Hey guys, so I'm a high school senior and I've applied to colleges. I really want to do medicine and I've gotten into the Penn State/ Jefferson BS/MD program but I've heard from so many people that going into medicine can ruin you financially. In entirety becoming a doctor would cost me 500k! I've also applied for Rutgers Pharmacy school and it would cost my family about 70-80k for the entirety of my education as I got a merit scholarship. I want to live a comfortable life: my parents are engineers and together probably make about 220k a year. I want to be able to lead a lifestyle like I do now. any advice? medicine? pharmacy? something else? I don't want to start off my adult life by making a horrible mistake. I love medicine so so much and I've had alot of experience in that field as a Turner Syndrome patent , but I think I would also enjoy pharmacy so I'm very conflicted.
Medicine vs Pharmacy
- Thread starter sonpat
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Medicine and Pharmacy are very different careers. This has been covered many times on SDN; the search button may be your friend in this case. I think the best way for you to figure out what you want to do would be to shadow people in each field, in order to get a feel for what they are like.
I will say, though, that medicine will not "ruin you financially." It costs a lot to go to school, but you will also make a more-than-decent salary. Doctors not be millionaires, but they are definitely able to live comfortably. It doesn't seem like you're super committed right now (which is fine! You're in high school, there's no need to be fully dedicated to one path), so I'd also recommend looking into other careers, as lifestyle and salary seem to be important to you.
As to pharm, I do know that is currently an oversaturated job market for new pharm grads, so it makes getting a good, decent paying job difficult. Something to look into.
I will say, though, that medicine will not "ruin you financially." It costs a lot to go to school, but you will also make a more-than-decent salary. Doctors not be millionaires, but they are definitely able to live comfortably. It doesn't seem like you're super committed right now (which is fine! You're in high school, there's no need to be fully dedicated to one path), so I'd also recommend looking into other careers, as lifestyle and salary seem to be important to you.
As to pharm, I do know that is currently an oversaturated job market for new pharm grads, so it makes getting a good, decent paying job difficult. Something to look into.
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Financially, without a doubt becoming a physician is better than a pharmacist. I have friends who are in pharmacy school and the amount of work you put into your studying almost equates to that in medical school. Personally, if i were to spend the same amount of energy studying, I would choose medical school and become a physician.
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Pharmacy is saturated and will continue to worsen by the time you apply for school.
Computer science or engineering would make the best investment for your education. You can live a fairly comfortable life and enjoy decent job security (better than pharmacy, at least) without having to take out an additional $200k+ in loans and spend an additional 4-12 years in school and residency, the latter which you will be pulling 80+ hour weeks. Pharmacy does not require you to be residency trained but more new grads are finding themselves unemployed or underemployed due to too many pharmacy schools having opened in the last 15 years.
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Tech is best way right now.
Have 2 friends, one applied Opto one applied med.
Both ended up in tech field and said if they knew before they would've went straight coding/programming/CS
Have 2 friends, one applied Opto one applied med.
Both ended up in tech field and said if they knew before they would've went straight coding/programming/CS
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Don't do a BS/MD program. You're locking yourself in far before you know what you're capable of. Also, $$$ won't mean anything if you aren't happy.
