Why don't more people choose to become medical doctors in the US? It's not even that hard to get into a low tier M.D. program (or even D.O.) and make a guaranteed $200,000+ after only 7 years out of college. Most other professions would only dream of advancing that quickly in their careers. You'd have to be in the top 1% of engineers or finance analysts to be able to pull that, whereas you are GUARANTEED that with an MD degree.
>Not to mention surgeons who can make $500,000+ annually with only a few extra years of training
>Not to mention that it's continually the most stable and secure job
>Not to mention it's basically the #1 panty dropper
because it doesn't interest me
>>1203541
Fair enough. But then again there are plenty of doctors who don't find their jobs terribly interesting, but they can tolerate it and do it well to earn tons of money. The notion that you have to absolutely LOVE your job is a fairy tale
>after 7 years of college
No respectable program will take you after 3 years of an undergraduate without insane extracurriculars (and a mandatory 4.0). Or you can go to some dumpster college in the Caribbean for four years for your MD, then spend four more years in residency making peanuts, then when you're fucking 30+ start making 110k for the first couple years and finally be making 200k by the time you're 35-40. Then you can work for twenty years, end up with ~1 million net worth after paying your loans off and taxes by retirement. Congrats, you made slightly more than a school teacher who invested wisely his whole life.
>>1203543
>the motion that you absolutely have to LOVE your job is a fairy tale
Definitely. Except for the 80 hour work weeks. Those are easy even if you aren't passionate about medicine.
>>1203544
>No respectable program will take you after 3 years of an undergraduate without insane extracurriculars (and a mandatory 4.0)
Well, I had a 3.4, and I got into a top 30 US program. My extracurriculars weren't even that impressive
>>1203549
>top 30
Lmao. A 3.4 would barely get you into a master's degree in a top 10. Like I said, dumpster schools.
>>1203543
>The notion that you have to absolutely LOVE your job is a fairy tale
and the notion that you should study something uninteresting for 10 years so that you can do something uninteresting for the rest of your life - just for money, is nightmare fuel
>>1203551
You can choose not to believe, but I got into like 5 well-respected US MD schools this year with just a 3.4 GPA. Seriously. 34 MCAT
>>1203555
You got into 5 well-respected programs but settled on a top 30? As in not a top 10 or even top 20 or you'd have made that distinction? "Well respected" lmao
>>1203561
I got into a top 10, but I chose to go to a lesser ranked school because it was like 100K cheaper. The rankings really don't matter. As long as it's a US MD program, your path is guaranteed.
>>1203543
Right, so instead you sign up for the job partly for the cash and end up as an incompetent, apathetic chucklefuck caught up in the medical bureaucracy so that instead of actually caring for the patient and working on preventative methods, all he does is spit out a prescription for a pill or just whisk them to another doctor if he can't find what's wrong. That way he can fuck over patients while putting minimal effort into them as well.
>>1203543
most people don't LOVE it but they do enjoy it and understand that they chose it. a paycheck for the sake of a paycheck that is greater than is needed for the basics is a terrible motivator. that's why so many students drop out pursuing medicine and engineering despite a huge need all over the world for them.
>>1203539
i have a really bad memory. I have a hard time studying.
It sucks because being a doctor is actually something i would like but I probably couldn't make it through medical school. I got a trade though.
>>1203571
I dont care about that shit bro, my goal is to become a radiologist and just read films all day, maybe even from home, comfortably making $300K+ annually in a way that actually helps people and is literally just recording into a microphone what you think the picture looks like. It amounts to laid back, interesting work that you can do on autopilot if you simply study enough films and memorize the diagnoses. no patient contact
>>1203585
They make medications that actually boost memory, you know. Adderall and Modafinil are known cognitive enhancers. What's your trade btw?
>>1203539
medical school
>>1203593
electrician.
>>1203590
Dude radiology is going the same way as pathology,
You want patient contact even if it is minuscule.
>>1203539
you probably missed all the recent threads where actual MDs told OP why medicine is not worth it from a pure business perspective. Or just didn't like the answer you got.
Law School for me
>>1203590
As long as you do the job well and try to form some sort of connection with the patient beyond some isolated stat, I don't really care.
I'm skeptical that being a radiologist is that easy, considering residency for some med programs is like 80 hours a week.
>because economics/business economics with fiscal or econometrics master in europe
Go do whatever you do, i'll make myself some real money
>>1203539
>200,000
>7 years from now
That's fucking peanuts dude
Not a med student but based on all the people I've talked to and after seeing my brother try to get into med school, medical schools are not that easy to get into.
The process for being accepted into an MD program is archaic and odds are you won't get accepted unless you have perfect grades, perfect MCAT scores, and a laundry list of socially acceptable hobbies and extracurriculars as well. Not to mention all the money it takes to go through this process.
D.O. schools are much easier to get into but no one with an MD respects a DO and you're not getting into a top tier hospital or a research position with a DO.
It's bullshit too because we have a shortage of doctors in the US but rather than trying to train more doctors ourselves and have med schools become more accessible, we keep importing doctors from 3rd world countries like India.
Not to mention how biased the med school acceptance parameters are against whites and asians. If you're black you're pretty much guaranteed acceptance with even the lowest MCAT scores.
The whole process is completely fucked, and that's why more people aren't going into Med School.
>>1204343
I am really frustrated with the whole process watching my wife applying to med school. The shortage is because they lobby for licensure and accreditation laws to restrict the supply of doctors among other things.
She applied to our highly ranked state school, interviewed and got rejected. Second year she applied again interviewed and then they asked her back for a second interview, then she got rejected.
We are stilly waiting to hear back from a DO school she applied to. Sucks that the DO school costs 60k can 20k per year. Oh well at least she will be a doctor, and no interest if we pay for school with cash.
>>1203539
In Portugal you need average grades of ~18 out of 20 in the 3 years before college. I'm not that smart, OP. And I actually like Finance.
>>1203539
I don't believe in terms of "smartness" or anything like that, but I'm not confident of my current ability.
I don't think I would be GOOD at studying it, unfortunately, and my knowledge of biology, science, and maths isn't that great.
>>1203539
>Why don't more people choose to become medical doctors in the US?
I'll have to do a lot more of schooling/college
I'll rack up a serious amount of debt from that
I'll have to work for at least 20+ years before I pay off the debt and start making my money back
I'll be old by the time I can spend it and enjoy it
I'll also have to worry about patients trying to get me fired for malpractice
Seems like a high risk, high reward job.
>>1204424
What would you rather do/what are you doing, anon?
>>1203543
doctors do grosser stuff than prostitutes on a daily basis. I love them to death and i'm incredibly thankful they exist, but i'd rather kill myself than work as one.
>>1204343
see what really worries me is that these less competent people are going to be treating me instead of someone more competent, all in the name of strength through diversity. I'm actually in favor of limited affirmative action, but holy fuck, not in an industry where people's physical well-being is directly on the line.
>>1203539
>high standards: 4.0 + good guy + legimately smart af
>challenging: 20h surgeries and whatnot
>200k+ SALARY
>taxed at highest rate
>work 1h for you, 1h for the govt
>guy doing business makes as much through dufferent types of income because he knows of them extensively
>taxed at low rate, if unlucky
>>1203590
Lol good luck getting into a radiology program.
>>1203590
Every manchild I know is interested in med school and radiology specifically for this. They don't want to interact with people. Unfortunately, you are going to have to interact with people to make it as a doctor.
>>1203539
Because it takes massive effort and is not even worth it.
>>1204638
>because I'm lazy
>>1204502
Move to an oil rich country like Qatar and cash out
>>1203539
1. Its piss hard to get into. No Med School in the US worth its salt will take you in without an amazing GPA and amazing MCAT scores.
2. It's fucking expensive. It doesn't matter if your making $200,000/yr if you are paying 60% to student loans.
3. It's a very NO FUN ALLOWED job. Unless you are in management (which means you are 50yo+) you are working 60-70 hour weeks. Whats the point of having that much money? So your wife and her son and go out with Jamal?
OP here.
>>1204713
>1. Its piss hard to get into
The formula, using the old MCAT score equivalence, is GPA x 10 + MCAT. If you can manage a 68 or so, you can get into medical school. For me it was 3.4 GPA, 34 MCAT. My GPA was low due to going to a very rigorous undergrad. If you go to an easy state school, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to get near a 4.0 if you actually dedicate time into it, which would mean that you'd only need a ~28 or so have a shot. That's VERY doable.
> No Med School in the US worth its salt
That's the thing with med school in the US, there are like 130 something of them, but they will all give you a ticket to making high six figures guaranteed, even if you go to the lowest ranked MD program in the US.
>2. It's fucking expensive. It doesn't matter if your making $200,000/yr if you are paying 60% to student loans.
It is fucking expensive, but the loans are really a drop in the bucket if you can manage to specialize. Let's say you become an anesthesiologist, making $293,389 annually before taxes. Let's conservatively assume that you pay 40% taxes total on it. That leaves you with $ 176,033.4 USD cash per year that you work. If you work for two years at this rate, you will have made $352,066.8 cash. Then let's assume you went to the school with highest average indebtedness in America, which is $239,680. Let's assume you pay 100% of your debt in the first two years of work: $352,066.8 - $239,680 = $112 386.8 CASH to live off of for two years. Extremely doable unless you're a fucking idiot. At this point, you're 30-33 years old with no student debt, making $293,389 annually before taxes. Sure, you didn't get to #YOLO in your twenties, but now you're making BANK at a relatively young age, while your friends who majored in finance, computer science, and engineering are capping out at $150,000
Continued in next post
>>1204764
>3. It's a very NO FUN ALLOWED job. Unless you are in management (which means you are 50yo+) you are working 60-70 hour weeks. Whats the point of having that much money? So your wife and her son and go out with Jamal?
I don't know what you consider fun, but I think it's just as fun and exciting as any other job, probably more so. Sure you need to take your job seriously, but you should be doing that with any job. Idk if you imagine working in finance to be like Wolf of Wallstreet or something, but that's now how it is in reality at all. It's boring as fuck a lot of the time. I know people who work as bankers on Wall St. They just sit at a desk and look at shit on the computer and talk on the telephone all day, basically what some doctors do lol...
>Whats the point of having that much money? So your wife and her son and go out with Jamal?
Or you're a real person and not a living meme, and you have an actual wife and family that you care for. You can work as much or as little as you want as a doctor. There are part-time and per diem positions galore. If you're in emergency medicine for example, you can work like three 12 hour shifts per week and make 200K+ easily.
>>1203541
this. same reason i dont rob banks or draw hentai
>>1204764
>becoming a specialist immediately out of school
>>1203539
because I'm retarded and I'll never amount to anything
>>1204789
Yeah, that's what happens. You take a test while you're still in school, and if you do well enough, have acceptable grades, and interview well with the residency director, you literally become a specialist right out of medical school. 4 years of under grad + 4 years of medical school + 4 years of specialization = 12 years of school on top of high school completion (age 18)....18 + 12 = 30 years old. You could make $300K guaranteed at 30 years old if you just follow the preset path. Medicine is the only graduate school that literally finds a job for you. ~99% of all US MD grads match into a residency of their choice.
>>1203539
Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistant are far better jobs if you want to have a life.
M.D./D.O. = 4 years undergrad, 4 years medical school, 3-7 years of residency
Total time commitment: 11-15 years
NP/PA = 4 years undergrad, 2 years masters (+1 year optional for DNP doctorate)
Total time commitment: 6 years
You can also start as a 2-year RN with a $50k+ job, and earn your bachelors and MSN overtime. Having an RN license is huge for safety and security for only 2 years.
Physician Pay: $150k -$300k+ (Family - Surgeons)
NP/PA Pay: $85k - $110 (Family - Specialty, Nurse Anest. can hit $170k).
Even with the higher pay, the much higher average debt, years of delay into the workforce, and decreased flexibility make it a hard sell. It could take half of one's career to even break even over the NP/PA route.
Physicians are also stuck in a single specialty for their entire career. A PA can work anywhere and switch at will. You could work in an ICU/ER, get bored, then move to family practice, then move again into psych. NPs specialize in a single area, but can obtain a new specialty with 6 months of training, unlike physicians which run multiple years for fellowships.
Job security and growth are exploding in NP/PA fields as well. Not to mention average GPAs and competitiveness is higher in some NP/PA schools than M.D./D.O. because the jobs are far more desirable.
As to a lot of the ego driven stuff, DNP's have the Dr. title as well. In many states they can now open their own medical practices under their own nursing licenses, as states are slowly updating their nursing rules and regulations to include them.
tl;dr: Unless you are 100% in it for passion, NP/PA is simply superior in today's world.
>>1203555
we can't all be niggers
>>1204796
That isn't how specialties work.
You have 4 years of undergrad + 4 years of medical school, but you don't immediately become an end-of-the-line specialist.
If you wanted to become a cardiologist, you would first have to spend 3 years in internal medicine, which then branches off into the actual "specialties" such as cardiology, endocrinology, gastroenterology in a process known as fellowship. This takes additional years of time, normally 3-5 on top of becoming an internal medicine physician.
Surgery is the same. You have to spend 5 years after medical school becoming a general surgeon before you can fellow into things like cardiothorasic.
Some areas can be trained directly after medical school (emergency medicine, psychiatry, dermatology), but most "specialists" in the normal sense have a very extended path.
>>1203539
> It's not even that hard to get into a low tier M.D. program (or even D.O.) and make a guaranteed $200,000+ after only 7 years out of college.
yes it is, you dumb fuck. i had a 3.8 GPA in a STEM degree and a 75th percentile MCAT score. 25 applications and only 2 acceptances, which cost me like $5k in primary/secondary application fees, interview costs, etc.
oh and i dropped out after 1 semester because it was LITERALLY hell on earth and i would LITERALLY work manual labor (again) than do med school.
>only 7 years
shut the fuck up
>>1204764
>Then let's assume you went to the school with highest average indebtedness in America, which is $239,680.
confirmed that you're a retard. the "average indebtedness figures" are complete bullshit unless you have rich parents who pay for your tuition (not uncommon because most med students are spoiled brats) or youre on a military scholarship, which comes with a 6 year (iirc) service obligation. realistically, you're taking out tuition/fees + living expenses because most skills expressly prohibit you from working a job while you attend school -- as in, they'll kick you out if you work -- not that you could have the time to work and study medicine at the same time. all in, the true "average indebtedness" for a private MD school is $70-80k/yr. you can't just choose to go to a public school since public schools have a GREAT preference for in-state applicants and getting into these schools is very challenging, as in single digit acceptance rates, which is true for all med schools in general.
$60-80k/yr * 4 years = $240-320k. And the interest is no longer subsidized, thanks to Congress, so they accrue interest while you are in school and while you are in residency. So that $240-320k @ 7% interest or so balloons up to $400-500k by the time you finish your training, which if you want to specialize in anesthesiology, is 4 years from when you finish med school.
also, your 'conservative assumptions' are fucking retarded. you'll be taxed closer to 45% and you'll be paying for things like retirement contributions, health insurance, disability insurance, etc, which will further reduce to take-home income to 40-50% of your gross. oh, and not to mention that you're proposing living like a student for MORE years while you pay off debt, never mind that you're an early to mid 30s man who spent the past decade of his life slaving away in pursuit of his dream while making shit money (and going horribly in debt on top of this.)
tl;dr shut the fuck up you clueless premed
>>1204796
furthermore >>1204852 you're a fucking retard if you think medicine is a "guaranteed job" just because you landed a residency slot. look into the employment prospects for fields like diagnostic radiology, nuclear medicine, pathology, and more recently non-interventional cardiology. these fields -- more so pathology and nuclear medicine -- have SHIT job prospects, as in you have to move to the middle of fucking nowhere to even find a job. producing too many specialists is very easy when you train in something with a demand that exists only in very large cities or academic hospitals e.g. pathology and nuclear medicine.
>>1204835
> i would LITERALLY work manual labor (again) than do med school.
That's the thing... Becoming (and being) a doctor IS manual labor. You have to put in the hours, interview patients, examine them, stay awake long nights, operate... Even specialists cannot "sit back on their desk"; almost every penny is directly earned with your hands.
lol or i could do engineering
>4 year undergrad paid for by corporations who need fresh meat
>graduate to high 5 to 6 figure job and work on cool cutting edge shit
>dont have to work with retarded customers
>40 hr weeks if your job isnt shit
Average is more like 70-120 grand out of college
If I become an actuary i could make 80 grand fpur years grom now and be making 120 grand+ from my in vestments
Id consider it if i could have great internships
>>1205055
120 grand after 7 years*
M.D. here, I can't even draw blood without a nurse and fail to accurately measure blood pressure with a stethoscope. 76.4% of patients are diagnosed with high blood pressure out of my office.
>>1205061
Fuck I have high blood pressure but an otherwise healthy and my weight is fine. I think maybe stress.
Same reason I'm not studying Nuclear Engineering.
>>1203539
I was actually on this path, but switched career goals during undergrad.
Now I am a software engineer making over 100k. Meanwhile my wife who is doing the Doctor career, is just starting school after taking a gap year to do commie service bullshit which is quite common.
Also my salary won't cap because my job title is more fluid. I can go into management, have a startup or any business really.
Since I only need to put in 40hrs I can put extra time to advancing my career and also doing side investments.
>>1204438
Don't worry about it, a lower MCAT/GPA doctor isn't going to be worse than a high scored one. Archaic measuring system like this means nothing on actual medical practice.
I'd rather be an international businessman, I like destroying other peoples things.
