Anyone know anyone who is a millionaire and made it through medicine? Let's hear some stories. To obtain this level, I am sure you must have opened up your own business. Feel free to PM me with your stories, I'd like to hear it. I dream to be you someday.
Liquid millionaires
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I am not talking about celebs. I am talking about the average med-entrepreneur type who works hard to earn his flow and makes much more than the average in his specialty by good business skillz. I know there are some of you lurking out there.
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I'm sure there are ... I just don't know how many regularly post on SDN.
In this day and age you will never find a truly rich person from medicine alone.
Medicine provides a comfortable and relatively stable life but is not the path to riches.
The only guy I know who is an MD and is rich actually doesn't use his MD. In fact he never even went to residency nor has he ever seen or touched a patient as an MD. He is a millionaire several times over doing real estate, stocks and options, and owning various businesses at some point in life.
How old is this guy? 32 ish.
So, sorry if this is not what you want to hear but if you want to be rich like it sounds like you are doing you need to actually own something and be a wheeler and dealer.
If you want to take care of patients and provide a good service to the community then medicine is your calling.
Heard of Kevin Ham? He dropped medicine and became a dot-com millionaire.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/06/01/100050989/index.htm
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/06/01/100050989/index.htm
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This is true of almost anything in life. If you want to get rich, use a comfortable salary to invest in things to really get you up there. I think there are probably very few people (some top CEOs, etc) that just blatantly make millions on their 9-5.
Law is far from a sure fire guarantee to high stakes money. Many people erroneously assume lawyers generally make more than doctors but that is not true. The average lawyer makes less than the average doctor. A lawyer graduating from a socalled T-14 (top 14) law school who gets into a big firm and advances up the ladder will make more than many doctors IF they make it to partner but that is hard. But yes, if you make it as a partner or top lawyer your salary becomes a lot lot better.
Did you know many lawyers are having trouble finding jobs in this economy? So don't assume its a sure fire thing.
And your average d-bag ambulance chaser is not generally a big money maker; its almost a lottery ticket type thing for them to hit it big on the maassive cases.
Business (MBA) can yield riches but to hit it big in business you again have to be very good and have a bit of luck. For every hedge fund/private equity titan you have a bunch of guys struggling to keep a job.
Hands down the path to riches lies in being a great investor with great instincts.
I am sure you can make pretty good money by owning your own practice in medicine. For instance, if you own a successful urgent care center, I think those guys make pretty good money. If you are successful you can open additional centers. Anyone know how much a successful urgent care center makes? One of the attendings at my program was telling me how the guy living down the street from him owned a few urgent care centers and he doesn't work very hard at all. He told me he was always taking vacations.
There are risks but if you have good instincts I think you can make a very good living in medicine...you just have to own your own business. Yes, you may not be making as much as those MBAs/private equity types, but you will make more than most docs.
You also have to have a entrepreneurial spirit, a passion for entrepreneurialism, and strong interpersonal skills to succeed as you will most likely have to deal with other physicians (depending on your specialty). Medicine doesn't attract many of these types.
One person I know of started his own pain clinic, built up the practice and eventually sold it because it was too much work. He had multiple centers and I'm sure he made over a mil selling those practices. Not too shabby for a doc. I've heard of docs owning their own imaging center, surgical center. I'm sure these guys are making very good money.
There are many business opps in medicine. You just have to have the personality. Thanks for all the comments everyone. I'd def like to meet more successful entrepreneurs in medicine.
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It doesn't quite work that way. A lot of overhead is fixed. If members of that group worked 40 hrs/wk, they would take home much less than 500,000.
You are absolutely correct; the docs that make the most money are the entrepeneurs.
Which would beg the question if you are an entrepeneur why bother being a doc?
4 years med school
- Study like crazy
- Learn zero business skills
3-5 years residency (med/peds/FP versus surgical)
- Work like crazy
- Learn zero business skills
1-2 years fellow
- Learn zero business skills
Medical malpractice lawsuits
Government tightening the belt
- Stark rules
- Heavily regulated industry
Hospitals and insurance companies have the real power
I'm not trying to discourage you; I'm a physician too and I'm not trying to put down my own field. I also work with a lot of residents and fellows. Because of fixed low salaries (essentially communistic field - derm guy makes same as peds guy etc), residents learn ZERO negotiating, marketing, networking, business skills. Most of the time its just get through the day alive.. not what is left to do to be successful. In business you constantly look for the next best deal.
But if you really wanted to make money, you can do it being a doc just remember the opportunity costs.
For the docs that have the guts and the talent to open their own imaging centers AND be successful.. bravo! My response: they would likely have had the business skills to do something similar without going through all the other stuff and be essentially 8-10 years ahead.
The guy you describe owning urgent care centers and making a lot of money is doing essentially what all other very wealthy people I know do: have a steady stream of passive income. You don't have to be a doctor and own an imaging center/UC center etc. to do it.
There are plenty of people with college education or less doing the same thing just not an imaging cente
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Panda bear still posts stuff? I thought he shut his blog down???
Yeah, business is 'better,' I guess (law sucks, I have friends in law school who continually remind me that their outcome is bleak), but med and business are two different personalities. People with a DO/MD who also have a good business sense and like to integrate the two worlds, do very well though. The richest doctor I've ever met was a guy who teamed with a few other docs and opened up a little hospital in my city in the 80s. The thing was a crap shack. I had to get stitches there one time and even as a kid ... I knew it was scary. It wasn't big, was essentially a glorified urgent care clinic ... but the main guy who got the docs together, probably still had some position, etc, was loadddded.
It's that way with everything though. Few people get truly rich off their salaries, even in business. Business actually probably has a much wider ranges of salaries too, and a lower median or mean salary compared to medicine. But even if you get pretty high in business or find a nice little niche in medicine, you won't get 'rich' unless you own the building where your practice is, only do clinical a little bit and work hospital admin, get high up in consulting, or invest in other stuff like real estate, start ups, etc. You can definitely live comfortably in both ... but people don't get rich by playing it safe and sticking with any 9-5.
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I can guarantee you that's not the only expense- there's medical license fees, malpractice insurance, cme, etc. Perhaps some type of secretary/manager or coordinator? Is the hospital doing the transcriptions or is the radiology group paying someone (although that would be more of a variable expense)?. There's also economies of scale to consider.
However- you may be mostly right, in the situation you describe, they probably could get close to 500,000 with a 40 hour week.
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No, not CCOM ... loved their program, but went in a different direction. If I were in your shoes, I'd probably choose the cheaper school (which I believe is MSU in your case - good program) and look into an MBA down the road.
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The best way to become a multimillionaire through medicine is complex, but there are several things to increase the odds. One minimize expenditures; 2 lattes at a coffee shop $8 * 240 times in a year is $1920 cost of making coffee at home with premium coffee $1 * 240 is $240 the savings is $1680 a year, buy a smaller house, a 3 bed and 3 bath is more than adequate for a family of 4. Don't buy a McMansion or be afraid to rent a home. Skrimp and save. Buy a used car. That's step one, step two is to invest, buy a mix of stocks, bonds etc. Three is to minimize debt, only use credit cards if you intend to pay for it at the end of the month. Is it worth it to send your kids to a 30K a year prep school or 60K a year private college? That's an individual decision.
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I'm sure you'll find some interesting physicians at the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs or SOPE. You'll find a some stories about this group on my blog.