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wow this thread is on fire
somebody call 911
somebody call 911
Doctors underpaid
- Thread starter Lunaris
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Sorry to break the news but if an FP has just a lil bit of business sense to him or herself, they can make plenty of money. If an FP sees an extraordinary number of patients, lets say 4/hr for 11 hrs, the FP will net ~$300,000/yr. Look behind the truth of statistics. Working 4 days and seeing a normal amount of patients will probably get $170,000+
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According to this table from JAMA, FPs work an average of 52.5 hours for an average of $132k. The hours have reportedly actually gotten worse since this survey. But if you can net what you think, than more power to you -- you would be bucking the average big time.
http://www.medfriends.org/specialty_hours_worked.htm
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Actually, physician salaries have dropped 7% in the last EIGHT YEARS, not "per year."
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My bad, didn't mean per year. It was 7% as of a few years ago, not actually the "last" 8 years -- most data I've seen was as of a couple years ago. But it's been a steady decade of drop and likely greater than 7% by now.
The actual quote I've seen repeated, in the NY Times, as well as AMSA's magazine and elsewhere is that
"the average physician's net income declined 7 percent from 1995 to 2003, after adjusting for inflation, while incomes of lawyers and other professionals rose by 7 percent during the period".
Sorry for the confusion.
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What u talking bout? u don't know that he young! u don't know that he post on this board 4ever? u also don't know it's much quicker to type u than you! u are the one who is too young to realize that the world should be fair! u are too young to realize that people should get paid according to how I value them, and not according to how everybody values them (as dicatated by salary)...
Just kidding, but this young Lunaris fellow would have his eyes opened up if he took a microeconomics class or tw0!
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Did you forget that he was out the door at 6am to go round on his patients in the hospital? And right after he saw you, he had to look through his 75 year old patient's list of 20 different meds and figure out what the deal is with this fever, yada yada. My last doctor visit was a no-brainer too, but that's atypical. I'm not going back to my doc for a long time, probably. My physician mentor told at least half of his patients "We'll see you in a month."
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Lord knows I have had my fair share of rediculous posts on SDN, but while reading this thread I could not help but notice the plethora of rediculous statements made on this thread. So I decided to rank my top 5.
Top 5 things posted on this thread likely to be regretted in the future
#5 goes to "uncle scrooge"
#4 goes to "Desperado"
#3 goes to "clueless about real life"
#2 goes to "Day-dreamer"
#1 and the absolutely most likely to be regretted post goes to "cheap labor"
Top 5 things posted on this thread likely to be regretted in the future
#5 goes to "uncle scrooge"
#4 goes to "Desperado"
your myspace is SO NEAT AND ORGANIZED!!!
and you also live where I live!
Denver, Colorado huzzah!
I go to CU-Boulder. what about you? let's be friendshaha
#3 goes to "clueless about real life"
#2 goes to "Day-dreamer"
#1 and the absolutely most likely to be regretted post goes to "cheap labor"
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isn't that pretty much what the doctors in most higher paid specialites are doing to get the big bucks anyway? Sure neurosurgeons make half a mil a year but they work 80+ hours per week to get it. Welcome to medicine, where you can have a life and be a bit less stupendously wealthy, or you can work umpteen hours per week and be very wealthy. There is no such thing as a free lunch, except derm . . .
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it was more of a comment on the mcdonalds like efficiency that would require
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8744
This post is exactly right and might be describing my family's budget....except I'm only making 40K per year as a resident, not 60K and we go deeper into debt every year making up the shortfall.
It's not as if we can even cut expenses. The mortage is the mortage. The kids will eat what they will eat. Water and electricity cost what they will cost. Same with insurance and half a dozen other things that suck money out of us and don't really contribute to our material well-being but must be paid.
It's also not as if we live an extravagent lifestyle. We have two older cars, a cheap minivan and a compact which are both paid for. We don't have any expensive hobbies, we don't go anywhere, we don't live in nice house, and we don't go out to eat very often. I never have any money in my pocket and if I didn't eat for free at the hospital I'd brown bag it every day.
After six years of medical training with two more to go, we have no equity in our house, no savings, no realistic possibility of making more money than I make from my pathetic resident's pay, and almost a quarter of a million dollars of debt.
But I'm not complaining. Going to medical school was a personal choice and we're living with it. On the other hand I get a little sick of hearing young, single people with no real responsibility in life getting all sanctimonious about their future salary and how money is unimportant. All my wife and I have to look forward to is that in two years I will probably get paid 200K or more. If you guys want to work for 60 thousand a year and think it is enough, then pray give the excess to charity and keep your friggin' mouths shut.
If it wasn't for the pay, medicine would not be worth the time, effort, and lost sleep that it involves. Screw helping people. I'd as soon go fishing with all of my free time if I was in a career that paid the same but didn't require all of the training and long hours.
Remember, any real salary seems like a lot to somebody who has never worked at any job but "Starbucks."
Oh, and don't forget to read my blog. I have a bunch of new aritcles for those of you who haven't checked it in a while.
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8744
I guess you don't remember the Soviet Empire which was founded on the ideology of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
This kind of thinking invariably leads to tryanny and in the case of the Soviet Union, millions of murders in concentration camps.
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once again, welcome to medicine. 15 min/patient isn't that weird from what I've seen on outpatient services.
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Are you serious with this post? For the sake of your future patients, I hope not.
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Solitude, somewhere in an earlier post, asked why I thought a system where people were paid what they deserved was such a bad idea. If you think about it, most of the misery of the 20th Century was caused by an ideology which, although just a vehicle for the typical appetites of the rulers over the ruled, purported to do just this.
My parents forced me into a private school. I know for a fact that I'm not sending my kids to a private school. I piss off a girl who just happened to be the principals pet, and it's a miracle that I even walked out with a diploma.
F1ck private schools.
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What I hate is the complaining of people who didn't know what they were getting into when they chose medicine. If you wanted less debt, then you should have gone to a state school, taken a military or NHSC scholarship, or not gone into medicine altogether. If you just did it for the money, then you obviously made a very poorly-informed decision when you decided to go into medicine. You don't need to insult people who are deciding to go into medicine for the right reasons, rather than the wrong ones.
As far as your salary is concerned, please quit your whining. My wife and I live on less than what you make by yourself. So please, stop crying about it.
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Ok. Sorry, I didn't read the earlier post.
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That's pretty tough to have a quarter of a million in debt while making $40k as a resident. But also keep in mind that in countries where doctors dont' make a lot of dough, it's also much, much cheaper to go to med school. My two cousins in China went to med school that costed the same as the other local colleges around there (and 30 years ago, it would have been FREE with stipend paid by the gov't as my parents could attest to). They're training lasts for 5 years and there's NO RESIDENCY. Instead, they get work in a hospital and start out as 'junior doctors' and work themselves up while being supervised. They are worked like any doctors (only with supervision) and get to go home at a reasonable time.
I'm not saying being a doctor is better in China than here (obviously not, since there are many Chinese doctors who immigrate here and practice medicine), but you should separate the naive premeds who have never supported a family and paid debt from those that understand the economics of medicine and have paid off student loans and supported themselves who understand that it makes no sense to want to go high into debt for low pay, that those doctors in other countries aren't all suffering because they may enjoy low (or no) debt and shorter training. In those countries, medicine may not be as glamorous of calling, but it also does not require enormous financial strain and time to become a doctor, hence I see nothing wrong for those doctors to agree to work for a modest salary.
So the moral of the story is...? The best plan people are those super smarty Chinese docs I know who went to med school straight out of undergrad for five years for almost nothing then came here, took the USMLE, went straight into residency and became a doctor making six figures. Of course, there's the difficulties of matching but if you want to know a great way to save on debt and money, that's probably as good as any.
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lol **** off you little troll
I'm going to report your irrelevant and more troll-like post
Obviously that's a pretty dramatic oversimplification of what happened in the 20th century. It's hard to know whether the principle of paying people what they deserve is what led to all of the mistery because there are so many conflating factors. Arguably capitalism and the free market is a system that pays people what they deserve. And you're right, I don't remember the Soviet Empire--I hadn't started kindergarten when it was dissolved
.
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People could safely go into medicine for the money if their weren't so many zealots around who wouldn't object to making less than the night manager at Taco Bell. (38K, I saw the advertisement)
I don't think I was whining about the current state of affairs so much as pointing out that if there was no financial payoff at the end, medicine is so not worth it as a career. I cannot imagine, nor would my lovely and long-suffering wife tolerate, what we've been through over the last six years (three moves, loss of financial security) unless I could look her in the eye and tell her we're going to come out ahead financially.
I think most people decide, maybe in the first month of intern year, that money is important. Pre-meds talk about how they want to hep' people. residents (who actually hep' people) talk about what kind of job offers they hope to get...or about the funny things their patients do but that's a different thread. I don't know of anybody who gives their salary to charity.
As far as the typical residency salary, it's not too bad for a forty hour per week job. If it were actually only forty hours per week I'd probably get a part-time job at Home Depot and make some serious money (compared to my current hourly wage, I mean). I look forward to moonlighting a little next year which will take some of the heat off.
There are no right or wrong reasons for going into medicine. If there were, most of your class, who spoke of nothing but altruism before they matriculated, would resign from medical school at the end of third year so heavy would be the burden of hypocrisy. You may be in it for the right reasons but you are definitely in a small minority.
You are going to be so disappointed with the profession.
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If there were no wrong reasons for going into medicine, there would be no wrong answers to the interview question "why medicine?" as far as adcoms are concerned. In fact that is not true.
In my opinion, money and altruism are probably both wrong answers if either of those are your primary goals. There are other easier avenues to both. These should be nice fringe benefits, IF they happen, not primary foci. Doing a career that you to some extent enjoy should be the primary focus, because you will be doing it a ton. If you make a few bucks and help a few people along the way, super.
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Obviously that's a pretty dramatic oversimplification of what happened in the 20th century. It's hard to know whether the principle of paying people what they deserve is what led to all of the mistery because there are so many conflating factors. Arguably capitalism and the free market is a system that pays people what they deserve. And you're right, I don't remember the Soviet Empire--I hadn't started kindergarten when it was dissolved
Of course it's an over-simplification. I'm posting on an internet forum, not defending my dissertation.
It is not hard to know. The impulses that lead to the Russian revolution are easy to understand and the aftermath, once the principles of communism were applied in practice, was also easy to understand.
It should also be obvious that the mob, once they are able to limit the salaries of CEOs, actors, atheletes and others who they envy will look around for anybody else making more than they think is fair. As many have pointed out, doctors are in the top one percent of wage earners. You won't get too much sympathy from somebody living in a trailer park when you complain about your wages being reduced because 50,000 per year should be enough for anybody.
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Eric Lindros
You sound miserable, I'm sorry things suck right now.
Is your wife a physician also? Is she working? (If you don't mind me asking)
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From his threads I don't think he is miserable as much as trying to impart some cold reality.
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Eric Lindros
I'm glad I am reading these things. I want to expect the worst with this career. I want to expect pure misery and regret. This way, if I do end up enjoying it I will only be pleasantly surprised
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Oh no. Now that I've switched out of Family Medicine (formerly known as the Specialty that Dare Not Speak Its Name) into Emergency Medicine I'm very happy with my decision to go to medical school, and not just because I like Emergency Medicine but because it pays pretty well once you finish residency.
In fact, it probably pays almost twice as much as Family Medicine for fewer hours.
The entire saga of my adventures at Duke Family Medicine and subsequent escape from that flaming disaster is recounted on my humble blog if you are interested.
http://pandabearmd.blogspot.com/2006/06/now-i-dont-feel-so-bad-about-leaving.html
http://pandabearmd.blogspot.com/2006/03/residency-match-part-4.html
http://pandabearmd.blogspot.com/2006/09/dr.html
And the rest of my blog is pretty good too, in a humble and non-threatening way. Start on this one, I think its my best:
http://pandabearmd.blogspot.com/2006/11/dawn-of-dead.html
But I assure you if somebody changed the rules and I only had a slight improvement in my current craptacular resident's salary to look forward to after eight (count 'em) eight years of hard work...well...I'd quit now and go back to engineering.
And things don't suck. My children are healthy, I have a very beautiful and supportive wife, and we have a lot of fun as a family (it's just not expensive fun). Hell, we just adopted a baby from Guatemala so we're not exactly sitting around bemoaning our fate. I'm just pointing out that medicine is a job that requires a lot more training than most and there is nothing wrong with expecting to be paid accordingly.
My wife, who has a degree in Physics, stays home and takes care of our four children.
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I'm glad I am reading these things. I want to expect the worst with this career. I want to expect pure misery and regret. This way, if I do end up enjoying it I will only be pleasantly surprised
A very wise attitude.
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It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
While I don't think doctors should be making 20M/yr like the OP D) I do absolutely HATE when people start saying things like "I work every bit as hard as a doctor, I deserve as much money", etc.
The fact is medical doctors sacrifice more of their life than pretty much anybody and only begin to make good money by the time they're a bit older, not to mention the huge debt they have when they graduate. Doctors deserve every dime they're paid.
D) I do absolutely HATE when people start saying things like "I work every bit as hard as a doctor, I deserve as much money", etc. The fact is medical doctors sacrifice more of their life than pretty much anybody and only begin to make good money by the time they're a bit older, not to mention the huge debt they have when they graduate. Doctors deserve every dime they're paid.
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While I don't think doctors should be making 20M/yr like the OP
The fact is medical doctors sacrifice more of their life than pretty much anybody and only begin to make good money by the time they're a bit older, not to mention the huge debt they have when they graduate. Doctors deserve every dime they're paid.
If people were paid based on how hard they worked, virtually every job would pay higher during the first few years and tail off considerably thereafter. The world doesn't value hard work so linearly.
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One thing we should remember is that just because someone says they are not doing it for the money does not mean they are doing it for the right reasons either. There are worse reasons people go into medicine for example, there is a fair amount of people doing it to get respect from friends and family, some are blindly following some other family member, and some are doing it to get laid(believe it or not, there are some ugly quacks out there with this notion). I am always tempted to stick anyone that tells me they don't care about money(at least on some level) in one of these categories, especially if they pull the usual "I want to save the world" speech out of their ass. IMO the person that says he is doing it for money is at least more practical than these types of people.
Very true, but the vast majority of people don't make that consideration.
The majority of the people in the world do believe in that linear relation between how hard they work and income--in their minds education needed, service provided, sacrifices made, products produced etc, are insignificant factors in determining ones income. And, of course, while they believe that "how hard they work" should determine their income, they also believe that seniority should grow it.
Luckily, despite their "beliefs", the decisions they make create an environment that is far from what they wish it to be.
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You're supporting 4 kids and a wife on 1 resident's salary? Wow. You are my new hero. I'm glad that I have some idea of where you're coming from.
I don't think I'll be disappointed with the profession at all. I'm not going into medicine because of altruism, just as I'm not going into it because of money. I'm going into medicine because I enjoy and am challenged by medical research, and see a career in medical research as a good fit for me.
I realize that money is important, especially for someone in your situation with a wife and kids. I would be much more hesitant to go into medicine if I were going to take on over $200K of debt as you did (I don't plan to go over 125), or if my wife were not planning to work for a significant part of medical school and residency.
What bothers me are those who scoff at the six-figure salaries that physicians make. When I looked at www.salary.com or the manual of physicians' sociodemographic statistics, I was shocked at how much physicians make. For people to think that these salaries aren't enough surprises me. If money is that important to these individuals, then they really should not be going into medicine.
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LOL - one would hope people could accomplish this for a lot less than the $150k people are shelling out for med school.
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You would have had a ball during a recent past debate on doctor's pay when people posted that making anything less than $150k was living in poverty.
I think SDN tends to get the most extreme of opinions. It's the nature of the forum that those who feels the most passion about something will jump in to have their say while those that are more moderate remain silent because we'll too lazy to post. The end result is you get students who treat entering medicine like entering a seminary (nothing so wrong with that except they may become more easily disillusioned later one) and you get people who complain about making a 'paltry' $200k when their "IB friends" are making a million (because obviously any med student can easily hit that
). Judging from most med students and the doctors I've talked to, most understand the cost-benefit ratio of medicine. They make the sacrifices right now for the bigger financial payout in the future, and can help people and have job security while making a nice salary. I think that combination is what attracted me to medicine. Too many careers have you 'tradeoff' on helping people vs. making money vs. job security. Medicine is one career where I can do all three. And I think one should look at *all* the factors of medicine instead of focusing on only the money or only the 'helping people' portion. People who medicine solely for those reasons will probably be the most miserable.
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Eric Lindros
I'm glad your finding more satisfaction in EM. This is the specialty that I'm realy interested in
(although I will only be starting med school this fall)It sounds like things can only go up for you financially. And my guess is that if your wife was motivated enough to get a Physics degree, she will eventually want to go back to work once the kiddies get older, which will only add to the income.
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Agreed.
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I know quite a few people who are doing jobs which have none of these three and are blissfully happy.
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This person said he/she was attracted to medicine for those reasons. Not that evreyone else should be attracted to medicine for those reasons. Of course some people thrive not having any of those.
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8744
Let me give you a fer' instance about how residency can suck and why nobody would do it if there was no payoff:
After tomorrow, because of the way the call schedules work, I won't have another day off almost three weeks and a few odd days. I have to come in both days next weekend to round (but I'm not on call), have call the Saturday after, am post-call on Sunday (I may get out by noon) and start OB-Gyn the next Monday.
Are there any other jobs where you would do this regularly without getting paid extra? I don't think so. And a few of those days are long, long call and post-call days which blow on a totally different level. I like ICU call, or rather I detest it less than most call, but you never get any sleep.
It's one thing to talk about it as a pre-med, it's another to acutally live the dream.
After tomorrow, because of the way the call schedules work, I won't have another day off almost three weeks and a few odd days. I have to come in both days next weekend to round (but I'm not on call), have call the Saturday after, am post-call on Sunday (I may get out by noon) and start OB-Gyn the next Monday.
Are there any other jobs where you would do this regularly without getting paid extra? I don't think so. And a few of those days are long, long call and post-call days which blow on a totally different level. I like ICU call, or rather I detest it less than most call, but you never get any sleep.
It's one thing to talk about it as a pre-med, it's another to acutally live the dream.
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8744
I'm glad your finding more satisfaction in EM. This is the specialty that I'm realy interested in
It sounds like things can only go up for you financially. And my guess is that if your wife was motivated enough to get a Physics degree, she will eventually want to go back to work once the kiddies get older, which will only add to the income.
Oh no. I owe her big time and she plans on being a kept woman once I start making a decent salary.
Would you nicely share those jobs with us?
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Well, do realize that for many people, money really ISN'T an issue when going into medicine. Doctors are not only ridiculously underpaid, but it's almost uncanny how much money it costs to become one.
If you really are a 'money person' you should sit down and do the math.
It's not JUST the fact that more than 90% of doctors get paid less than a decent iBanker or even a consultant with a few years of experience under his/her belt. You have to take into account the fact that you're going to be ~ 100,000-200,000 bucks in debt after leaving medical school.
But that's not even the worst of it. Since you're IN school at least 4 years longer than any business major will need to be in school without making ANY money, with the addition of another 2-6 years of semi-low paid residency work, you have to take into account general inflation.
If you're talking about housing in California, a family-sized house here RIGHT NOW, will eat up ~$400,000 (condo maybe) to $800,000 (regular sized house) to $1.5M (SF condo
). If you have to wait 4-10 years before you can pull together a down payment, and with house prices rising as they have been recently, you'll may have to pay upwards of double for the same house you would originally purchase.So let's compare. Take an engineer or consultant with a $60,000/year salary. What does he have on you?
4 years x $60,000 + 8 years housing price increase $500,000 + debt to medical school $150,000 = $890,000 LESS than a person of equivalent academic worth. We're not even talking iBanker money, or even if the engineer/consultant properly invested his money.
To make up for this, you'd have to make SERIOUS bank, which most doctors do not. The few doctors who do could easily have made even more money in the intervening time.
So yeah, medicine really ISN'T about the money. And saying that we aren't in it for the money isn't about 'looking good' but being real and having done the math and understanding that you shouldn't go into medicine unless you absolutely love it.
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Anything in the arts.
