<p>Well, you have to bear in mind that teaching is currently the single most stable job in America. So you’d be looking at using vs. teaching science, and then the income question. And I will say with very little hesitation that currently, America would benefit much, much more from any one talented person entering the teaching field than having that one person enter medicine.</p>
<p>So basically, you’re weighing prestige, leadership, and income* against social need, quality of life, and job stability.</p>
<p>(*Physicians incomes are overrated, but they do in fact beat teachers.)</p>
<p>Patients visit doctors because they need help. As long as a doctor provides adequate care, patients would appreciate his/her effort. Most students (Grade 6-12) have little respect for their teachers. I doubt that how many teachers really enjoy their work. However, I do think that teachers in public school get pretty good pension/insurance. So, we have to add that to the total lifetime income. A college professor may be even better if your kids agree to attend the school you teach. But, it is tough to become one.</p>
<p>I think that it is a blessing for someone a little nerdy to become a doctor. The most talented ones are more likely to regret someday.</p>
<p>Doctors are teachers (what does doctor mean in latin?). Doctors try to educate patients but they rarely do what you tell them, show up late or not at all, talk on their phones and text while you talk to them, once in awhile become unruly and disrupt other patients, and think they’re smarter than you despite all your years of training. If they don’t like you, they’ll badmouth you to their friends and on the internet. And when you have to be away from the office for a few days, they always complain about how your substitutes suck. Most of all, their failures are attributed to your incompetence and not anything they themselves did.</p>
<p>How is this different from teaching high schoolers?</p>
I’m not sure what the yardstick is that physician income is being compared to, but I’m hard-pressed to think of a profession where employment is virtually guaranteed and average salaries for fully qualified practitioners start at $100+K/yr. It’s true that physicians have to work in residency status for years after completing the 4 years of medical school, but residents are actually paid pretty well compared to other people’s jobs. (Real people, not professional athletes, media stars or the top 0.1% of lawyers.) I can’t think of any occupation with reliable job security which pays average practitioners more than medicine.</p>
<p>Physician’s incomes may be overrated by non-physicians, but I suspect that non-physician’s incomes are overrated by physicians (and residents.) Even with a four-year head start in other lines of work I think the “average” physician comes out well ahead of just about every other occupation after a very brief period of time. Lawyers, accountants and engineers, to name three occupations, can’t compete due to job insecurity, overall lower average pay and (effective) income caps. I can’t think of a general profession which does.</p>
<p>It’s not just the years of salary earning potential you are sacrificing. It’s also the fact you are PAYING for the right to study/work 80 hours a week. Med students graduate with an average of 150k in debt and that debt accumulates interest to the point where you’ll pay back 300k. </p>
<p>Eventually, a GP will catch up to a UPS driver. But, by then, most of your life is over.</p>
<p>With all due respect kluge, you’re focusing too much on salary and not enough on years, which are by far the more valuable commodity.</p>
<p>As posted above: “… over a lifetime a plumber has a higher standard of living than a physician with a general practice because the doctor starts earning later, pays higher taxes and high malpractice insurance premiums.”</p>
<p>This isn’t just a comparison to CEOs and bankers and lawyers. This is a comparison to things like plumbers and auto mechanics and such. Of course, we’re also discussing primary care physicians here.</p>
<p>To the extent that this is counterintuitive for you (“… the doctors I know live much more richly than the plumbers I know”), I’d urge you to remember that (1) physician salaries have been falling for a while, and (2) medical school expenses have been absolutely skyrocketing.</p>
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<p>(There might also be another effect where medical school is sort of a compulsory savings plan – pay lots of tuition now in exchange for higher incomes later. Compare to a plumber, who gets a salary now but has to have the discipline to save it and such.)</p>
<p>I don’t know how these two compare, to be honest. You might be right, but certainly this is in decline. A ton of patients… well, don’t have a very good relationship with their doctors, for whatever reason.</p>
<p>BDM, your financial comparison relies on the assumption that all people deciding to enter a career as a plumber or auto mechanic will be employees immediately and consistently throughout their lives as long as they want to work - a valid assumption for physicians, but not for those in other occupations. I think that people in the medical field fail to appreciate how precarious jobs are in other fields. A midlevel business executive who loses his or her job after the age of 50 has an extremely poor likelihood of regaining their employment status and compensation - or any job at all, for that matter. At best, it will take many months (or years) before they find a job at lower pay. Those in physical jobs (like plumbers and auto mechanics) rarely are able to continue in their jobs later in life, and are commonly subject to unemployment and underemployment throughout their working lives. And so on. (Your link did not bring up the article you cited, by the way.)</p>
<p>In many areas of the economy just getting a job - any job at all - is a struggle. Fill-in “Joe jobs” at minimum pay while waiting for an opportunity in their chosen career are a harsh reality for many young people trying to get a foothold in the job market. Again - none of this is relevant to medical school graduates. Even resident’s pay is well above the median for American taxpayers. I think that people in every field of work have a tendency to exaggerate the negatives in their profession and see greener grass in other areas while mourning the idealized past. (Lord knows, lawyers do this ad nauseam.)</p>
<p>I do agree with you about the increased cost of professional education - in every profession - which I think is scandalous. But medical education is the only area where getting a job paying enough to eventually pay off those loans is virtually guaranteed. Those who take the time and pay the tuition to get JDs, MBAs and PHDs are finding themselves, in many cases, unemployed after receiving their post-graduate degree, or fighting for jobs which don’t pay much more than what regular college graduates earn. And they still have to pay off their loans.</p>
<p>Becoming a doctor is a good financial move. Whether it’s a good choice for any individual for other reasons is always going to be a valid question. But I think it’s unrealistic to downplay the financial advantages of the profession.</p>
<p>The link seems to work for me; the article’s headline is ostensibly about something else, but the content is there (on page 2).</p>
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<p>So far as I can tell, you seem to be arguing that the physician track is superior to something like a plumber or a UPS driver, despite sometimes lower lifetime wages, because it’s easy to get a job as a doctor once you have the relevant credentials, whereas it can be hard to find work as a UPS driver. I have no idea how hard it is, so I suppose we can stipulate that that’s true.</p>
<p>Still, many high schoolers – and especially their parents – seem to be under the impression that being a physician is a no-holds-barred financial win, and that’s clearly not the case.</p>
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<p>Medicine is certainly less troubled than PhD tracks and low-ranked JD and MBA programs. That much is true. Low-ranked MD programs, in particular, are a major win compared to low-ranked JD programs.</p>
<p>The best option from a financial perspective? Get into the workforce as fast as you can and work your way up.</p>
<p>I have a brother-in-law who has worked for UPS for 3 or 4 years (maybe more). Still on the night-time sorting line, hasn’t gotten a driver job yet. Apparently that’s standard. Hard, physical work, with few able to make it a career much past 50. The best-qualified would-be firefighter in California can only hope to get a job within three or four years after qualifying as an FF-1 and will be lucky if he can score a job as a $10/hr EMT doing patient transport while he applies to dozens of departments competing with hundreds of applicants per opening. It’s brutal out there in the real world.</p>
<p>I seriously doubt that many plumbers or truck drivers earn more than an average primary care physician over their lifetimes - even adjusting for earlier start of earning years. There are lots of unemployed plumbers right now (a major source of plumbing work is new construction - not a lot of that going on right now.) </p>
<p>Again, it’s a matter of perspective. You can look at the best case scenario in another line of work and figure out a way that it comes out ahead of the most negative take on your own. But the best case scenario happens to very few people. The common scenario for the great majority of people is that being an average physician in an average practice is, in fact, a ticket to reliable employment at an income above that of 90% of the people in the country. (The 90th percentile is about $110K.) </p>
<p>Superstars will excel in many occupations. But superstars are, by definition, rare. A top-level professional athlete will make millions, but for every baseball player in the major leagues there’s ten in the minors making $10K/year, and hundreds who never made a single pro team. Same thing holds true in all sports and performing arts. And not just there: Bill Gates made billions but there are countless digitheads of his generation who can’t pay their bills. </p>
<p>Anyone who graduates from medical schools has to seriously screw up to not enjoy a secure and comfortable financial future. That’s really unique. Whether that constitutes a “no-holds-barred financial win” or not depends on your definition. But compared the the CCer’s who are convinced that they’re going to get rich in IB after getting their MBA or make six-figures straight out of law school and seven figures soon thereafter, I’d say that the pre-meds are the least unrealistic of the group. :)</p>
<p>Again it’s true that the floor is higher in medicine, particularly if you go to a low-ranked medical school. But at the median, physicians do relatively poorly when compared to the opportunities that other similarly talented and driven young people have. Again, the data we have on truck drivers and plumbers should be pretty shocking – because this isn’t controlling for things that should plausibly be related to income.</p>
<p>Now adjust for how brutal medicine is, and it starts to look like a pretty poor comparison.</p>
<p>I was just wondering whether or not you should admit to the fact that stable and relatively high future income is part of why you applied to medical school. I don’t say earning a high income is one of the primary reasons for applying to medical school. If someone will ask me what role did income play in my decision to apply, I would answer that the prospects of a stable income played a part, just not the deciding part.</p>
<p>It’s just that a lot of other premed college students I know go about saying that they love to “help people” and are looking forward to dedicating their life to charity. Honestly, I don’t believe they are saying the truth. The “helping people” thing is completely pointless: don’t most professions help people? Also, I really doubt that all these candidates want to be the next Mother Teresa… it takes a rare individual to really be willing to work tirelessly with no pay.</p>
<p>I was just wondering if medical schools now sort of expect you to lie and say you have no interest for worldly goods. I am person who is willing to donate my time, but I don’t know if I am willing to donate my life to charity.</p>
If what you said is indeed true, for many (but not all) premeds, the personal statement essay (maybe the in terview as well?) is a lying contest then?! The winners are those who can convince adcoms they are not lying.</p>
<p>Some may say that the adcoms are so experienced that they will be able to to tell whether it is a lie or not in the 3-5 minutes they read your essay.</p>
<p>BDM: I agree that for the elite, there are areas with greater potential financial upside than medicine. A person can make more money in many businesses if they are smart, hard working, lucky and not too risk-averse. A handful of top graduates from top law schools will reap six figure starting salaries in exchange for 80-100 hour workweeks, and if they thrive in that lifestyle the tip of that iceberg will go on to earn higher six and even low seven figures after a decade or so. But a lot of smart, hard-working entrepreneurs and professionals will burn out or fail while going for the golden ring. (I included “lucky” there for a reason.) And I’m not sure what the “talents” are that you are comparing for similarity when concluding that physicians do “relatively poorly.”</p>
<p>As to truck drivers and plumbers, I haven’t seen any data - just one random comment in a three year old article. I have spoken with a number of truck drivers who found out that the anticipated income level never materialized, who went broke, were laid off, or who were physically unable to continue on their jobs at a relatively young age (by my office-worker standards.) It’s easy to idealize the lives of others.</p>
<p>I agree that the long road to doctorhood - and the job once you get there - are factors a prospective physician should carefully consider. It’s a marathon and the job’s not for everyone.</p>
<p>311710: I agree with you. I think it’s only rational to consider the reliable financial rewards of being a doctor as a reason to go to medical school. As to whether it’s prudent to say that at an interview, I don’t know. I’m not on an admissions committee. :)</p>
<p>It seems that Professor Kotlikoff hasn’t published the finding in an academic setting, but he’s apparently written his findings in a book here, starting at page 109:</p>
<p>BDM, I’ve read enough of your posts to know you can spot the logical fallacies in the “analysis” presented as easily as I can. He starts the doc off $132K in the hole (undergrad tuition) and starts interest running on that at 9%. Then he deducts malpractice insurance from the assumed income of the doctor, but nothing from that of the plumber. Are both income averages quoted gross or net? I would assume that the “income” figure for both occupations is net of normal operating expenses - and insurance is a normal operating expense (which self-employed plumbers have to pay for too, I’d note.) </p>
<p>He also assumes that the plumber gets a job as a plumber day 1 out of high school, and advances seamlessly to the highest income status in that profession automatically, with a full time job every step of the way, presumably continuing to work full time as a plumber until he retires at age 66. Good luck with that! Etc. And by his definition of “standard of living” a 19 year old plumber unclogging toilets full time is enjoying a significantly higher “standard of living” than a freshman at BU. </p>
<p>The author was making a point, and creating definitions and cherry picking his data to “prove” it. It’s kind of like what they teach schoolkids these days in the much maligned “new” math - make a rough estimate and see if your answer is in the ballpark. If it isn’t, you’ve made a mistake. Do you really think the average doctor and the average plumber at age 40 are really making the same amount of money? This “analysis” isn’t in the ballpark.</p>
<p>There’s clearly a reason he didn’t publish this academically. With that said, I think actually there are defenses against some of your points (I think it’s clearly net income on both ends) – the major flaws would be your second point (“He also assumes…”) and your third (he ignores hedonic benefits from attending college).</p>
<p>I agree. I don’t know the basis for the “income” figures he cited, and what they included or excluded. “Income” would ordinarily be net of malpractice insurance costs - so why deduct it twice? That’s part of the problem with that sort of analysis. (Since I have no actual knowledge about the gross and net incomes of either physicians or plumbers in Ohio I’m not in a position to fill in the dots myself.)</p>
<p>I’ve seen this same confusion over “income” in a lot of the tax debates as well. Christine O’Donnel, the tea party candidate from Delaware, made arguments which exposed the fact that she obviously thought federal income taxes were based on the gross income of a small business, not its net, referring to a “small pizza store” laying off workers if taxes were raised on small business owners with incomes over $250K. That’s why it’s easy to craft an argument which will make whatever point you want to make. Just be a little loosey-goosey about your definitions, cherry-pick your data and voila!</p>
<p>Bottom line: I think appearance here is congruent with reality. Doctors really do make more money than plumbers or truck drivers, even after tuition loans and deferred income streams are taken into account. And the disparity is significant, just as common belief would hold.</p>
<p>^If you do not have a job, your earnings are not that. All of the above could be unemployed, except for three MD’s. When you do not work, you will take half of what you used to have and travel for an hour to your next job being very appreciative. I am not sure if this is very clear thru this thread. All of us non-MD’s say thank you every morning because we have a job today. We will know within next 8 hours if we going to have it tomorrow. MD’s are never asked how is job, MD’s job is always there.</p>
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