@mcat2 Why would you feel guilty? Your child gets the career they wanted. Physicians make good money and there are other ways in which they can discharge debt should they decide to practice in less compensated environments.
@JustOneDad, When I had my first real job, I did not carry any debt, unlike my child. Except for the mortgage, I have never had such a large debt, unlike my child. It may be my unrealistic wish that he could also start his first job without such a heavy debt burden - after all, we have always been a one-income family. (So our wish may be unrealistic.)
In recent years, we started to pay more attention to growing our nest eggs for our own retirement rather than kept pouring our income to his education. So we are not too unrealistic about what we should do at each stage of our life.
However, we have a mixed feeling about whether he should get some loans in the coming / final year when he only needs living (and traveling!) expenses – He will not need to pay for tuition and fees for his final/5th year due to his school’s “special” system. We have kinds of “promised” him to not let his accumulated student loans to exceed 6 figures. Getting additional loans could break our promise to him (we may care about this more than he does.) We should not have made this promise we may not be able to keep! (thus feeling “guilty” about not being able to keep the promise.)
You haven’t broken your promise; up to $900K is still 6 figures.
You did not have the high future earning power of your child either.
In the previous generation, when medical practices had some intrinsic value, it wasn’t uncommon to have to come up with a half million or more to buy in. And that was when a half million was actually worth something.
I don’t think Dr. Jauhar set out to write a “representative example” of the experiences of physicians. The editor’s description of Doctored is that of a memoir:
Doctored, his harrowing follow-up, observes the crisis of American medicine through the eyes of an attending cardiologist…Provoked by his unsettling experiences, Jauhar has written an introspective memoir that is also an impassioned plea for reform.
He is explicitly telling a story from his own perspective, based on his own experiences and observations. The fact that some physicians disagree with him is irrelevant - that’s true of pretty much any nonfiction book.
Seven years ago, Jauhar published a memoir called [url=<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Intern-Doctors-Initiation-Sandeep-Jauhar-ebook/dp/B00FO84RXO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1424561013&sr=8-2&keywords=Jauhar%5D%5Bi%5DIntern%5B/i%5D%5B/url”>http://www.amazon.com/Intern-Doctors-Initiation-Sandeep-Jauhar-ebook/dp/B00FO84RXO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1424561013&sr=8-2&keywords=Jauhar]Intern[/url], which was the story of his years of residency in New York. That’s also an interesting read for pre-med students. I’m sure some interns/residents had very different experiences than his, but he wrote a book about his, and it’s still interesting to see one perspective and compare it with others.
Agree with Data10’s post 51. Why shelter any prospective student from the economic realities of a given profession? It is better to know the realities before making a life decision. And even if it is only one person’s account, it may make some think and take into consideration issues never thought of before. Best to go into a career with eyes wide open rather than disillusionment in the end. Besides, if a book can change one’s course in life, perhaps that wasn’t the best course for that person to begin with.