I am trying figure out the ROI for Law Vs Business</p>

474

<p>I wanted to correct and reformat my #466:</p>

<hr>

<p>If the medical student won full tuition, it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference. What’s really killing young doctors is not tuition but years. Lawyers start their careers at age 25. Physicians could start their careers around age 30, but it’s often much older than that depending on the specialty. Neurosurgeons, for example, don’t start until age 35 or so and it’s usually older than that.</p>

<p>Physicians aren’t really in the hole because of the $48,000 they’re paying in medical school tuition. They’re in the hole because of the $160,000 their lawyer friends are making.</p>

<hr>

<p>Let’s run the numbers at age 26:
A: Medical Student, paying tuition: -$48,000
B: Medical Student, free tuition: $0
C: Lawyer, first-year, big firm: $160,000</p>

<p>So A-to-B closes the gap by $48,000… but B-to-C still has a gap of $160,000. The full tuition scholarship has solved only 23% of that year’s gap.</p>

<hr>

<p>And the scholarship does nothing to solve the residency problem, ages 27 through 33:</p>

<p>Age 27:
A & B: Medical Resident, scholarship now moot: $52,000
C: Second Year Lawyer, big firm: $190,000</p>

<p>Age 32:
A & B: Medical Resident or Fellow, scholarship now moot: $66,000
C: Seventh Year Lawyer, big firm: $295,000</p>

<hr>

<p>[Typical</a> Big Firm Payscale](<a href=“http://www.infirmation.com/shared/lss/one-payscale.tcl?employer_id=NY2260&firm_name=Morrison%20%26%20Foerster%20LLP]Typical”>http://www.infirmation.com/shared/lss/one-payscale.tcl?employer_id=NY2260&firm_name=Morrison%20%26%20Foerster%20LLP)</p>

<p>[Typical</a> Law Big Firm Bonus Structure](<a href=“http://abovethelaw.com/2009/11/breaking_cravath_bonuses_are_o.php]Typical”>http://abovethelaw.com/2009/11/breaking_cravath_bonuses_are_o.php)</p>

<p>[Typical</a> NYC Resident/Fellow Salary](<a href=“http://www.cgdms.org/psychiatry/residency/resident_life_benefits.shtml#AnnualSalary]Typical”>http://www.cgdms.org/psychiatry/residency/resident_life_benefits.shtml#AnnualSalary)</p>

475

<p>

The big thing in this calculation will be that you will have to stop using the catchall term “business.” You’ll have to be much more specific.</p>

<p>Do you mean consulting? Investment banking? Corporate management? Sales? Private equity? Entrepreneurship? Each of these has very different numbers involved.</p>

476

<p>The only branches of business i have a clue about are consulting,Investment Banking&entrepreneurship(specifically owning a software startup).Sales is out.I have no idea what corporate mgt and private equity entail</p>

477

<p>My point was not to break out the categories comprehensively for you to make a choice right now. The point is that these sorts of calculations can’t be performed for “business” the way they can be for “medicine” or “law,” where they are already very unspecific.</p>

<p>In general, however, the basic principle you have to keep in mind is this:</p>

<p>It is not specific dollar sums you should be paying attention to. By far the most valuable commodity a person can have is time. Whenever two professions are remotely close to one another salary-wise, the one that starts first will almost always win the race.</p>

<p>As the saying goes, “Slow and steady wins the race.” In the story, the hare gets off to a fast start and then takes a break. But in real life, usually professional school means that the hare takes years and years before even starting the race. Either way, the tortoise still wins. The tortoise might be a salesperson, or a pilot, or a soldier. If the tortoise is a plumber (starts work at 18), the hare (a surgeon) might yield a twenty-year-long head start. That’s hard to come back from, although with current numbers it ends up being a close race in the end.</p>

<p>This is especially true because money is more valuable when it comes earlier. This is why the lottery pays you so much less money if you take the up-front payment, and why almost everybody takes the up-front payment anyway. </p>

<p>(Thanks to BRM for the example.)</p>

478

<p>“So,” it would be perfectly reasonable to ask, “why do doctors tend to have better lifestyles than plumbers of the same age?”</p>

<hr>

<p>I will always remember one of the best nights of my childhood. Our family had received a gift which we never, never, never in a million years would have purchased: two courtside seats to a Golden State Warriors game. It was horrendously expensive. My dad was a well-earning physician, but at $250 a seat, it simply wasn’t justifiable as a purchase. But we’d gotten them as a gift, and we were very much looking forward to the game.</p>

<p>As we walked into the arena, a friendly face happened to be sitting five seats down from us. “Hey, doc!” a man called out. My dad looked bewildered for a moment.</p>

<p>“Hi, Joe! What are you doing here?”</p>

<p>“Oh,” Joe said modestly, “I always buy season tickets. I come just about every game.”</p>

<p>A few minutes passed. “Who’s Joe?” I asked my dad quietly.</p>

<p>“Joe’s the janitor for my office,” my dad said back. “I guess he really likes basketball.”</p>

<hr>

<p>The moral of the story? Don’t buy things like season tickets. Don’t buy lotto tickets. Don’t pay for a big screen television. And maybe this is the primary financial virtue of medical school: it prevents you from spending your early money on stupid things.</p>

<p>If primary care doctors do better than plumbers, it isn’t because they’re earning more. It’s because they’re spending less. But, from what I can tell, they do tend to spend less over the course of their lifetimes.</p>

479

<p>“Money is more valuable when it comes earlier”.I get that</p>

480

<p>BDM,</p>

<p>I am not sure about the plumbers part. Some people tend to spend most of their income while others may save 20%. You may have a couple of kids who would like to be a doctor in the future. Then, You need to save for their education. I think that you may belong to the “very talented” type for law/business. It is good for you to go through this now so that you would have less a chance to regret later.</p>