<p>I am having a very difficult time between choosing to go to medical school or business school. My goals in life are to be happy, wealthy, and altruistic. Maybe even in that order.</p>
<p>I have shadowed many doctors and have done a lot of volunteer work at many hospitals. I think I have a pretty good understanding of what the medical field holds. I am attracted to medicine mainly because of its stability, compensation, and satisfaction.</p>
<p>I have very little information on what the business field holds. Business is so broad and there are so many different kinds of jobs that I couldn't possibly know if I like it. </p>
<p>I know a lot of premeds/med students/ doctors that wouldn't have pursued a career in medicine if they weren't being paid 100k +, so please don't cast me away to business because you think medicine doesn't need to be polluted with people who have financial interests. </p>
<p>What I'd like to know is how medicine will look in the future for someone who is interested in getting paid well? And maybe business?</p>
<p>Given the current circumstances of America what field is more promising to pay in the future? </p>
<p>Also, suppose I went to a U.S news top 20 undergrad school and grad school would that make business a more favorable option because of the repute my school carries? Is investment banking/management consulting/private equity a better choice for money given a prestigious education than medicine with the same level of prestige? I say this because I know that the level of prestige of your undergrad and grad school affect salary less in medicine than in business where prestige can greatly impact your salary. </p>
<p>I’ve spent a ton of time looking into this. The answer I keep on finding is that if you go to a top school, business smokes medicine every time from a monetary perspective. Those in medicine are in it for things much less superficial than money. If you do want a career in healthcare that pays really well and has great hours, look into dentistry. I seriously couldn’t believe their hourly compensation when I first saw it.</p>
<p>Somewhat off the topic: In many careers, they work you very hard. When you are young and energetic, you may take it easily. But after you are 40 or 50, you may have a second thought about working like when you were young.</p>
<p>One of my coworkers move to a new company which is a quite successful company. He said the group he is in at the new company essentially expects everyone to be in contact any time by smartphone even during weekends. He is even not in i-banking or medicine! Luckily, he is still like 30 years old and he could still take it, for now. This is how he could earn likely 10-20 percents more of salary.</p>
<p>DS was graduated from a top college but decided to go into medicine in the end. He will likely be at least 150k in debt before he starts to earn anything like “real money.” He did say at one time that he might have a chance to break into some lucrative business career path if he was determined to do so. He will start this journey starting from the lowly MS1 next week. His self-selected pre-orientation activity is “volunteering to help the poor” rather than the camping trip with peer students.</p>
<p>Nobody can tell you, but you what you want.
Keep in mind that every single person who is aspired to go to college is “poluting” system with financial interests. People do not go to college to remain on their parents financial support for the rest of their lives. Again, if person is not earning enough, his own kids do not have as much opportunities as he/she had because of financial support of his own parents. Let’s be realistic. If you do not have any financial goal in mind, there is no need to waste your parents’ money on your education. From another prospective, if you do not have money to spend, you are not helping somebody else to retain his job because you cannot afford buying the product of his labor. So, having high financial goal is a good thing, something to keep in mind and strive for. After all rich are paying most taxes and poor are able to eat because of that.
So, forget about compensation side, aside for having a goal of having high salary is a good thing. Ask yourself where is your passion, what you are enjoying to be doing, how are you with people, can you handle talking to your friend when he is in distress, feeling down? And again, do you like biology classes or math is more of your thing? What makes you excited, interested. Passionate involvement will make a difference. Desire to help others might not be fullfilled unless you personally is satisfied with what you are doing.</p>