<p>I work in a hospital and I have yet to meet a Physician that is the least but encouraging about my S going into medicine. </p>
<p>Well, I am sorry you have not meant encouraging physicians, but this article explains perfectly why plastic surgery and dermatology are the most competitive specialties to match into.</p>
<p>Wow, this article presents the true frustrations that exist within the ranks of most physicians. My D1 wants to pursue a surgical career. I was suprised; thought she would have been turned off by watching my work hours. I would never discourage someone from their dream of becoming a physician. However, they need to know the reality. It starts day 1 in college, it intensifies during the medical school application process, and so on. What the article misses are the wonderful experiences physicians have when they positively impact the lives of their patients. If you are in this for the money, you are in for a very long and unhappy life.</p>
<p>I never listened to anybody in my life…and I told my D. to do the same. She is more or less following…
If you want to hear a horror sotries about any careers, I can tell you about engineering and IT, I am not familiar with others. On the other hand, I can also tell you, that I love my job as a computer programmer, I love it to the point that I have no desire to retire at all, since it has been the best entertainment in my life.<br>
It is up to you what you choose, listenning to others or following your heart. For me, decision was easy. I listened one time and got burnt. I had to switch in my 30s, went back to school for additional 10 years. I have no regrets about this last decision as difficult it was, filled with many obstacles and dissapointments. It was a right thing to do. Only person himself / herself can decide. Base on my personal experience, I am telling myself over and over again: DO NOT LISTEN TO OTHERS!!!</p>
<p>Also an interesting read: <a href=“How A Nobel Economist Ruined The Residency Matching System For Newly Minted M.D.'s”>http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/04/15/how-a-nobel-economist-ruined-the-residency-matching-system-for-newly-minted-m-d-s/</a></p>
<p>Agree with Miami on this one. You can hear complaints in any- and I would argue most- professions. Talk to any young engineer in SV who works 80+ hours weeks including night/weekends. Then talk to that same person 20 years later of working the same grind, taking conference calls from India at home at 10pm, and still working on family vacations (if they are lucky and can find time to take one). They’d tell you to go into another profession as well. </p>
<p>Or any school teacher who spends dozens of hours each week outside the classroom grading papers, preparing lesson plans, creating handouts, etc, and who gets paid substantially less (and gets less respect and more disapprobation) than either a physician or engineer. </p>
<p>@ MiamiDAP</p>
<p>You are right that one should not listen to others on what career is right for one’s own life, but this article does go a good job of showing perspective pre-med/med students that being a doctor will not make you rich, at least for sure not like what doctors used to earn in the 90s. Medicine can’t provide you with a mansion, but can fill you with happiness that you are changing human lives every single day.</p>
<p>Medicine can still provide you with mansions actually, it’s called private practice. But I agree, if that’s what you’re in it for, then you’re going to be terribly depressed. </p>
<p>I also want to add that I don’t agree with this author’s assertion that America is “waging war” on physicians?? What exactly is this statement based on? The affordable care act or just others’ treatment of physicians?</p>
<p>dina4119</p>
<p>I think this article might be over the top, but it’s pointing out that, the affordable care act extended insurance coverage to many Americans but the number of doctors is still the same. Also, even though most Americans still have to pay for health insurance under the ACA, the act extends medicare coverage to millions of Americans in low income brackets. In order to do this, medicare reimbursements have become drastically lower. In one article I read some Primary care doctors get paid only $18 per visit under medicare. So this puts an extra-burden on a physician, because he or she must see more patients to make the same income he or she used to make so they can continue to run their practice.</p>
<p>In general though this puts more a strain on private practice for primary care then it does for other areas of medicine.</p>
<p>" and still working on family vacations (if they are lucky and can find time to take one). " - OMG, exactly about my H - engineer working from the beach in Mexico. He does not have a choice about taking vacations or not - I will not let him to skip our vacations, no way, no how. But I cannot control him working, laying under the palms, at least our internet at resort is paid by his employer. And I am not talking about some single instance. He ALWAYS works during vacations, but he does not hate it at all, seems to enjoy it. I am not going into some of mine 20 hours days, I am much better at avoiding my overtimes.
BTW, while MDs is paid for their 20 hrs / day work, engineers / ITs are NOT paid. We are expected to work whenever it is required and without pay, not straight pay, pay = 0. How about that, you want that? Yes, in our case!!! Why - because we love it!!</p>
<p>@Jweinst1 , ok gotcha.
Side note–I meant to say specialty private practice, not primary care. But yes, I think if it’s truly your passion, it doesn’t matter if you’re not being reimbursed a quarter of a million. </p>
<p>My wife, former mortgage banker, was working on her computer while she was in labor with our second baby. She wanted to go to work as soon as the baby was born because she didn’t want to lose a client. </p>
<p>There are a few private practice specialists who are making great money and many of them lucked out in the situations that they are in. I am not saying that they don’t work their butts off, but so much goes into making a lot of money than the desire. Also, this current situation pre-dates the ACA. My issue has drastically changed as my hospital has exchanged owners over the years. Each owner, from private to public to private equity has increased the productivity and decreased the pay. Funny enough, our reimbursement revenues have stayed the same.</p>
<p>So, listen to the stories and adjust your expectations. Despite that, pursue your dreams.</p>
<p>From what I can tell, this article pretty much says it sucks being a primary care physician and owning your own practice. But the majority of med students don’t want to go into that specialty anyway, so I don’t think ALL physicians are miserable.</p>
<p>Right, of course certain specialties in private practice can make very good money. But the problem is that, there is a shortage of primary care physicians, and there isn’t being much done to give incentive to med students to pick primary care over a specialized field of medicine. At least not that I know of.</p>
<p>i think the article is a bit over the top but otherwise fairly accurate. I am however, not in primary care so perhaps it is. These trends started back in the early 90’s and is nothing new and getting worse. So, if you wish to ignore the consensus you have no one to blame but yourselves. Remember going into medicine now requires a huge financial investment that might end up as much as 300K+ in direct costs plus 7 to 10 extra years past College.
I think that what aggravates most of us is that all of the rules and regulations such as PQRI, HIPPA, EHR, ICD 10 etc all create much more work for us and greatly decrease our efficiency while leading to poorer care for our patients.</p>
<p>Even my parents are discouraging me from pursuing medicine (lol they’re so cute) because they’re worried I’ll be too exhausted my whole life. My dad is really pushing for the whole actuary thing. Not to look down on actuaries, but I think that I’m meant for more exhilarating, impactful, and fulfilling work. The stress of school can actually be exhilarating to me (which is partly why I’m really looking forward to med school).</p>
<p>@mjscal, you are a psychic. I spoke to a friend of mine, ObGyn, who started complaining about being required to attend 40+ hours of training on the Epic EMR. The other hospital required this training or he would lose privileges at the hospital and all of the health insurance products it owned. This training was on his own time at night. He was absolutely annoyed by this and went into all of the other requirements you’ve stated above! Does he love his profession, absolutely. But he sold his practice to the hospital to get health insurance (pre ACA - he would not have sold if the ACA was around) and to get rid of the administrative work.</p>
<p>@Absentions, learn from the stories but don’t be discouraged by them. At some point when you are in medical school, start reading Medical Economics (memag.com) on a regular basis. This is the economic side you won’t learn about until you are in practice and “already behind the 8-ball”.</p>
<p>I stay away from various internet articles,…etc. I seek internet info strictly when I need very detailed info. I found huge wealth of it for my job, very technical detailed information, so I use internet for that. Several times, (soryy to all MDs out there), it saved me a trip to a doc. I read (very carefully evaluating what I read) and found proper plan of action for several (non-severe) conditions and they have been working for many years now. Again, have to be very careful here and by no means avoid going to emergency if your condition requires, which I always engourage to do ALL of my family memebers.
However, I NEVER EVER take opinions from internet (or for that matter from anybody else). Yes, listen to them politely and do your own thing, whatever YOU personally planned to do to make yourself happy and to accomplish your goal. This has been working for me (and I am ancient, I have a grandD in High School) and I tell it to all in my family. Stand your own ground no matter what you hear from others…or you will be very very sorry for your wasted life. We have only one life, we should live it to our own liking, not somebody else’s.</p>