Law is the new Medicine

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>I was speaking to a pretty money-minded 4th year student who's graduating. He has an excellent GPA, did well on the MCATs and has a super super resume. He's almost guaranteed to make it into medschool. </p>

<p>He told me that he wants to go into Law and so do many other smart people who wanted to originally become doctors. He said Medicine is getting overcrowded now and it's just not worth the gargantuan struggle to become a Doctor. It's a life-testing hurdle one after another. You work your arse off in undergrad to get a higher GPA than everybody, 80 percentile plus MCAT and cram in good ECs. Yet most won't make it, and for the ones that do, they just start ALL over again! Now they're competing with the absolute cream of the crop to get into all the same specialties such as optho, derm, ENT...etc. Then, after you get in, you start all over yet again to get good contacts with docs, build a solid patient base. After all this, you're 40 and starting your life and thinking about malpractice taking away 20 years of hard work in a day. </p>

<p>The interesting thing he told me was that there's more doctors than we think there are. We see lines at clinics and Emergency rooms at hospitals. But that's because almost none of the medschool graduates want to go into family medicine, primary care or even Emergency care. They're all aiming for the more relaxing and higher paid specialties. And all of those are becoming more and more saturated as time goes on. By the time we graduate from medschool if we do, there’ll be more than enough opthalmologists, radiologists, etc.. And yet there still might not be enough primary docs. </p>

<p>After this he made a very very compelling argument about Lawyers living much better. He knows a bunch about economics and business as he's very into money. It was a long talk, but to summarize, he said lawyers study less, worry less, work less and make on average just a little bit less than doctors. There's a bunch of unsuccessful lawyers, but that's because law school doesn't require the calibre of students that med does. The smarter kids in law school always go on to live much more satisfying lives than physicians. </p>

<p>I asked him, what about people who don't become doctors for the money. He said the struggle you go through is not worth it anymore. And if you genuinely cared so much about the "community", you wouldn't want to be a doctor, don't be naive.</p>

<p>And it’s not just him who’s doing this. There’s another 4 people who everybody in the past 3 years thought were gonna go into medschool, but are now trying to get into mid-tier to high-tier law schools. Really got me thinking.</p>

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<p>What’s funny about your post is that there’s some good evidence out there that there are way too many lawyers out there. I remember reading something that suggested that if you did not make it into a fairly top-class law school, the chances of you being able to pay back your loans were not good because your diploma would shut you out of the most lucrative job opportunities.</p>

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<p>There is some truth in these comments, but way overstated, perhaps for effect.</p>

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<p>The highly successful lawyers go to top law schools, which requires very high grades and LSATs. Your income as a lawyer is much more closely linked to what law school you attended than medical incomes are related to what medical school you attended. Among those at the top law schools, the high income entry level jobs go to the best students. So… If you are a very good student at Yale law school, then you get your pick of high paying associate jobs at big New York law firms. But only so many people will get in Yale and they will not all qualify for, or want, those jobs. It is extremely competitive. </p>

<p>Once you get such a job, you work like a dog, competing with your fellow associates for a partnership offer. This goes on until about the time when your college roommate who went to medical school finishes clinical training. Of course, as a law student you enter the work world a year earlier and you are making much more as an associate in law than as a medical resident. </p>

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<p>The most ambitious and money-oriented kids headed into the top law schools almost certainly end up making more money than the smartest and most money oriented people headed into medicine. But these are small proportions of both groups. By definition, most people who go into law are about average for lawyers, and the same for medicine. On average, doctors make more money than lawyers. The barriers to entry are much higher. There are lots of law schools attended by people who academically were nowhere close to making it to medical school.</p>

<p>Satisfying lives? That depends on what one values. Most doctors would have no interest whatsoever in being lawyers. If you are primarily about money, then neither medicine nor law lead to the greatest riches. The most successful business people earn far more.</p>

<p>Right now the elite law schools are seeing dramatic drops in hiring from the traditional high powered firms. Students at top law schools who, a few years ago, would have walked into pricey jobs in NY now are happy to get jobs at all. Many firms have cut back on hiring, have delayed start dates for those who were hired before the recession hit. one can only assume that partner offers are similarly dropping off as these firms have less money coming in.</p>

<p>In short- if you want to get rich neither medicine nor law should be the first choice.
If you are really a top student- say top 10% at an elite college, and equally prepared for law or medicine- then in times past you would probably find law more lucrative than medicine. Today, that is not so clear.
Hard work? Both law and medicine reserve their top rewards for very hard working people.</p>

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<p>Medicine is the new Medicine. Anything else is a face-full of crazy. It’s like saying baseball is the new football. Very different games regardless of compensation. With a few exceptions, very different people.</p>

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<p>Lawyers have always been a dime a dozen unless from the very best schools. These days, even they are having trouble getting well paying positions. I do expect though they are really going to be in the money with this healthcare plan and all the legal nuances that are going to develop.</p>

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<p>The Health Care Reform JUST PASSED. How can medicine be “the same”?</p>

<p>One of its main points is to “hold down reimbursements to doctors.” Now, im assuming most of the people on the CC kids do not want to be primary care providers (who will see a pay boost). The truth is that most of us will specialize into lucrative fields that will see its paychecks decimated by reform- think opthamology 20 years ago. </p>

<p>It just doesnt make sense anymore to spend 13-15 years in your prime studying your ass off 60+ hours a week to earn a mediocre hourly wage when oppertunity cost, long hours, and increased paper work are considered. I suspect law or business would be the new “Premed Topic” CC section.</p>

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<p>OH really? There are like 20 new medical schools currently under construction. Since we are speaking on monopolistic terms, lets consider the supply and demand. Congress wants to increase coverage (demand goes up ~10%) and reduce consolidated payment (price moves down). In addition, the monopolist (doctors) will see more competition as the 20 new medical school (~17% increase in supply) pump out more doctors. In summary, competition goes up, price goes down, work goes up. Any monopolist in these shoes would see their profits SCREWED on all fronts. A doctor will realize less money per procedure and increased competition.</p>

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<p>There’s been a much publicized saturation of lawyers. Many top law firms closed down, and even graduates from harvard and yale had trouble finding jobs. If you don’t go to a T14 you can pretty much kiss your chances of a high paying job goodbye (exceptions are few).</p>

<p>PS: if you wanted just money, you wouldn’t go into law. You would become a banker.</p>

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<p>see what i can’t stand is the moronic claims some of those in politics are making. saying that there’s going to be more primary care physicians because there will be more med schools. UM, HELLO?!?! you can’t practice with just an m.d., you need to go through residency! and the number of those spots aren’t increasing any, so it’s another case of too little supply and too high of a demand. so unbelievably frustrating! i just hope they get it right in the next 2 years before i have to pick a specialty.</p>

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<p>There are a lot of people who initially think that money doesn’t matter - only your love of your work - until they can’t pay their bills or afford to retire.</p>

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<p>^^^like</p>

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<p>@AliAngel: I’m sure that part of med school certification involves residency spots.</p>

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<p>You assume that medical schools are creating new hospitals.</p>

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<p>No. I’m assuming new med schools will contract existing hospitals into teaching residents (receiving federal funding too). Contrary to popular belief, hospitals are not saturated with medical training.</p>

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<p>My cousin went to a top 50 Law school working his arse off in undergrad, in law school, didn’t pass the CA bar, passed the second time, and is now switching careers to criminal justice/police officer.</p>

<p>For Law it’s very difficult to find a job. YOU HAVE to be a top student whereas for medicine it is different. Of course becoming a physician is not easy… you have to care for ill patients and know how to treat them correctly without killing them; that takes lots of knowledge and practice.</p>

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<p>Contrary to popular belief, the majority of successful trial lawyers did not go to “top” law schools; and most were average undergrads at non-selective colleges. Most grads of “top” law schools rarely go near a Court House.</p>

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<p>^ How come my cousin didn’t get hired but had to start from scratch and try to make ends meat? I guess it may be his specialty in law, but my old professor who is a lawyer always told us about how his job relied solely on how many clients he got and his job was very unstable. I see medicine as being more stable, but there are always cases that prove otherwise.</p>

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<p>Actually, there are plenty of residency slots in most fields, and an overabundance in primary care. Not only to many such programs fail to fill their slots, but many rely heavily on foreign grads (universally seen as less desirable than those emerging from American medical schools) to fill the slots they do.</p>

<p>So, no, the expansion of medical schools will not lead to a large group of people with MD’s but no place to train. </p>

<p>Medical schools are required to have affiliations with teaching hospitals in order to train the MEDICAL STUDENTS, but there is no requirement at all that the teaching hospitals train the graduates of that medical school. Students often stay at their home institutions to train, but nothing in the rules requires this. When they expand medical schools they simply convert existing hospitals into teaching hospitals. Often these places already have affiliations with another medical school, and just offer places for medical students to do their clinical rotations.</p>

<p>The FUNDING for the resident slots in a different matter entirely. Most of it comes from the federal government, and I have not heard of a move to increase the number of slots nationally. To the extent that they plan to do anything there is talk, but no action so far as I know, to shift the existing slots to tilt more towards primary care. Unless it was slipped in at the last minute, the health reform bills just passed did not increase the number of Medicare residency slots.</p>

<p>By the way, I would not accept the assumption that the increase in the number of covered lives will lead to an increase in demand for primary care physicians. Much of what primary care docs do can be done by physician extenders, nurses, NPs, PAs, technicians, etc. Docs do this themselves because they are in small practices that cannot efficiently use extenders or the payment systems require the docs to see the patients to bill anything, even if the interaction was just a routine blood pressure and medication level check. With some more operational efficiencies and boring changes in reimbursement rules, the same number of primary care doctors can manages substantially larger panels of patients. </p>

<p>The real drivers of increased demand are the large cohort of boomers hitting the age where they start consuming lots of healthcare, and the huge increases in what medicine can do for sick people. But a lot of this is done by specialists. With an older population, the demand for cardiologists, oncologists, radiation oncologists, and many kinds of surgeons will continue to grow.</p>

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<p>I would argue that while more medical schools will not leave MDs without residencies, it will eventually force more and more to go into specialties that they might not want to (or might find hand to afford with increasing education debt), or go into malignant residencies.</p>

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<p>This is already happening. The most in-demand residencies get lots more applicants than slots, while the less appealing fields have an excess of unfilled positions. In part, to the extent there are plans, there are plans to force more people into primary care, which residencies usually have trouble filling. </p>

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<p>Again, the lower paying fields, like primary care, are the ones that people with a lot of debt tend to avoid. It is simply much harder to repay the huge loans with the lower income.</p>

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<p>Don’t know what this means.</p>

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Translation: they take a spot in a residency program with a reputation of abusing/chewing up residents just so they can stay in their field of choice. A spot they wouldn’t have otherwise considered.</p>