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<p>Bad. Bad idea. I hate to be so negative but this is a good thing to extinguish early.</p>
<p>Money is only going down in medicine. With all this talk about universal healthcare or even minor health care reform, there is no scenario where doctors stand to make MORE money over what they currently make. Not when the public perceives us to be walking cash baskets (erroneously or not)</p>
<p>So even if you take a highly lucrative specialty like orthopedics (with a subsequent fellowship in spine), that would be 4 years of busting your hump as a premed to get into a good medical school.</p>
<p>4 years of really busting your hump as a medical student to get into a good orthopedics residency (I surmise this will be the toughest step)</p>
<p>5 years of a surgical residency (which is downright brutal at my hospital)</p>
<p>and then fellowship training (I believe it’s 2-3 years but not sure)</p>
<p>That’s 15-16 years away. With reimbursement likely to fall within that time period. If you’ve got a genuine interest, great, go for it. If it’s just about the money, you are setting yourself up for massive heartbreak.</p>
<p>Ortho spine lifestyle is manageable but again, without genuine interest, it’ll be hard to stay afloat during the grueling ortho residency. I’ll also echo the previous poster’s sentiment about the 500K total being pretax money. And judging from the way this administration is spending, you’ll probably be handing back half of it in taxes.</p>