<p>I have noticed a general trend that people who often have a lot of money (whether it be business, medicine, etc.) often discourage picking a profession for money.</p>
<p>Isn't that what society drives us to do for our careers? Why would I not want to make a lot of money in my job?</p>
<p>I am by no means saying money is important in the grand scheme of life, but isn't it important in picking a profession?</p>
<p>If I could be a doctor over a lawyer and I loved doing both equally, shouldn't I become a doctor?</p>
<p>Money is very important but there are other, easier, ways to make money rather than spending 8+ years in med school/residency. If you can't see yourself doing anything but medicine, go for it.</p>
<p>... also, you seem to be assuming that doctors make less than lawyers. Depending on what law school you're talking about, that could be a *ridiculously *wrong assumption.</p>
<p>And certainly neither group makes as much as top-tier MBA programs.</p>
<p>Doing medicine for the money is a wholly stupid idea. Believe me, you don't want to go through this if all you want is the 6 figure salary. It is absolutely NOT worth it. It's not even that it's long, it's not even that you have to take out thousands of dollars in loans, it's that medical school simply sucks!</p>
<p>I'm sure top business schools are rigorous, but my friends who are getting their MBA's now from pretty low ranked state schools seem to be going out more than they did when they were in undergrad.</p>
<p>because of the long years of training (ie commitment) you must undergo before commanding the high salary. and the long hours once you're in the profession. factor in opportunity cost and you'll see that there's much more earning potential in business or law.</p>
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Doing medicine for the money is a wholly stupid idea. Believe me, you don't want to go through this if all you want is the 6 figure salary. It is absolutely NOT worth it. It's not even that it's long, it's not even that you have to take out thousands of dollars in loans, it's that medical school simply sucks!
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<p>How does it suck? Yes, the actual process of going through medical school is rigorous, but you are guaranteed a salary of 200K+, perhaps even much higher if you maximize profits in a private practice. Yeah your business buddies might hang out more during school, but they have no guaranteed salary and will have to work long hours and fight it out in the real world if they want to have a large salary. Once you are in medical school, you are set.</p>
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factor in opportunity cost and you'll see that there's much more earning potential in business or law.
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<p>It is true that medical school squanders all other opprotunities. However, on average, doctors make much more than lawyers. It is very difficult to enter the top salary echelons of law unless one graduates from Harvard/Yale (or another very top program), whereas someone can graduate from ANY medical school and make the same amount of money. Top medical schools are only necessary for academics, not salary.</p>
<p>Youre right that once your in, the average salary is high. But if you are doing it ONLY for the money, it simply doesn't make sense. The debt incurred is high, the hours are long, the process to get there is very time consuming. </p>
<p>Now I suppose if you are only worried about the final $$$ amount that you earn, and don't care about how you get there, perhaps it's not such a horrible idea. But in general people want the money in the most cost effective, energy efficient manner. If I really just the wanted the money, I would have long ago dropped medicine and tried to find some other way. Or more likely, if I was only about the money, I'd try to find a way where I could a whole hell of a lot more than I'd ever earn as a doctor. Yes, once you are in medical school, you are "set", but that security at the bottom, essentially sacrifices the top levels. Because there's little hierarchy in medical salaries, there is little need to rise to the top for a great salary. </p>
<p>If you must go into a healthcare profession, be an orthodontist...they make way more money with way better hours.</p>
What on earth would make you think such a thing? $100K, sure, and that's an awful lot of money, but $200K is *dramatically *above average in the most common medical specialties -- family practice, pediatrics, and internal medicine.</p>
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Your business buddies [...] will have to work long hours
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Longer than doctors?</p>
<p>Most importantly, you're making the egregious error of forgetting that money has a time-value associated with it, which is why money early matters more than money late. So if a young lawyer from a good school is making $150K while you're paying $65K for medical school looking forward to seven years of $45K residencies, that weights a lot more than later on if you (somehow) manage to make a little more than him by the time you reach 40.</p>
<p>Once you've thought about the time cost, somebody who drops out of high school at 16 to become an auto mechanic, spends a few years living frugally (say, until age 20), and then goes and becomes a averagely-competent real estate agent will outearn any physician's lifetime earnings without ever having had to work more than a 40 hour week.</p>
<p>Medicine is an amazing, worthwhile career. But it requires that you forfeit a great deal of the money you could have earned in something more lucrative. If that's okay with you, then take your best shot. If it's not, you should go look for something else.</p>
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How does it suck? Yes, the actual process of going through medical school is rigorous, but you are guaranteed a salary of 200K+,
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<p>Really? Then perhaps you'd like to tell that to the physicians who reported their salaries to the BLS. Quite a few of them seem not to know that they are guaranteed a salary of 200k.</p>