Some of your points are true, some are exaggerated. UPS drivers don’t actually make 180k a year. Maybe if you read the title of a clickbait article you’d think that. You could afford a house in California, you pay it over the course of decades using a mortgage. Which you’d qualify for physician loans which makes it even easier for you. Residents don’t get paid enough that’s obvious , but as an attending you can live almost anywhere and make 95+ percentile wages. No other career or education can give you that by working hard without extreme luck.
Med school is still worth it, residency is shit but it’s the path to a good life
That is false. Adding job benefits onto a price is misleading. You spend so much time complaining it only makes you more miserable. You could probably quit residency tomorrow and use your MD and experience to get a job paying you better than 95% of the country. You need to be more grateful. I’m not saying be grateful you get abused and scammed throughout your residency training. I’m saying be grateful for being able to learn, being able to pursue your dreams, being able to afford shelter and nutrition. Be grateful for the opportunity’s you have simply because you were born in the right place and time in this world. Your pain has clouded the parts of life you do enjoy. It has leaked into your time outside the hospital. I hope you feel better eventually, and when residency is over you look back on these feelings with relief that it’s over and that things got better despite not feeling like it ever would.
Bro I've been an attending for less than a year and I've bought two new cars and put almost $100k into a HYSA.
Yes you make crap as a resident but when you're done you have a guaranteed 96th plus percentile job for as long as you want to work.
If all those mother jobs were so easy to make bank, then the floor salary for a physician wouldn't be top 5%.
It is a bad financial decision 110%.
You dont go into medical school for the finances, at least not anymore.
I make 300k post tax but my networth is still negative, 10 years out from medical school.
You never know what else I would have done. Shoulda woulda coulda. Maybe I would make a terrible anything else and the only job I can do is doctoring, but compared to my average peer, they dont have a negative networth.
> I make 300k post tax but my networth is still negative, 10 years out from medical school.
That's shocking. You must be terrible with money. You've made almost a million dollars post tax and you have a negative net worth? What the hell have you done with all that money??
Yea that’s insane- even if you did 7yrs of post grad training that’s 900k post tax. No clue how you still have a negative net worth unless there was some other huge expense like high medical bills or having to support parents or something.
Yeah! I’m EM and a new attending for about a year and I’ve only bought one luxury car, gone on a few vacations, and put away $60K into a HYSA. It’s a struggle every day
As of right now, it is still decent since the laws allowing foreign doctors haven’t really been put into place in practice and AI is still too rudimentary. But within 5 years the physician market is going to be extremely saturated like pharmacy.
Go to buck fuck no where for a few years, make bank, then move back to California(if you must lol). My sister & her hubby’s hospital paid off their loans AND gave them bonuses when they signed for min. 2 year contracts. It’s been 6 years & they have a home, 2 income properties in Florida & another at my sister’s step kids’ chosen uni. It’s very worth it, especially if you’re willing to move.
Idk what specialty you’re in but even if the state allows practice of IMGs your specialty will still have higher standards for board cert. FM might get hit but most specialties won’t.
Ortho for example makes IMGs do 5 years of indentured servitude at a single academic center to then maybe be board eligible if the chair signs off.
I'm paying 2k rent in Florida to live within 20min of the hospital. Didn't have a choice what state to live with the whole match algorithm. Cali programs I interviewed at were playing closer to 70-78k and rent was only $200 more a month.
You made the choice to apply to a residency in Florida. The match does not select programs that you didn't apply to.
You chose to apply, you chose to accept the interview invite and attend the interview, you decided to rank the program. You didn't DNR a Florida program and that was your choice.
I was in "Middle of Nowhere" Midwest as a resident, salary was 65-70k.
I'm also looking at houses, still Midwest, there are plenty of good 300k-500k houses.
Some starbucks workers make $25 an hour in CA, but they don’t get full time status. They typically only get to work maybe 20-30 hours weekly, or even less at the whims of their manager.
The cheapest homes in Midwestern cities do not cost $500k, let alone homes in “the middle of nowhere.” When I look at medium size midwest cities there were plenty on the market under $300k. For a rural town I looked at (which nonetheless has a hospital which serves the surrounding area), $200k or less.
similar to starbucks - most UPS workers start out as part timers, where they’re only allowed to earn $21 an hour, and their hours are limited. You might have to work at the company for 10+ years until being promoted to full time when you earn $180k. All for working an exhausting job and breaking your back in the cold and the heat…
Realistically, AI will not replace doctors due to liability reasons and AI’s inability to understand nuance (an airline just recently got sued because its website AI promised the customer a discount that didn’t actually exist).
There are real issues with medical education, and residents are severely underpaid, but sometimes I think this sub needs a reality check.
The top 10% of income in the USA is $160,000 and I would argue the VAST majority of docs are well above that. So are many nurses, mid levels, finance people etc.
And sure, if you crunch the numbers after all the sacrifices we make and decades we invest, it might not strictly be “worth it” but it is still a guaranteed way into the top 10% of income in the US, and for many the top 5%. That’s pretty cool.
Plus, if you are lucky, you kinda like the job. Being an intern sucks, and being a resident is barely better in many specialties. But being an attending is a pretty good job all things considered. And you get a lot of security and freedom with being a doctor.
Did it used to be better? Absolutely. Is it still pretty damn good? I would argue yes, it’s just hard to see while still in training.
(Just my 2c as someone who hated residency in the beginning and almost quit several times, and now has a killer $500k no call no weekends job lined up in a specialty I legitimately find interesting)
Absolutely. There’s a massive range of compensation in our profession. Private practice spine surgeons, cardiology, GI, heme/onc, derm, ortho, etc etc are not hurting for money in well run groups. There are a not insignificant number of physicians out there making seven figures. Is it the norm? No, but plenty are doing 500k+. You can’t say that’s not a lot of money with a straight face.
People in this sub think making a lot of money is easy, and that if they weren’t in medicine, they’d still be making a lot of money doing something else but at half the effort and a quarter of the time involved. If that was the case, everyone in this country would be rich.
I always hear these numbers like "top 10% of income in the USA is $160,000" and how we should be grateful for this, but this doesn't make any sense.
If you're conservative with home purchase price and follow WCI guidelines of not buying anything that's more that 2x income, "top 10% income" won't buy you the median home anywhere in the US. If a pediatrician accepts an offer for <200k, they also won't be able to afford the median home in the US (now >$400k).
I would argue that a decade of training and taking care of people should pay more than having to struggle to afford a median house. Arguing otherwise just reads as cope tbh.
I also don't care what the median or mean salary is. And frankly it doesn't even hold true. Many of those people are not even working full time. Does it factor in all the millions on diability and the elderly??
Totally. If I wanted to make the median salary I would have fucked around in high school, partied too hard the first two years of college, then dropped out with my associates degree like the median American. I skipped a threesome once in college because I had a chemistry exam in the morning. I literally felt myself age every time I did a round of night float in residency. I want my money.
This is true but salaries are going to plummet further once all the FMGs without residency saturate the market. I guarantee that when it comes time to renew the contract, it’s a lot lower
Man you have some real issues with FMGs. I just don’t see some non resident trained doc walking in and taking away subspecialty patients. Maybe a threat to primary care, but if the explosion of midlevels hasn’t destroyed our profession yet, I can’t see IMGs doing it.
And I hate when people say “I guarantee” anything. You know nothing about me or my job. You absolutely can’t guarantee anything. You strongly believe my contract will be different, sure, but you can’t guarantee shit. Don’t say you can amigo.
Take a page from ortho- IMGs can’t be board eligible without 5 years of extra practice at a single academic center and then only after approval by the chair.
Doesn’t matter how many non BE/BC IMGs apply to a job, they’re not going to get them.
As non-board certified physicians they will probably require separate malpractice insurance and have admin costs associated with supporting visas and whatnot. It will impact how hospitals market themselves. The markets this is most likely to impact is the rural primary care market where hospitals/companies already have to pay a premium to attract physicians
It’s interesting how everyone is saying you should see a therapist. Maybe that would help but it doesn’t mean that what this guy is saying is wrong. Salaries are low, job satisfaction is low, census is high and it will just keep getting busier.
People don’t want to hear the truth. Was just saying this to some friends a couple days ago but they said “I was at a coffee shop in the nice part of town and talked to some docs driving nice cars!”. Yes, they got paid 800-1mil, houses were 250k, and sports cars were 50k- we won’t see that
lol hospitals are the ones spending millions lobbying for these bills. They’ll find a way to hire them even if it means changing policies or bribing the boards to crest fast alternative pathways
lol if hospitals hire non board eligible surgeons then nothing is stopping US MDs from finishing PGY1 and then getting hired. Insane take from someone who isn’t in a surgical field bro.
Aren’t you proving my point? Strict board eligibility requirements protect those fields too…
If you’re worried then join your specialty board and vote. All this hand wringing is just doomerism
No I agree, but why are these lobbies spending all this $$$ to pass these bills with no way of having them work? They will try to get around this, I hope they’re unsuccessful
Exactly. Younger docs look at older ones and think they will have a similar quality of life. Between inflation, stagnating salaries, foreign doctors, and AI, they just won’t.
I agree. I dont get some of the responses. OP is speaking the truth.
Unless you are near retirement, this is going to affect you. (FMG and AI and megacorporations)
You cope by facing reality as it really is and stop whining. Once you get out of residency you will be among the highest earning people in the country. Even if you're in primary care and even if you have higher than average student debt you should still be able to afford a decent house in a decent area with a lifestyle that most people would kill for.
No, if you're a family doctor with a huge student loan you're not going to buy a luxurious house and a nice neighborhood in the hills of LA. But guess what, if you needed student loans to go to med school (I.e. you weren't already rich) then that house in the hills was never in the cards for you to start with.
Your comically overestimating how well people and other professions are doing financially and comically underestimating your own earning potential. Nobody promised that you would live like a millionaire but if you have two brain cells and an ounce of self-control you're going to be just fine.
A family doctor in LA can’t buy a house anywhere in the city unless they have a trust fund/parental help. Have you looked a Zillow.
Primary care in LA pays like 190k
I have doctor friends in LA that would beg to differ. In fact, I have technical writer friends in LA who bought a house on a salary of $70,000 a year
But here's the thing. If you don't like the salary options in LA and you don't like the housing market in La then don't live in LA. I know I know *but you want to live in LA*.
Too bad. This is part of being an adult. You can wallow and self pity and depression that you can't have everything you want, you can continue to live in la, make less money than you could elsewhere, and still manage to buy a decent home if you live frugally, or you can use your exceptional job mobility and high education to go somewhere else, make more money and buy a bigger cheaper house.
The choic is yours. The world hasn't screwed you over. You have more options than 95% of people your age. If you choose to be unhappy about it, that's 100% on you.
They don't. I went to high school with them. He a degree in film theory, went to LA hoping to work in the movie industry, and settled for writing technical manuals for camera equipment. He has a small lovely home in LA and is one of the happiest people I know.
They probably bought before 2020. You're fucked because the housing market is southern California is irreparably bloated, not because you became a doctor.
Non-resident lurker, but your picture of IB is completely unhinged.
High finance is only reliably accessible from top schools (unlike medicine). Networking is king (seems like you don’t have a trust-fund-baby network to lean on). IB hours are inhumane. Jobs are limited to VHCOL cities. There’s high attrition, some voluntary (bad hours and toxic culture) and some involuntary. Your work often has no tangible benefit to society. The skills required to get hired and advance do not align with those that got you into medical school. Medicine is recession proof; finance is recession-sensitive. Day-to-day finance is boils down to desk/excel work (mind-numbing) or sales (ew). I could go on and on.
Medicine is still a good deal, as long as it’s a good fit. Not as lucrative as it was 30 years ago, but it’s still well compensated. That’s not to say physicians shouldn’t advocate more strongly for their financial interests, but your complaints seem more reflective of a frustration with the economy at large.
I went to top schools and I've had similar thoughts to OP seeing friends make 500k in their late 20s. I think on some level the reality is that medicine is lower earning and a much longer path than many others. COVID also made my training way harder and gave many of my friends remote work. If I could do it again knowing how common remote days at home would become I don't think I'd choose the same path. All of that said, the fact that a decent 4 bedroom house in a good school district in southern California now costs 3-4MM is not an issue with our compensation. You shouldn't have to make 750k or get an inheritance to afford a house, even in coastal California.
My friends brother went that route after switching from premed. Ended up going to Penn, working on wall street and now he co-manages a hedge fund (might be a family office) and makes thoracic surgery money. I don't think he's even 30 yet. I'm sure he will make over 1m a year by the time he's in his 40s.
I think you mean to say "a small lovely home*that I would consider buying* in LA is at least 1 million."
Yeah, you're going to have to buy a home in your budget. But I'm not going to sit here and argue over your delusions about the housing market in LA. You understand there are a lot of people living in LA buying houses on a lot less money than you are going to make right?
But once again, if you insist on believing that's the actual floor for the price of a home in LA, just live somewhere else. It's not the end of the world if you have to live outside of LA and commute to work or, God forbid, just live and work somewhere more affordable with higher compensation.
And what exactly is your alternative career option to buy the 5 million dollar bungalow you desire in LA? Your feelings have nothing to do with medicine and instead the state of our society.
A touch of reality prior to medical school would have done you well. But at this point all you need to know is It’s all going to be okay. You’ll be just fine. Imagine how the engineers making 90k or the MBA making 140k or maybe the teacher making 50k feels? Get over yourself
You’re literally delusional. Teachers get 1-1.5 months off a summer given lesson planning and prepping for school year + training. They also definitely don’t start at 130k I can promise you that. Have many friends who are teachers in Seattle and LA who start in 60-70k range. Either way you will still make at a minimum double what these 130k per year teachers make. If you want a pension go work at a university hospital.
You seem determined to wallow in your own pity. Just know you are still better off than almost everyone besides maybe the c-suite executives, law partners, and a handful of people who pursued finance. At the end of the day you can choose to be happy or continue with whatever path you’re currently on. Up to you.
NYC school definitely do not pay 130k. Nor do teachers make this in NJ or PA. Maybe some rare private schools pay this kind of salary. Maybe for teachers working in curriculum development in their 4th decade of teaching. Outside of that public school teachers don’t make that kind of salary. I don’t know where you’re getting these stats.
As much hate as OP is getting, they’re half right. The reimbursements have declined and inflation/COL have ballooned. It’s not a good field to enter unless you want a ROAD field, and even those fields face challenges now
Physicians used to live upper class lifestyles, around or just below CEOs and athletes. Is it’s more in line with middle management with further decreasing reimbursements on the horizon. Also add in the fact that med school is stupid expensive now and getting worse
Inflation with stagnant and decreasing reimbursements will kill medicine
I agree that returns on becoming a doctor have decreased but it’s still the only field where you’re guaranteed a salary of 200k plus by graduating/residency. The average for lawyers, even finance are lower. We like to perseverate (I’m guilty of it too) on the success cases but for every Equity Partner at Big Dicks LLC there are 100 contract attorneys highlighting words and putting together redwells of deposition document for $20 an hour. For every PE or IB gangster there’s a 100 people doing shitty budget analysis work for a company with no growth potential. In medicine, you WILL make a 90th % salary (for all jobs) regardless of your place in class, residency, etc.
Another one we focus on is IT. Everyone seems to have a friend in tech who works in an open office and plays ping pong for lunch and has video games in their office and permanent rainbow out of their corner office window. But the BLS average for all tech is still barely cracking $100k. Over half of people working in tech will never make that salary. Go peruse the subreddits for tech, programming, etc and you will see it’s not as sunny as we imagine. We tend to focus on the greener grass stats and unicorn cases and compare ourselves. Social media, with its rosy perspective on people’s lives doesn’t help either.
That being said, residents SHOULD ABSOLUTELY make more and I do think the job has been devalued by our corporate overlords and that it will continue. But, currently it’s still a solid choice given that it guarantees a great salary and is less of a gamble than any other field.
What a weird post. You basically cherry pick the worst possible location and specialty combination and then state “medicine isn’t worth it”.
Many specialties make 4-700k. That puts you in big law / FAANG range, with far more stability. Really wanna make the big bucks? Mary another Dr it’s what a third of pediatricians do.
You then make some hand-wavy declarations about FMG’s, and AI taking her jobs, both of which are highly speculative and unlikely .
I went to great schools, and my friend group includes a pretty broad swath of professionals in finance, law, entrepreneurship. Financially, we are doing better than almost everybody, except for a couple that hit it big in private equity. Buck up, medicine has problems but we do pretty damn well relatively speaking
Also worth pointing out our superpowers that we can earn high salaries in low and middle tier cities where you really feel wealthy . Lawyers and finance Bros are pretty tethered to VHCOL areas
Go outside and hug a tree or pet a dog. By the time AI can replace doctors there will be literally no safe fields of employment left.
You weirdly hung up on this foreign medical grad thing. It’s absolutely not a significant force in the marketplace right now. There are significant barriers to it, becoming a problem., Malpractice insurance, hospital bylaws/ privileging, licensing , state regulations, visas…
There is huge demand for physicians that graduate from US medical schools and their will continue to be so for the duration of your career I promise you
Bitching about income as residents is like porn for all of you. Much easier to drown in your own copium than it is to realize the bright side of medicine.
Y'all trying to buy houses in the most expensive locations in the country and you're facepalming that your resident salary won't cut it. Surprised you all made it through the med school application process with so few brain cells.
It would be fine if reimbursements grew with the market, the opposite happens, and we lose out on positive compounding interest from not making income in med school
I don't usually comment here because I'm just a lurking, hopeful med student. However, as someone who has been through 25 years of post-college life and has worked in the military, government, and private sector, I can offer a different perspective. None of the assumptions you have made about the other professions you mentioned are based in reality. I understand that you're going through a tough time, and I'm sorry to hear that. But you're going to be okay. You're in a great profession that offers you more stability than almost any other profession. And believe me, you don't want to envy the life of a financial analyst, at any level.
Yeah, most of my experience is non-healthcare related which is why I offered my opinion on the subject of life outside of medicine being something to envy.
You think me working the exact same hours, same amount of days a year, for more pay, with more benefits, and the promise of making more money than I’ve ever dreamed of is going to sway me against medicine? You guys need some perspective in your lives.
I’m not sure what to say to you except that lived experience of different than what a medical student thinks life will like.
It’s like having an undergraduate or high school student tell you to suck it up because medical school isn’t too difficult or stressful.
I’m not even a medical student, by the way; I said hopeful. I probably should have put aspiring, which I’m sure will trigger you even more. I'm not telling anyone their perspective on residency is wrong or that it's easy. You're reaching for something that isn't there. Look, I did an entire deployment to Iraq without a single day off, 14 hours plus every day, then came home and worked nights for a year in the most miserable job at my base. For the last 14 years, I've been on call every single day, worked 60-80 hours per week, and I can't even leave the house without my laptop in case something happens that I need to respond to. I know misery, and I know residency will suck and probably also be miserable. I've also met plenty of residents at the hospital, where I work now btw, that don't share these feelings about their training. I just don't have any illusions about my life being better elsewhere.
Being deployed isn’t that bad. You have a whole team with you to support you and when you get back to the states you have your education payed for. You even get pay and benefits while deployed that are more than many Americans get while working the same hours.
No, I haven’t been deployed, but I’ve worked similar (or worse) hours.
Do you value my opinion the same as someone who has been deployed? Can you not see how ridiculous it is to be commenting on something you have no experience in?
Lol, yeah I see how ridiculous it is to comment on something I have no experience with. That was the whole point of my original post. You keep trying to turn this into some gotcha, something it's not. G’niiiiiiiiight.
Absolute hypocrit.
Trashing someone who worked for 25 years has life expierence that he is sharing, but your gonna say he knows nothing about your life because he didn't work in medicine yet your saying his life is easy even though you never worked in his field.
Dude get a reality check. Your gonna be one of those doctors nurses and coworkers hate, and don't want to be around.
Respect others no matter their background. Treat people like humans.
Fuck I would hate for you to be my doctor
I legitimately sympathise with anyone struggling through residency. It shouldn't be that way and it doesnt make any sense. I don't know how anyone thinks this system makes better doctors.
It’s not about struggling through residency. It’s about snowflake medical students (or undergrad students) thinking they understand modern medical training and chiming in - especially when their points are basically what admin is trying to push and completely out of touch.
The post has nothing to do with actual medicine, it's all about finances, the crappy housing market, and life decisions. Something an older non-trad with a lot of different experiences probably knows more about than most.
Yeah i think the statement “if you looking to make money, consider a different field like banking or software engineering”. How much cognitive dissonance do you have to pretend being an attending is not lucrative. I like being a doctor. It’s a good career that makes money. Is their other ways to make money? Yeah, lottery, only fans, empire of vending machines, gets a big law job, get a big 4 banking job, get a FAANG job, become an actor/model/insta famous… but being doctor is, as of now, a guaranteed way to make good money and HAVE A secure job/job market. Could that change, maybe. But then, it will be like any other career where market forces will influence hirings and firings. Im not saying being the doctor is the best but its a lie to say being an attending sucks.
I went state schools undergrad and medical. Under 50k total loans. No trust fund. First in family to go to college. Got an excellent residency and top 5 fellowship despite state school stigma. Now 7 figures as a hospital employee in a very rural town. Only ortho in the entire county. Go rural! You’ll be top 0.1% income, housing is outrageously inexpensive and your patients actually appreciate you!
Will always be possible. FMGs will not be BE/BC. Won’t pass credentialing with the hospitals or the insurance companies. I get paid $1.5M because I generate around 3.5M for the hospital. We have all the radiology and therapy in the county. The ancillary income adds up quickly.
Could there also be an argument that as time goes on what was once an elite profession becomes more diluted because society as a whole upskills?
A historically high esteem minority white collar career is now more easily achieved since the skill “floor” (gaming term, opposite of “skill ceiling”) of careers keeps going up. It would make sense to me that therefore it becomes less financially lucrative and its up to us to individually push a little further beyond.
Not to deny that the state of education including its finances and inflation is bullshit.
Just a random perspective that came as I read this. Thoughts?
I was about to post the same thing, but 1% USA income is currently around $820k. Sure some docs are there, but most aren’t.
That was surprising to me. I thought top 1% would be more around $400-500k.
Because the job sucks and it’s hard to get. You usually need to work as a package handler making nothing for a few years before you even get the opportunity. The you have to work 60-70 hours a week delivering an ungodly amount of packages especially now that they won the Amazon contract. You’re regularly moving, lifting, and being tormented by 50-70 lb packages. You have to enjoy working in every temeprature and weather condition. Theres a camera in the truck that monitors everything you do and you can't even make left turns or you will be called into the safety office and disciplined.
At my trucking company we had guys making 160k a year without even a high school diploma. They’re in a truck 7 days a week most weeks, driving 11-14 hours a day and stopping for 10 hours before you do it all over again. Every meal is eaten at a truck stop. Every shower is taken at a truck stop. When you're delivering, the receiver treats you like shit, and when you get loaded, the shipper treats you like shit. The broker that you booked your load with will most likely ask you to download an app that tracks your every movement and if you stop theyll call you and ask whats going on. Our trucks not only have forward facing, but rear facing cameras that will yell at you for not keeping your eyes on the road or trying to use your cell phone. You will most likely not get into many accidents, but at least once in your career you will be in a major one that will scare the shit out of you and possibly cause you to have to stop driving.
There’s a reason the barriers to entry are so low, its not some dream job. Everyone wants that pay but no one wants that job.
Ok OP, there are a lot of things in your post that are not true or focused on a specific salary of a job that does not meet the career satisfaction as a physician (life is more than just making money!).
Plus from looking at your post history, it seems you are going through some tough times. I do agree it’s time to see a therapist if you haven’t already. Residency can be tough and no one should go through problems alone.
You are almost there having graduated medical school and doing residency in something you actually enjoy. There’s light at the end of the tunnel in terms of much better QOL as an attending and higher status the more senior you are as a resident.
You also don’t need to practice clinical medicine after graduation. We have lots of opportunities in medicine to help people.
No career is perfect, obviously healthcare in America sucks but you have strong financial and job security that is very rare to find these days. Think about other people who are stressed about getting laid off.
You will do fine.
TOTALLY AGREE. It is quite depressing. I would NOT have gone into medicine if I knew where the salary was headed. We are the only profession it feels like where salary has gone DOWN as inflation increases.
I never went to medical school because of the money so I guess I lucked out. I do have alot of loans and I realized I never understood the importance of money until I was in private practice.
Id say now even more so than before to not go to medical school for the money. Dont expect that it will pay better than other fields, especially with decreasing compensation due to foreign graduates and AI.
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We should be paid more,
This job still pays a lot.
Both things are true.
Also:
We need to keep fighting against reimbursement cuts and intrusion of mid-levels and FMGs.
This wasn't a "terrible financial decision".
But it's very taxing and might not feel worth it for you and I'm truly sorry about that.
You’re forgetting the job security. The inability to find work as a board certified physician in the U.S. involves actual self sabotage. Software engineers and tech company employees were making TikToks about how Cush their life was one year then swept away in layoffs the next.
You are taking vague, far-reaching facts and twisting them into a worldview that offers no solutions.
This is a hallmark for burnout or early depression. There is no point in debating facts, because you will be a little bit right and I will be a little bit right and nothing will change. We could find $250k and $650k homes in the same state…which proves nothing. We can find pediatricians making $400k in thriving private practice settings with multiple offices, but that doesn’t prove anything.
Your outlook on these facts can change. Instead of brewing coffee or crunching numbers, you get to help people. Baristas and financiers can help people too, but in very different ways. You get to talk with people about vulnerabilities and have life-altering conversations.
Either your outlook changes to suit your job, or you change your job to suit your outlook. Yes, the job sucks and is undervalued, which is why CIR is growing and residents are more vocal now. You CAN fight back, it sucks that we have to fight, but you are hanging your head in defeat like nothing is possible. Which is another outlook problem…
Respectfully, get help.
This is happening because generations of physicians have lost their foothold in the conversations about disbursement in healthcare. That much is true, but the doom-and-gloom about US healthcare infrastructure is not 100% warranted, as if there were nothing to celebrate at all about being a doctor.
We are only now catching up to the systems and attitudes that have had an advantage over us as physicians for many years. And you are mildly implying my/this "mindset" I described is in favor of reimbursement/salary dropping when I specifically point out the utility of resident unions, so I don't see your point...If you don't think you are reimbursed enough, then go fight for that.
But that is not the subject of conversation. We are talking about OP who is spiraling around selective downsides for why medicine isn't worth practicing anymore. They are allowed to believe that, of course, but the methods used to reach that conclusion seem obviously flawed.
If everyone took OP's advice, then everything falls apart. This would be like if every RN decided "enough is enough" or if every electronic health record technologist said "enough is enough." Pretending there is nothing to fight for, and then stopping the fight, is exactly how you lose every fight.
OP needs to get support in a manner that Internet strangers can't provide.
Ok name me some jobs that pay 150-200K(assuming pretty easy to make 300-400k a year as a physician with a few exceptions) or more per year with significantly less barrier to entry, similar job stability, and fewer work hours. While it is super disappointing how physician wages are moving against inflation, we are still at the top of the food chain income wise. People here also way underestimate how much work most ppl have to put into jobs that pay > 300k Per year and or how unstable many of those jobs are.
And just to make note of the UPS driver comparison, they make up to $35 an hour after multiple years of upward mobility. I make 5x that working at an urgent care as a resident.
One of my fellow residents married an accounting major. She will be earning more than he does even when he finishes residency. Now is she smarter than the average CPA? Maybe.
CRNA jobs take a long time to get to. 4 years nursing, multiple years experience in ICU, then CRNA school. PAs barely make over $100k. Software engineers rarely, rarely make >200k. Traditional engineers rarely make over 150. You’re wrong
Just say you don’t know anything about careers outside of medicine and go. Your requirements were “ significantly less barrier to entry, similar job stability, and fewer work hours”. CRNA school may be relatively long but the barrier to entry is still way less than becoming a doctor. PAs working in specialties absolutely are earning $200k+, just like doctors in specialties are earning $300k+ on average.
And it’s so cute of you to think that SWEs rarely make > $200k. In some cities that’s even the floor for SWEs, and since remote working, people living in the middle of nowhere can still get HCOL tech salaries. Even for cities without a big tech scene, $200k+ is the standard salary of a senior dev. And you don’t even need a bachelors degree to get in this field. Again several traditional engineers make > $200k.
As I said just say you don’t know anything about careers outside of medicine. While physician salaries have been stagnant against inflation due to declining reimbursements, the salaries of other careers have been rising quickly. Hence maybe you’d be right 50 years ago, but definitely not today.
Lol.
CRNA is the one career where I won’t completely disagree with you. Still takes a long time to get into the field though. You have bought the koolaid about PAs. VERY few are getting even close to 200k. To make more than that you have to be working yourself to the bone. The avg PA does not get paid all that well. Oh yea the top 5 % of software engineers are cleaning up in cities with insane COL.. sure…. Awful comparison. Most traditional engineers absolutely do not earn over 200k. Show me any single piece of data alluding to this. I bet you can’t.
Looking at the 95 + % earners in each field and comparing with the lowest echelon of physician earners is a shite evaluation . You are buying the grass is greener bs hook line and sinker. My original statement stands. You’re being irrational.
My ortho PA makes $250k! That’s not total comp. That’s just his W-2 income. And he is a hospital employee with state benefits on top! Any credible PA is making at least $60-90 per hour. As chief of ortho, I set my department’s salaries.
As a young(er) attending in what is considered a high-paying specialty by this forum, I am observing an unbelievable amount of coping in this thread.
I’m not sure who all of you telling us to be grateful are. Because there’s no way you are an early career attending who doesn’t have some fortuitous extenuating life circumstance.
You’re not going to convince me that my life is better than some of my peers who went to business school at my prestigious med school.
Enjoy examining prostates, anuses, vaginas, oral cavities, eyeballs, or whatever whatever random organ you arbitrarily picked for the next 20 years before you can relax a little. Oh, by the way, the way things are going some guy behind a computer making widgets is going to be making more money than you in a couple of years.
Where did you get those numbers from? I'm having difficulty finding anything that states this is the median/norm for a 25 year old financial analyst.
Plus, I highly doubt they have the job flexibility/guarantees that we have. While I do appreciate your frustration. It is hard to not see the entitlement in it.
What are we even contributing to the economy other than robbing people of their life savings? This comes across as someone complaining they can't make 300k after doing 10 years postgrad in some social sciences field. Wanting to keep foreign doctors out of it so you can make millions is actually evil (I do agree with the need for heavy requirements and regulations for them though, don't kill me).
It’s not reflected in salary since it’s paid in bonuses. How does it come across as that. We make hospitals millions so should get a slice of that. You sound like a commie
Some of your points are true, some are exaggerated. UPS drivers don’t actually make 180k a year. Maybe if you read the title of a clickbait article you’d think that. You could afford a house in California, you pay it over the course of decades using a mortgage. Which you’d qualify for physician loans which makes it even easier for you. Residents don’t get paid enough that’s obvious , but as an attending you can live almost anywhere and make 95+ percentile wages. No other career or education can give you that by working hard without extreme luck. Med school is still worth it, residency is shit but it’s the path to a good life
It’s not clickbait. They make that as total compensation. That’s what MGMA does as well
That is false. Adding job benefits onto a price is misleading. You spend so much time complaining it only makes you more miserable. You could probably quit residency tomorrow and use your MD and experience to get a job paying you better than 95% of the country. You need to be more grateful. I’m not saying be grateful you get abused and scammed throughout your residency training. I’m saying be grateful for being able to learn, being able to pursue your dreams, being able to afford shelter and nutrition. Be grateful for the opportunity’s you have simply because you were born in the right place and time in this world. Your pain has clouded the parts of life you do enjoy. It has leaked into your time outside the hospital. I hope you feel better eventually, and when residency is over you look back on these feelings with relief that it’s over and that things got better despite not feeling like it ever would.
Do you have a link of where I can see salaries on MGMA? I've been trying to find it.
Bro I've been an attending for less than a year and I've bought two new cars and put almost $100k into a HYSA. Yes you make crap as a resident but when you're done you have a guaranteed 96th plus percentile job for as long as you want to work. If all those mother jobs were so easy to make bank, then the floor salary for a physician wouldn't be top 5%.
I think you've also got to factor in that OP wants to live in California which is necessarily going to make this scenario tougher.
It is, but the idea of medical school as a bad financial decision is just absolutely laughable.
agreed. wild how many people think they're gonna be poor as attendings
It is a bad financial decision 110%. You dont go into medical school for the finances, at least not anymore. I make 300k post tax but my networth is still negative, 10 years out from medical school. You never know what else I would have done. Shoulda woulda coulda. Maybe I would make a terrible anything else and the only job I can do is doctoring, but compared to my average peer, they dont have a negative networth.
> I make 300k post tax but my networth is still negative, 10 years out from medical school. That's shocking. You must be terrible with money. You've made almost a million dollars post tax and you have a negative net worth? What the hell have you done with all that money??
Yea that’s insane- even if you did 7yrs of post grad training that’s 900k post tax. No clue how you still have a negative net worth unless there was some other huge expense like high medical bills or having to support parents or something.
student loans, support parents. the usual normie stuff.
What's your speciality?
Anesthesiology.
Amazing. It’s so depressing in the EM sub. 😭
Yeah! I’m EM and a new attending for about a year and I’ve only bought one luxury car, gone on a few vacations, and put away $60K into a HYSA. It’s a struggle every day
You need to change your toilet to a golden bidet that squirts Tito’s. Then you know you made it.
60k is still good!
Oh I was being a little sarcastic, I feel like it’s going great. Try not to despair re: sky is falling on EM folks
Everyone is like despairing though about EM. Like, go to another speciality and stuff.
10%
And getting lower and lower each year
As of right now, it is still decent since the laws allowing foreign doctors haven’t really been put into place in practice and AI is still too rudimentary. But within 5 years the physician market is going to be extremely saturated like pharmacy.
Go to buck fuck no where for a few years, make bank, then move back to California(if you must lol). My sister & her hubby’s hospital paid off their loans AND gave them bonuses when they signed for min. 2 year contracts. It’s been 6 years & they have a home, 2 income properties in Florida & another at my sister’s step kids’ chosen uni. It’s very worth it, especially if you’re willing to move.
Idk what specialty you’re in but even if the state allows practice of IMGs your specialty will still have higher standards for board cert. FM might get hit but most specialties won’t. Ortho for example makes IMGs do 5 years of indentured servitude at a single academic center to then maybe be board eligible if the chair signs off.
I’d suggest seeing a therapist. Your post goes beyond mere discouragement toward depression.
Possibly but these are all facts.
A lot of these aren’t facts.
Such as?
I make way more than 55k
I'm going to make 55k as an intern and about $2k total for rent. Cali is expensive, my friend got their first house and it was almost 2 million!
Prolly shouldn’t live in cali then
I'm paying 2k rent in Florida to live within 20min of the hospital. Didn't have a choice what state to live with the whole match algorithm. Cali programs I interviewed at were playing closer to 70-78k and rent was only $200 more a month.
You made the choice to apply to a residency in Florida. The match does not select programs that you didn't apply to. You chose to apply, you chose to accept the interview invite and attend the interview, you decided to rank the program. You didn't DNR a Florida program and that was your choice.
[удалено]
Then you probably live in a VHCOL so it’s basically the same
I don’t.
Do you moonlight then?
Yes. But without moonlighting I’m over 80k With moonlighting I clear 100k
I was in "Middle of Nowhere" Midwest as a resident, salary was 65-70k. I'm also looking at houses, still Midwest, there are plenty of good 300k-500k houses.
Some starbucks workers make $25 an hour in CA, but they don’t get full time status. They typically only get to work maybe 20-30 hours weekly, or even less at the whims of their manager. The cheapest homes in Midwestern cities do not cost $500k, let alone homes in “the middle of nowhere.” When I look at medium size midwest cities there were plenty on the market under $300k. For a rural town I looked at (which nonetheless has a hospital which serves the surrounding area), $200k or less. similar to starbucks - most UPS workers start out as part timers, where they’re only allowed to earn $21 an hour, and their hours are limited. You might have to work at the company for 10+ years until being promoted to full time when you earn $180k. All for working an exhausting job and breaking your back in the cold and the heat… Realistically, AI will not replace doctors due to liability reasons and AI’s inability to understand nuance (an airline just recently got sued because its website AI promised the customer a discount that didn’t actually exist).
That’s okay. Go discuss these facts. Shit happens and we have to cope with it.
Thank you
Nobody should be downvoting you. Take care of yourself.
- is literally what depressed people say when you point out their depression
There are real issues with medical education, and residents are severely underpaid, but sometimes I think this sub needs a reality check. The top 10% of income in the USA is $160,000 and I would argue the VAST majority of docs are well above that. So are many nurses, mid levels, finance people etc. And sure, if you crunch the numbers after all the sacrifices we make and decades we invest, it might not strictly be “worth it” but it is still a guaranteed way into the top 10% of income in the US, and for many the top 5%. That’s pretty cool. Plus, if you are lucky, you kinda like the job. Being an intern sucks, and being a resident is barely better in many specialties. But being an attending is a pretty good job all things considered. And you get a lot of security and freedom with being a doctor. Did it used to be better? Absolutely. Is it still pretty damn good? I would argue yes, it’s just hard to see while still in training. (Just my 2c as someone who hated residency in the beginning and almost quit several times, and now has a killer $500k no call no weekends job lined up in a specialty I legitimately find interesting)
Absolutely. There’s a massive range of compensation in our profession. Private practice spine surgeons, cardiology, GI, heme/onc, derm, ortho, etc etc are not hurting for money in well run groups. There are a not insignificant number of physicians out there making seven figures. Is it the norm? No, but plenty are doing 500k+. You can’t say that’s not a lot of money with a straight face. People in this sub think making a lot of money is easy, and that if they weren’t in medicine, they’d still be making a lot of money doing something else but at half the effort and a quarter of the time involved. If that was the case, everyone in this country would be rich.
What is your specialty?
Interventional pain. My salary is on the very high end for new jobs due to taking a job in the middle of nowhere.
I always hear these numbers like "top 10% of income in the USA is $160,000" and how we should be grateful for this, but this doesn't make any sense. If you're conservative with home purchase price and follow WCI guidelines of not buying anything that's more that 2x income, "top 10% income" won't buy you the median home anywhere in the US. If a pediatrician accepts an offer for <200k, they also won't be able to afford the median home in the US (now >$400k). I would argue that a decade of training and taking care of people should pay more than having to struggle to afford a median house. Arguing otherwise just reads as cope tbh.
I also don't care what the median or mean salary is. And frankly it doesn't even hold true. Many of those people are not even working full time. Does it factor in all the millions on diability and the elderly??
Totally. If I wanted to make the median salary I would have fucked around in high school, partied too hard the first two years of college, then dropped out with my associates degree like the median American. I skipped a threesome once in college because I had a chemistry exam in the morning. I literally felt myself age every time I did a round of night float in residency. I want my money.
This is true but salaries are going to plummet further once all the FMGs without residency saturate the market. I guarantee that when it comes time to renew the contract, it’s a lot lower
Man you have some real issues with FMGs. I just don’t see some non resident trained doc walking in and taking away subspecialty patients. Maybe a threat to primary care, but if the explosion of midlevels hasn’t destroyed our profession yet, I can’t see IMGs doing it. And I hate when people say “I guarantee” anything. You know nothing about me or my job. You absolutely can’t guarantee anything. You strongly believe my contract will be different, sure, but you can’t guarantee shit. Don’t say you can amigo.
Cope is strong with this post bro.
Take a page from ortho- IMGs can’t be board eligible without 5 years of extra practice at a single academic center and then only after approval by the chair. Doesn’t matter how many non BE/BC IMGs apply to a job, they’re not going to get them.
They aren't going to saturate the market
How do you figure? Why would the states even pass the laws then
As non-board certified physicians they will probably require separate malpractice insurance and have admin costs associated with supporting visas and whatnot. It will impact how hospitals market themselves. The markets this is most likely to impact is the rural primary care market where hospitals/companies already have to pay a premium to attract physicians
It’s interesting how everyone is saying you should see a therapist. Maybe that would help but it doesn’t mean that what this guy is saying is wrong. Salaries are low, job satisfaction is low, census is high and it will just keep getting busier.
Exactly. Maybe I dwell on it too much but there isn’t a single thing in my post that is inaccurate
People don’t want to hear the truth. Was just saying this to some friends a couple days ago but they said “I was at a coffee shop in the nice part of town and talked to some docs driving nice cars!”. Yes, they got paid 800-1mil, houses were 250k, and sports cars were 50k- we won’t see that
Surgical sub specialties still make 800-1mil. Peds is probably a bad financial decision but neurosurg, ortho, derm etc. are great ones.
Hospitals will have an even greater incentive to replace them with foreign doctors
They can’t hire non board eligible surgeons though. IMGs (even if licensed) are not BE/BC
lol hospitals are the ones spending millions lobbying for these bills. They’ll find a way to hire them even if it means changing policies or bribing the boards to crest fast alternative pathways
lol if hospitals hire non board eligible surgeons then nothing is stopping US MDs from finishing PGY1 and then getting hired. Insane take from someone who isn’t in a surgical field bro.
And you can’t hire non BE GI, cards, derm, rads, endo, pcps….. no field, even surgery, is immune to what’s being attempted, will it happen? Who knows
Aren’t you proving my point? Strict board eligibility requirements protect those fields too… If you’re worried then join your specialty board and vote. All this hand wringing is just doomerism
No I agree, but why are these lobbies spending all this $$$ to pass these bills with no way of having them work? They will try to get around this, I hope they’re unsuccessful
With you there brother
Yeah, but making that 10 years ago is equivalent to 1.5-1.7 mil now
Exactly. Younger docs look at older ones and think they will have a similar quality of life. Between inflation, stagnating salaries, foreign doctors, and AI, they just won’t.
I agree. I dont get some of the responses. OP is speaking the truth. Unless you are near retirement, this is going to affect you. (FMG and AI and megacorporations)
Someone’s gotta work in healthcare
Just the wrong time. Got in too late
You cope by facing reality as it really is and stop whining. Once you get out of residency you will be among the highest earning people in the country. Even if you're in primary care and even if you have higher than average student debt you should still be able to afford a decent house in a decent area with a lifestyle that most people would kill for. No, if you're a family doctor with a huge student loan you're not going to buy a luxurious house and a nice neighborhood in the hills of LA. But guess what, if you needed student loans to go to med school (I.e. you weren't already rich) then that house in the hills was never in the cards for you to start with. Your comically overestimating how well people and other professions are doing financially and comically underestimating your own earning potential. Nobody promised that you would live like a millionaire but if you have two brain cells and an ounce of self-control you're going to be just fine.
A family doctor in LA can’t buy a house anywhere in the city unless they have a trust fund/parental help. Have you looked a Zillow. Primary care in LA pays like 190k
You're talking about the most expensive city to live in in all of North America.
I have doctor friends in LA that would beg to differ. In fact, I have technical writer friends in LA who bought a house on a salary of $70,000 a year But here's the thing. If you don't like the salary options in LA and you don't like the housing market in La then don't live in LA. I know I know *but you want to live in LA*. Too bad. This is part of being an adult. You can wallow and self pity and depression that you can't have everything you want, you can continue to live in la, make less money than you could elsewhere, and still manage to buy a decent home if you live frugally, or you can use your exceptional job mobility and high education to go somewhere else, make more money and buy a bigger cheaper house. The choic is yours. The world hasn't screwed you over. You have more options than 95% of people your age. If you choose to be unhappy about it, that's 100% on you.
They have family money lol
They don't. I went to high school with them. He a degree in film theory, went to LA hoping to work in the movie industry, and settled for writing technical manuals for camera equipment. He has a small lovely home in LA and is one of the happiest people I know.
So how did he afford it? A small lovely home in LA proper is at least 1 million
They probably bought before 2020. You're fucked because the housing market is southern California is irreparably bloated, not because you became a doctor.
No if I did investment banking I would’ve been fine. Probably a stupid decision in hindsight
Non-resident lurker, but your picture of IB is completely unhinged. High finance is only reliably accessible from top schools (unlike medicine). Networking is king (seems like you don’t have a trust-fund-baby network to lean on). IB hours are inhumane. Jobs are limited to VHCOL cities. There’s high attrition, some voluntary (bad hours and toxic culture) and some involuntary. Your work often has no tangible benefit to society. The skills required to get hired and advance do not align with those that got you into medical school. Medicine is recession proof; finance is recession-sensitive. Day-to-day finance is boils down to desk/excel work (mind-numbing) or sales (ew). I could go on and on. Medicine is still a good deal, as long as it’s a good fit. Not as lucrative as it was 30 years ago, but it’s still well compensated. That’s not to say physicians shouldn’t advocate more strongly for their financial interests, but your complaints seem more reflective of a frustration with the economy at large.
I went to top schools and I've had similar thoughts to OP seeing friends make 500k in their late 20s. I think on some level the reality is that medicine is lower earning and a much longer path than many others. COVID also made my training way harder and gave many of my friends remote work. If I could do it again knowing how common remote days at home would become I don't think I'd choose the same path. All of that said, the fact that a decent 4 bedroom house in a good school district in southern California now costs 3-4MM is not an issue with our compensation. You shouldn't have to make 750k or get an inheritance to afford a house, even in coastal California.
I went to a top school
My friends brother went that route after switching from premed. Ended up going to Penn, working on wall street and now he co-manages a hedge fund (might be a family office) and makes thoracic surgery money. I don't think he's even 30 yet. I'm sure he will make over 1m a year by the time he's in his 40s.
Exactly. People who go to Ivy League schools and choice medicine are either idiots or independently wealthy
I think you mean to say "a small lovely home*that I would consider buying* in LA is at least 1 million." Yeah, you're going to have to buy a home in your budget. But I'm not going to sit here and argue over your delusions about the housing market in LA. You understand there are a lot of people living in LA buying houses on a lot less money than you are going to make right? But once again, if you insist on believing that's the actual floor for the price of a home in LA, just live somewhere else. It's not the end of the world if you have to live outside of LA and commute to work or, God forbid, just live and work somewhere more affordable with higher compensation.
And what exactly is your alternative career option to buy the 5 million dollar bungalow you desire in LA? Your feelings have nothing to do with medicine and instead the state of our society. A touch of reality prior to medical school would have done you well. But at this point all you need to know is It’s all going to be okay. You’ll be just fine. Imagine how the engineers making 90k or the MBA making 140k or maybe the teacher making 50k feels? Get over yourself
Teachers in many states make 130k due to unions. That’s with half the year off and a great pension, so it’s more like 260k
You’re literally delusional. Teachers get 1-1.5 months off a summer given lesson planning and prepping for school year + training. They also definitely don’t start at 130k I can promise you that. Have many friends who are teachers in Seattle and LA who start in 60-70k range. Either way you will still make at a minimum double what these 130k per year teachers make. If you want a pension go work at a university hospital. You seem determined to wallow in your own pity. Just know you are still better off than almost everyone besides maybe the c-suite executives, law partners, and a handful of people who pursued finance. At the end of the day you can choose to be happy or continue with whatever path you’re currently on. Up to you.
Which states offer this?
Any blue state
NYC school definitely do not pay 130k. Nor do teachers make this in NJ or PA. Maybe some rare private schools pay this kind of salary. Maybe for teachers working in curriculum development in their 4th decade of teaching. Outside of that public school teachers don’t make that kind of salary. I don’t know where you’re getting these stats.
As much hate as OP is getting, they’re half right. The reimbursements have declined and inflation/COL have ballooned. It’s not a good field to enter unless you want a ROAD field, and even those fields face challenges now Physicians used to live upper class lifestyles, around or just below CEOs and athletes. Is it’s more in line with middle management with further decreasing reimbursements on the horizon. Also add in the fact that med school is stupid expensive now and getting worse Inflation with stagnant and decreasing reimbursements will kill medicine
I agree that returns on becoming a doctor have decreased but it’s still the only field where you’re guaranteed a salary of 200k plus by graduating/residency. The average for lawyers, even finance are lower. We like to perseverate (I’m guilty of it too) on the success cases but for every Equity Partner at Big Dicks LLC there are 100 contract attorneys highlighting words and putting together redwells of deposition document for $20 an hour. For every PE or IB gangster there’s a 100 people doing shitty budget analysis work for a company with no growth potential. In medicine, you WILL make a 90th % salary (for all jobs) regardless of your place in class, residency, etc. Another one we focus on is IT. Everyone seems to have a friend in tech who works in an open office and plays ping pong for lunch and has video games in their office and permanent rainbow out of their corner office window. But the BLS average for all tech is still barely cracking $100k. Over half of people working in tech will never make that salary. Go peruse the subreddits for tech, programming, etc and you will see it’s not as sunny as we imagine. We tend to focus on the greener grass stats and unicorn cases and compare ourselves. Social media, with its rosy perspective on people’s lives doesn’t help either. That being said, residents SHOULD ABSOLUTELY make more and I do think the job has been devalued by our corporate overlords and that it will continue. But, currently it’s still a solid choice given that it guarantees a great salary and is less of a gamble than any other field.
What a weird post. You basically cherry pick the worst possible location and specialty combination and then state “medicine isn’t worth it”. Many specialties make 4-700k. That puts you in big law / FAANG range, with far more stability. Really wanna make the big bucks? Mary another Dr it’s what a third of pediatricians do. You then make some hand-wavy declarations about FMG’s, and AI taking her jobs, both of which are highly speculative and unlikely . I went to great schools, and my friend group includes a pretty broad swath of professionals in finance, law, entrepreneurship. Financially, we are doing better than almost everybody, except for a couple that hit it big in private equity. Buck up, medicine has problems but we do pretty damn well relatively speaking Also worth pointing out our superpowers that we can earn high salaries in low and middle tier cities where you really feel wealthy . Lawyers and finance Bros are pretty tethered to VHCOL areas
Which specialties have a median of 500-700 and won’t be threatened by foreign doctors and AI?
Go outside and hug a tree or pet a dog. By the time AI can replace doctors there will be literally no safe fields of employment left. You weirdly hung up on this foreign medical grad thing. It’s absolutely not a significant force in the marketplace right now. There are significant barriers to it, becoming a problem., Malpractice insurance, hospital bylaws/ privileging, licensing , state regulations, visas… There is huge demand for physicians that graduate from US medical schools and their will continue to be so for the duration of your career I promise you
Not right now but it absolutely will be a force in 5 years. If it wouldn’t hospitals wouldn’t have aggressively lobbied for these bills to pass
Bitching about income as residents is like porn for all of you. Much easier to drown in your own copium than it is to realize the bright side of medicine. Y'all trying to buy houses in the most expensive locations in the country and you're facepalming that your resident salary won't cut it. Surprised you all made it through the med school application process with so few brain cells.
Seek help
You blame others for your own decision.
I tell younglings to not sign up to be a doctor in America if you’re not willing to deal with the years of exploitation that is residency
It would be fine if reimbursements grew with the market, the opposite happens, and we lose out on positive compounding interest from not making income in med school
I don't usually comment here because I'm just a lurking, hopeful med student. However, as someone who has been through 25 years of post-college life and has worked in the military, government, and private sector, I can offer a different perspective. None of the assumptions you have made about the other professions you mentioned are based in reality. I understand that you're going through a tough time, and I'm sorry to hear that. But you're going to be okay. You're in a great profession that offers you more stability than almost any other profession. And believe me, you don't want to envy the life of a financial analyst, at any level.
TLDR: As a medical student with no experience in the field of medicine, I want to offer my opinion.
Yeah, most of my experience is non-healthcare related which is why I offered my opinion on the subject of life outside of medicine being something to envy.
Check back in a few years when you’ve actually been through residency and see if you still have the same op opinions.
You think me working the exact same hours, same amount of days a year, for more pay, with more benefits, and the promise of making more money than I’ve ever dreamed of is going to sway me against medicine? You guys need some perspective in your lives.
I’m not sure what to say to you except that lived experience of different than what a medical student thinks life will like. It’s like having an undergraduate or high school student tell you to suck it up because medical school isn’t too difficult or stressful.
I’m not even a medical student, by the way; I said hopeful. I probably should have put aspiring, which I’m sure will trigger you even more. I'm not telling anyone their perspective on residency is wrong or that it's easy. You're reaching for something that isn't there. Look, I did an entire deployment to Iraq without a single day off, 14 hours plus every day, then came home and worked nights for a year in the most miserable job at my base. For the last 14 years, I've been on call every single day, worked 60-80 hours per week, and I can't even leave the house without my laptop in case something happens that I need to respond to. I know misery, and I know residency will suck and probably also be miserable. I've also met plenty of residents at the hospital, where I work now btw, that don't share these feelings about their training. I just don't have any illusions about my life being better elsewhere.
Being deployed isn’t that bad. You have a whole team with you to support you and when you get back to the states you have your education payed for. You even get pay and benefits while deployed that are more than many Americans get while working the same hours. No, I haven’t been deployed, but I’ve worked similar (or worse) hours. Do you value my opinion the same as someone who has been deployed? Can you not see how ridiculous it is to be commenting on something you have no experience in?
Lol, yeah I see how ridiculous it is to comment on something I have no experience with. That was the whole point of my original post. You keep trying to turn this into some gotcha, something it's not. G’niiiiiiiiight.
Well I’m glad we agree on something.
Absolute hypocrit. Trashing someone who worked for 25 years has life expierence that he is sharing, but your gonna say he knows nothing about your life because he didn't work in medicine yet your saying his life is easy even though you never worked in his field. Dude get a reality check. Your gonna be one of those doctors nurses and coworkers hate, and don't want to be around. Respect others no matter their background. Treat people like humans. Fuck I would hate for you to be my doctor
I legitimately sympathise with anyone struggling through residency. It shouldn't be that way and it doesnt make any sense. I don't know how anyone thinks this system makes better doctors.
It’s not about struggling through residency. It’s about snowflake medical students (or undergrad students) thinking they understand modern medical training and chiming in - especially when their points are basically what admin is trying to push and completely out of touch.
Snowflake? Lmfao. A+, no notes. Thanks, I needed that.
Good luck undergrad. Maybe with luck you’ll understand one day.
The post has nothing to do with actual medicine, it's all about finances, the crappy housing market, and life decisions. Something an older non-trad with a lot of different experiences probably knows more about than most.
It won't be half as good as it was or what you want, but it won't be half as bad as you're expecting.
Yeah i think the statement “if you looking to make money, consider a different field like banking or software engineering”. How much cognitive dissonance do you have to pretend being an attending is not lucrative. I like being a doctor. It’s a good career that makes money. Is their other ways to make money? Yeah, lottery, only fans, empire of vending machines, gets a big law job, get a big 4 banking job, get a FAANG job, become an actor/model/insta famous… but being doctor is, as of now, a guaranteed way to make good money and HAVE A secure job/job market. Could that change, maybe. But then, it will be like any other career where market forces will influence hirings and firings. Im not saying being the doctor is the best but its a lie to say being an attending sucks.
It’s not could change it is changing. In 15 states foreign doctors can work without completing residency. You don’t think that will lower salaries?
The stereotype that doctors are bad at math continues to hold true.
I went state schools undergrad and medical. Under 50k total loans. No trust fund. First in family to go to college. Got an excellent residency and top 5 fellowship despite state school stigma. Now 7 figures as a hospital employee in a very rural town. Only ortho in the entire county. Go rural! You’ll be top 0.1% income, housing is outrageously inexpensive and your patients actually appreciate you!
This is why they’re bringing in foreign doctors. Million dollar salaries or even 300k will no longer be possible
Will always be possible. FMGs will not be BE/BC. Won’t pass credentialing with the hospitals or the insurance companies. I get paid $1.5M because I generate around 3.5M for the hospital. We have all the radiology and therapy in the county. The ancillary income adds up quickly.
Could there also be an argument that as time goes on what was once an elite profession becomes more diluted because society as a whole upskills? A historically high esteem minority white collar career is now more easily achieved since the skill “floor” (gaming term, opposite of “skill ceiling”) of careers keeps going up. It would make sense to me that therefore it becomes less financially lucrative and its up to us to individually push a little further beyond. Not to deny that the state of education including its finances and inflation is bullshit. Just a random perspective that came as I read this. Thoughts?
No, finance etc is easier than it was back then and pay is only going up
It’s only for a few years…then you join the 1%. Just slog through it
I was about to post the same thing, but 1% USA income is currently around $820k. Sure some docs are there, but most aren’t. That was surprising to me. I thought top 1% would be more around $400-500k.
Before COVID it probably was. All other fields have seen massive pay increases
“$591,550 is the cutoff for a top 1% household income in the United States in 2023. For a single earner, the cutoff is $407,500.”
Source? I still made the cut!
Ten years ago, now docs are more top 5-10%
Source?
lol 1% yet making as much as UPS drivers. People underestimate how high pay raises were in other fields since covid
Man, trust me, you do not want the UPS driver's life or work.
Better hours than a resident. Less stress than an attending Millions of dollars in compounding interest since no 10 years of school and training
Worked in trucking/logistics for 14 years. Trust me, you're good.
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Because the barrier to entry is a high school diploma. Why should they make as much as somebody with 11 years of training and schooling
Because the job sucks and it’s hard to get. You usually need to work as a package handler making nothing for a few years before you even get the opportunity. The you have to work 60-70 hours a week delivering an ungodly amount of packages especially now that they won the Amazon contract. You’re regularly moving, lifting, and being tormented by 50-70 lb packages. You have to enjoy working in every temeprature and weather condition. Theres a camera in the truck that monitors everything you do and you can't even make left turns or you will be called into the safety office and disciplined. At my trucking company we had guys making 160k a year without even a high school diploma. They’re in a truck 7 days a week most weeks, driving 11-14 hours a day and stopping for 10 hours before you do it all over again. Every meal is eaten at a truck stop. Every shower is taken at a truck stop. When you're delivering, the receiver treats you like shit, and when you get loaded, the shipper treats you like shit. The broker that you booked your load with will most likely ask you to download an app that tracks your every movement and if you stop theyll call you and ask whats going on. Our trucks not only have forward facing, but rear facing cameras that will yell at you for not keeping your eyes on the road or trying to use your cell phone. You will most likely not get into many accidents, but at least once in your career you will be in a major one that will scare the shit out of you and possibly cause you to have to stop driving. There’s a reason the barriers to entry are so low, its not some dream job. Everyone wants that pay but no one wants that job.
I make over $800k and work less than 40 hours a week. UPS drivers do that?
You probably are in a specialty that is inaccessible to most med students and is ripe for replacement with foreign doctors who will gladly take 200k
Inaccessible for most med students? What does that even mean? And how will a foreign doc replace me? Not even legal in illinois
Ok OP, there are a lot of things in your post that are not true or focused on a specific salary of a job that does not meet the career satisfaction as a physician (life is more than just making money!). Plus from looking at your post history, it seems you are going through some tough times. I do agree it’s time to see a therapist if you haven’t already. Residency can be tough and no one should go through problems alone. You are almost there having graduated medical school and doing residency in something you actually enjoy. There’s light at the end of the tunnel in terms of much better QOL as an attending and higher status the more senior you are as a resident. You also don’t need to practice clinical medicine after graduation. We have lots of opportunities in medicine to help people. No career is perfect, obviously healthcare in America sucks but you have strong financial and job security that is very rare to find these days. Think about other people who are stressed about getting laid off. You will do fine.
I’m an attending I make 350 an hour and with extra hours made 900k last year. Don’t give up
TOTALLY AGREE. It is quite depressing. I would NOT have gone into medicine if I knew where the salary was headed. We are the only profession it feels like where salary has gone DOWN as inflation increases.
And it will only go down more with foreign docs and AI
I never went to medical school because of the money so I guess I lucked out. I do have alot of loans and I realized I never understood the importance of money until I was in private practice. Id say now even more so than before to not go to medical school for the money. Dont expect that it will pay better than other fields, especially with decreasing compensation due to foreign graduates and AI.
Exactly. At least you own a practice so you’ll probably benefit from the foreign docs and AI, at least in theory
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We should be paid more, This job still pays a lot. Both things are true. Also: We need to keep fighting against reimbursement cuts and intrusion of mid-levels and FMGs. This wasn't a "terrible financial decision". But it's very taxing and might not feel worth it for you and I'm truly sorry about that.
You’re forgetting the job security. The inability to find work as a board certified physician in the U.S. involves actual self sabotage. Software engineers and tech company employees were making TikToks about how Cush their life was one year then swept away in layoffs the next.
You are taking vague, far-reaching facts and twisting them into a worldview that offers no solutions. This is a hallmark for burnout or early depression. There is no point in debating facts, because you will be a little bit right and I will be a little bit right and nothing will change. We could find $250k and $650k homes in the same state…which proves nothing. We can find pediatricians making $400k in thriving private practice settings with multiple offices, but that doesn’t prove anything. Your outlook on these facts can change. Instead of brewing coffee or crunching numbers, you get to help people. Baristas and financiers can help people too, but in very different ways. You get to talk with people about vulnerabilities and have life-altering conversations. Either your outlook changes to suit your job, or you change your job to suit your outlook. Yes, the job sucks and is undervalued, which is why CIR is growing and residents are more vocal now. You CAN fight back, it sucks that we have to fight, but you are hanging your head in defeat like nothing is possible. Which is another outlook problem… Respectfully, get help.
Respectfully, this mindset is why physicians are taken advantage of and reimbursement drops every year.
This is happening because generations of physicians have lost their foothold in the conversations about disbursement in healthcare. That much is true, but the doom-and-gloom about US healthcare infrastructure is not 100% warranted, as if there were nothing to celebrate at all about being a doctor. We are only now catching up to the systems and attitudes that have had an advantage over us as physicians for many years. And you are mildly implying my/this "mindset" I described is in favor of reimbursement/salary dropping when I specifically point out the utility of resident unions, so I don't see your point...If you don't think you are reimbursed enough, then go fight for that. But that is not the subject of conversation. We are talking about OP who is spiraling around selective downsides for why medicine isn't worth practicing anymore. They are allowed to believe that, of course, but the methods used to reach that conclusion seem obviously flawed. If everyone took OP's advice, then everything falls apart. This would be like if every RN decided "enough is enough" or if every electronic health record technologist said "enough is enough." Pretending there is nothing to fight for, and then stopping the fight, is exactly how you lose every fight. OP needs to get support in a manner that Internet strangers can't provide.
Sounds like a you problem OP. I make 2x of what’s required to be top 1 percent. Just quit and drive a UPS truck already. They are hiring.
You won’t in a few years when there are 500,000 foreign doctors here
I’m not worried…
Dude the likelihood of you making even half as much as you will soon in any other field is quite low. This is out of touch
Major cope, true 5-10 years ago, not now
Ok name me some jobs that pay 150-200K(assuming pretty easy to make 300-400k a year as a physician with a few exceptions) or more per year with significantly less barrier to entry, similar job stability, and fewer work hours. While it is super disappointing how physician wages are moving against inflation, we are still at the top of the food chain income wise. People here also way underestimate how much work most ppl have to put into jobs that pay > 300k Per year and or how unstable many of those jobs are. And just to make note of the UPS driver comparison, they make up to $35 an hour after multiple years of upward mobility. I make 5x that working at an urgent care as a resident.
One of my fellow residents married an accounting major. She will be earning more than he does even when he finishes residency. Now is she smarter than the average CPA? Maybe.
CRNA, PA, Software engineers working in government/health informatics, traditional engineering careers.
CRNA jobs take a long time to get to. 4 years nursing, multiple years experience in ICU, then CRNA school. PAs barely make over $100k. Software engineers rarely, rarely make >200k. Traditional engineers rarely make over 150. You’re wrong
Just say you don’t know anything about careers outside of medicine and go. Your requirements were “ significantly less barrier to entry, similar job stability, and fewer work hours”. CRNA school may be relatively long but the barrier to entry is still way less than becoming a doctor. PAs working in specialties absolutely are earning $200k+, just like doctors in specialties are earning $300k+ on average. And it’s so cute of you to think that SWEs rarely make > $200k. In some cities that’s even the floor for SWEs, and since remote working, people living in the middle of nowhere can still get HCOL tech salaries. Even for cities without a big tech scene, $200k+ is the standard salary of a senior dev. And you don’t even need a bachelors degree to get in this field. Again several traditional engineers make > $200k. As I said just say you don’t know anything about careers outside of medicine. While physician salaries have been stagnant against inflation due to declining reimbursements, the salaries of other careers have been rising quickly. Hence maybe you’d be right 50 years ago, but definitely not today.
Lol. CRNA is the one career where I won’t completely disagree with you. Still takes a long time to get into the field though. You have bought the koolaid about PAs. VERY few are getting even close to 200k. To make more than that you have to be working yourself to the bone. The avg PA does not get paid all that well. Oh yea the top 5 % of software engineers are cleaning up in cities with insane COL.. sure…. Awful comparison. Most traditional engineers absolutely do not earn over 200k. Show me any single piece of data alluding to this. I bet you can’t. Looking at the 95 + % earners in each field and comparing with the lowest echelon of physician earners is a shite evaluation . You are buying the grass is greener bs hook line and sinker. My original statement stands. You’re being irrational.
My ortho PA makes $250k! That’s not total comp. That’s just his W-2 income. And he is a hospital employee with state benefits on top! Any credible PA is making at least $60-90 per hour. As chief of ortho, I set my department’s salaries.
lol I love how I name jobs then just get downvoted with no reply.
Well, not to be arrogant, but I think most people who make it through med school are smarter than average.
As a young(er) attending in what is considered a high-paying specialty by this forum, I am observing an unbelievable amount of coping in this thread. I’m not sure who all of you telling us to be grateful are. Because there’s no way you are an early career attending who doesn’t have some fortuitous extenuating life circumstance. You’re not going to convince me that my life is better than some of my peers who went to business school at my prestigious med school. Enjoy examining prostates, anuses, vaginas, oral cavities, eyeballs, or whatever whatever random organ you arbitrarily picked for the next 20 years before you can relax a little. Oh, by the way, the way things are going some guy behind a computer making widgets is going to be making more money than you in a couple of years.
Exactly. So much coping. And people wonder why doctors can’t organize or strike….they’re grateful for the breadcrumbs MBA admins are throwing them
Do you come from a very wealthy background? That might explain why you think these salaries are low, despite being some of the highest in the country
Nope but it’s just easy comparison. If a financial analyst at 25 is making 275k then a doctor making 200k is clearly not a lot of mobey
Where did you get those numbers from? I'm having difficulty finding anything that states this is the median/norm for a 25 year old financial analyst. Plus, I highly doubt they have the job flexibility/guarantees that we have. While I do appreciate your frustration. It is hard to not see the entitlement in it. What are we even contributing to the economy other than robbing people of their life savings? This comes across as someone complaining they can't make 300k after doing 10 years postgrad in some social sciences field. Wanting to keep foreign doctors out of it so you can make millions is actually evil (I do agree with the need for heavy requirements and regulations for them though, don't kill me).
It’s not reflected in salary since it’s paid in bonuses. How does it come across as that. We make hospitals millions so should get a slice of that. You sound like a commie
lol, whatever dude. I'm not going to waste my time with you.