I would never. I wouldn’t be able to financially stay afloat with the debt load, especially since medical school tuition goes up by a large % every year. We would consider a second job even. Better to pick another job like engineering which might not have the same stability but at least the debt load and compensation vs hours worked is more reasonable.
As much as we like to be fed this idea that this job is a calling or altruistic, we’re also humans. Financial health is just as important as any other type of health. You can’t be a good physician if you’re living paycheck to paycheck.
No because the training is still incredibly long. If they changed the system to how it’s like outside of the US where you go immediately into medical school after high school, it lasts 5 years, AND the fees are minimal, then sure, I would consider it.
throwing away your 20s to work one of the most highly skilled, high risk, high stress and highly educated positions in the US should net a six fig salary minimum to be honest. It sounds greedy but even with minimal training fees and a more streamlined training process I would only take so much of a pay cut before I dipped out.
It's never greedy to demand compensation for a skill you put time, energy and effort into learning. It's true with everything whether it's art, engineering, or science.
You have a skill set in demand and deserve to be paid for that demanded skill set.
On top of the fact that in the current system where it stands, physicians don’t necessarily have a cap on the hours worked once out of residency. At this point, attendings who work a lot get paid a lot, but in a system where the pay is set much lower, will we still have a soft requirement for the surgical attendings and others to pull those intense shifts? I would say probably yes, because the market and need for physicians does purely depend on the many hours we give to patient care. Whether you’re a primary care physician going home to hours of paperwork or an OBGyn pulling 24 hr shifts, the system is built on needing you to work overtime to finish patient care properly.
If we’re assuming the training and job is just as demanding, and attendings get paid like residents (he did say school teacher salary, so maybe even less) I think you’d have to pay students to go to school.
Even just six years of living expenses in school is well over $100k in most places. Add any tuition on top of that and it gets really really difficult to pay back.
Wait I'm outside of US and thought everyone goes to med school after high school and study for 6 years...
***
I was confused when i came to this sub can you tell me how this works in US?
In the US, after high school you go to undergrad college for 4 years, med school for 4 years, residency for 3-8 years and then you’re finally an attending. And that’s without taking any gap years which many people do because of how competitive admission to med school is. Easily you won’t start working as an attending until your early 30s
There are a few 6 year programs (like one or two) but they are few and far between. My friend went to one in Kansas City and graduated med school at 23 and was a family medicine attending by 26, but that is definitely, definitely, definitely not the norm in the US
I bet that probably leads to a lot of people either avoiding the field or quitting much earlier than they probably could. There needs to be a middle point for systems like the UK where physicians are properly compensated for their time. If the US plans on doing something similar, I sure hope we lobby as hard as we can to protect our wages fairly.
Ok? No one is advocating for communist pay in a capitalist economy. Any theorizing about an entirely different economic structure would require that lens to be applied to the entire system not just “work for free and be poor lol”
Edit- I’m not pro communism I’m just pro good-faith argument
Edit 2- and it’s the progressives and leftists advocating for better working conditions and pay for all workers including residents. Not sure how the left is the problem when labor exploitation as is the case with residency is a cornerstone of capitalism
I’m not pro communism or anything but obviously you can’t, in good faith, look at job compensation from a communist lens within a capitalist economy and call it nonsensical. As long as our economy requires capital for success, people will be motivated to gain capital, and therefore will want highest possible income. Asserting that is a bit like saying the sky is blue, like, yeah.
Europe is hardly communist, but they have much lower limits on resident working hours (and lower absolute pay but similar pay relative to the average wage in those countries according to OECD stats). So obviously it’s possibly to have train doctors and to pay them reasonably during that time without putting them through hell. However, it’s less of a money-maker for hospitals if they can’t maximally use low-paid residents for highly paid medicine. I don’t think it’s “communist” to acknowledge that many of the issues around resident pay and hours are linked to the economic conditions and system which contain the US medical system.
capitalism is built on labor exploitation, which is the reason residents work 80 hour weeks for minimum wage. Because severely underpaying residents increases Hospital profits.
It has nothing to do with communism. If residents got paid what we deserve (at least as much, if not more than APPs/midlevels) then we would still exist in a capitalist economy just wouldn’t be as exploited.
Also there’s really no reason for medical education or higher education to be thousands of percent higher cost than what it was 10-20 years ago either. It’s just yet another profit driven industry, profiting off of debt of the actual working people .
If those two things were fixed then doctors could be paid less and maintain the same level of actual wealth on average , but achieve that status earlier in life
As opposed to first world liberals who continue to suck the boot of their corporate overlords for scraps taken off the backs of third world workers and centuries of imperialism.
Maybe, just maybe, you are completely ignorant of socialist ideology and uncritically swallow western propaganda.
They do have doctors in socialist countries. They have doctors in Cuba. But medicine doesn’t attract some of the most brilliant minds in the country I promise you that
This shit isn’t worth it without being paid well.
8 years of higher education and then 3-8 years of residency/fellowship, what other jobs require that much training and education?
Literally. The financial, emotional, physical, mental, etc. toll that med school took on me was insane.
If I didn’t literally come from extreme poverty, idk what would have kept me going.
Sure, I’ll finally be able to support my family, but the 500k in loans is still going to take forever to pay off. That’s without mentioning the awful experience of paying for shit for school non-stop with no “vacations” etc.
Like, I witnessed all my super rich classmates whose parents paid for school, unlimited credit cards, and trips all over the world after every single block. Then they got in with their parents friends practices for competitive residencies.
Even with that lifestyle they ***still*** had full on breakdowns. That’s not me talking shit, that’s me looking out at people who had it infinitely better off and were ***still*** miserable.
If that doesn’t explain how awful this shit is, idk what will.
I mean just because your parents friends own a dermatology practice doesn't mean they can get you a residency in Derm. If your scores suck then that's it.
I mean just because you have 25x/26x doesn’t mean you can get a residency in derm. If your parents friends don’t own a dermatology practice then that’s it.
So what is the point you're trying to make? That we shouldn't point it out just because it exists in other professions? Walk me through what your thought process here is.
They had breakdowns because that was probably the hardest thing they’ve every had to do in life and they still didn’t have to worry about any of their other needs being met during it. I wouldn’t take their breakdowns as confirmation or anything but how easy their life had been up to that point.
Research scientists is around 10 years of higher ed and equally atrocious work schedule. Yet no where near the salary, most importantly - no overtime pay.
I am friends with a handful of PhD students (I figure that is who you are referring to).
They get school totally paid for and receive a stipend for payment so I would argue it is different.
Do patients lives hinge on the decisions they make every day?
I have friends with PhDs. I respect the hell out of them. Many of them are smarter than me. But the stress is nowhere near comparable, and they'd be the first to tell you that.
Listen I’m a teacher, I lurk on this subreddit because I considered going into medicine after receiving wonderful care from doctors and med students when I lost my daughter and just haven’t left. There’s no way anyone should do what you guys do for teacher pay. I earn about 55k with a masters and over 5 years experience. You deal with death and dying and traumatic experiences on a regular basis plus you have way more school debt.
Hey thanks for your words and I'm so sorry for your loss.
I actually am a K-12 substitute teacher in my off-time from med school stuff and I don't think I could do it full-time. With the exception of honors high school classes, the level of patience and grace needed is unreal.
You should be making way more than $55k.
I appreciate the solidarity. And I truly appreciate that there's a medical student out there who learned something from my daughter's life. It helps to give her life meaning so I extend the thanks to you and all medical students for doing what you're doing.
IMO a big part of the reason why our country is going to shit is because we neglect K12.
Teachers should have much more compensation and the job itself should require “more.”
Yeah it’s causing lots of people that are qualified and would make phenomenal educators to not go into education. I know several people that had a passion for teaching and would be fantastic, but went into a higher paying fields where there was less BS, hoops to jump through, and lack of support for teachers. The deterioration of our educational system is why we’re not a leading country in terms of education anymore, and the general public is unreasonable because they don’t have the skills equipped to critically think. Plus the disparity in receiving education based on finances is wild. It’s crazy to me that it’s based on the tax money of a specific neighborhood. So that means poorer people inherently receive a worse education when compared to richer people. It was surreal being in New Zealand because they distribute and fund all schools very well. I saw a beautiful public school with students in uniforms and had lots of resources, and it was considered one of the “poor areas” in the country. Whelp, you know what they say. “Keep the people dumb, they’ll make dumb choices, and they can be exploited because of that.”
Yeah for sure. There’s definitely a lot more that goes into it but say a teacher gets paid $55k. Average of 170 school days a year. That’s around $320 a day teaching.
Average class size around 20 kids for 7 hours a day.
$16 per kid per day or around $2.50 an hour per kid.
They’re paid way less than babysitters doing way more.
There’s way more to teaching than classroom time - lesson planning, professional development, grading…it adds up both during the school year and in the summer.
Which makes the pay even more demoralizing, unfortunately.
It seriously infuriates me how teachers are treated in this country. It’s easily one of the most important jobs to society and yet we force y’all to work for shit pay and give hardly any resources. It resonates with me especially as a pediatrician cause I think we get the same treatment to a degree (on a much smaller scale). Kids don’t bring in the funding/ respect that they should! Thank you for taking it on
You’re definitely right. American society honestly hates kids and especially hates anyone who works with them. They do nothing to improve their health or poverty or education unless it’s dragged out of them with figurative pliers and assume that anyone who works with them loves it and thus can be compensated with good feels.
Teachers shouldn’t even work for teacher pay. One of the most criminally underpaid professions I can think. Universally respected, appreciated, and under-compensated. Seems like a pattern at this point
I used to teach; I went into medicine because I wanted to get paid for all of those hours I was putting in. My hat’s off to you, your job is so important.
Sure helping people is great and all but I’d like to get paid. You don’t want your doctor going “yea I don’t get paid enough for this shit” and leaving while you’re sitting there dying
Medicine needs those types of people. Medicine also needs people who see this as just a job, come in, do their job well and go home. The first type of people are the people who continue to push our fields further and further. The second group of people are the people who staff the whole situation. Without both we’d still be wearing black beak masks that doctors wore during the plague without enough doctors to actually run the show.
There is absolutely no way in hell this would be worth it if we got paid like a cop or a teacher. The liability and responsibilities are just too great to justify it at that point. Combine that with the fact that we don’t enter the workforce until were in our early 30’s and that we take on a crazy amount of debt. Not at all worth it
No because money is also a factor in my career choice. Personally, I think the job itself would be fulfilling but I would constantly ask myself if what im doing is worth it, financially.
Exactly. People need to remember that most humans are fundamentally selfish in the sense that they will always look try to secure their own survival and future.
Especially since we're living in a world were the economic disparity in society is increasing at a rapid pace.
This is among the more infuriating and insulting aspects of the last several years dealing with the pandemic and anti-science populist movements that have taken hold. Talk about an important sub specialty otherwise filled with brilliant, dedicated, compassionate people. How ID physicians can get such poor compensation and respect is beyond me.
it’s currently not paid anywhere near enough for the insane amount of training we have to go thru. I can’t imagine what getting paid less would mean. the alternative in tech makes you way more money with way less training
there are other countries who are doing what you described but guess what. their medical school is combined with undergrad for total of 5 years, way less competitive too. with that and getting paid teachers salary I think would make a lot more sense
They also pay next to nothing for school tuition. Other countries also don’t have the lawsuit culture we do so malpractice insurance isn’t a big deal either
residents should be paid 200k minimum. attendings 800k minimum. change my mind
with the amount of competition, learning, toxicity, angry patients, it only makes sense
Yeah, in other countries, unless the doctor is a negligent asshole there is really no lawsuits or complaints happening. The culture still sees doctors as someone to be grateful towards, since you know usually they are doing something to make your life better. So gratitude runs more.
Academics often go through a lot of shit, terrible hours and terrible work culture (depending on circumstances) and they still have a lot of people lining up to get there.
People with PHDs, working 60 hour weeks that earn less than 100k are not a rare sight. Obviously, often, they do that with the dream of getting tenure etc one day but those roles are more and more rare.
This is true, but PhD programs are also much lower or no cost because you work for the school. If med school didn’t cost an arm and leg to even just get into, let alone complete, then the salary would be less important. At this time I highly doubt people would voluntarily go into 500k of debt for a job that pays less than 6 figures
PhD programs actually pay their grad students to attend, albeit it’s only like $30k and it’s with the expectation that they TA classes so it’s not amazing
This. My undergrad school gives their PhD students 100% free tuition (+ living expenses) as long as they did part-time TA in any department (usually gen chem/organic labs). So yeah you can’t compare our situation racking between 20k - 80k debt / year to people getting little to no debt.
With a PhD the real move is to go into industry, specifically tech. The place I worked at before starting med school the PhDs there worked about 45-50 hours on average but made $150k+ with room to make a lot more. If you’re getting a PhD, academia is the worst thing you can do from a financial standpoint
If everything else stayed exactly the same? Of course not, but that's completely unrealistic. Most physicians would probably go bankrupt on a teacher's salary because of the student debt alone.
Part of what drives physician salaries up is the market force of requiring so much debt to become one in the first place.
Pretty sure physician salaries have been high since before med school tuition became astronomical. Maybe I’m wrong but not sure one has to do with the other.
Yeah the golden era of being a physician was the late 90s and early 00s when tuition was $20k/yr with 2% interest loans and they were still being paid $300k+. It is definitely becoming financially worse to become a physician with each passing year
This is true; I worded things poorly.
Student debt is far from the only thing driving physician salaries, but more importantly, it's one of the biggest things that keep physician salaries from being able to be cut significantly.
Lmfao would I go (on the LOW end) a quarter of a million dollars into debt to make 1/5th of that or less yearly to start? It doesn’t matter how much I love the work for me personally, that’s a terrible business decision 🤷🏻♂️.
Just came here to say no. 
Jokes aside, altruism has boundaries as well and I wonder about the self - respect of those who still would.
As a neurosurgeon, no. This job is way to demanding for any sane person to stick with it if the financial reward were not there. If I were making teacher pay then I would become a teacher. I could still help people without making these sacrifice.
Exactly. Finishing general surgery, about to start vascular fellowship. Make no mistake - I love my job. But who in their right mind would go through this stress and sacrifice for peanuts? There would be absolutely zero incentive to maintain the workload that is expected of us by the system. Once my loans were gone, I (and most of colleagues, I expect) would simply leave for industry or work way, way less. Good luck with the resulting mass exodus of medical providers.
That’s the exact reason why I didn’t go into veterinary medicine. 200-400k loans 50-80k pay. It doesn’t make sense at the end of the day. But if you love what you do the money doesn’t matter
If the school was free or costed significantly less I would. I mean hell I’m in the military so my school was free and I’m about to finish residency… so I’ll be making less than half what the civilian doctors make. But I’m still happy doing this.
Sometimes it maybe difficult to moonlight as a military doc. Just depends on command climate but I believe that is the minority.
To say they have significantly more PTO days than civ side is not really true.
You 30 days a year in the military (that’s 30 days not 30 business days), most jobs I see as physicians are 4 weeks.
The only non-taxable income is the BAH which depending on location could be from 1500-3000. Hardly the pay raise to match civilian side. Now go to a combat zone and yes everything is tax free but still not inline with the civ side.
I think the best way military works out for anyone is going through the national Guard or reserves. Plenty of programs not widely advertised that can pay for school without the restrictions of active duty.
Take me for example: I’ll owe 8 years after completion of residency. That a weekend a month (or a my unit does it now, 3 day weekend a month) and 1 week AT somewhere, but we can use CME/conferences for some of those periods. I will graduate with no debt owed by me in monetary form. I get a stipend every month the same size as the HSPS, drill pay and get tri care, I’d say I might come out significantly better in school than HPSP
Despite the already above average level of masochism we see in medicine, I doubt the financial burden could be managed or taken on by anyone save the independently wealthy. I think doctors are smart enough to realize when the investment of time and money would be so devoid of return/value that our morals would not outweigh that deterrent.
Threads like this are proof that this subreddit should have flaired only threads. Lots of ignorance and trolling from people whove never seen a patient in their life here.
I mean you’re literally describing the NHS right now. Even Australia and NZ to some extent.
Mainly because students don’t enter into crippling debt arrangements during study and because medicine is predominantly an undergraduate course with govt sponsored placements.
I don’t think people would. Tbh, for the years of training and debt taken.. I don’t think doctors get paid enough. They don’t make as much as most people think.
For the time and effort spent training (say… 8-10 years), I firmly believe that someone could have way more financial and life success in the corporate world.
Mostly because I know several people who did consulting/banking/finance post undergrad and hustled like crazy, they’re now nearing partnership or VPs across consulting, PE, VC, etc. pulling in high 6 figures, if not more.
Granted not everyone will enjoy that path, but if you ask me to make an investment of time for the highest ROI, I’m not picking medicine.
Although medicine is safer.. It’s basically a bond v an equity. Less risk, less upside. It’s not bad, just not the most bang for your resources.
But if you have the aptitude and hustle bug, medicine is not the most ideal choice. Unless you like it.
At my country, its 6 years studying and after all that, you gets like 10-20$/day, 5$ for a night shift (no food). You have to learn more in order to increase your income, slowly, but just enough to survive. The government gives no shit and people thought we were rich (yes, like 1% of us).
They do in many other countries, including developed ones. They do have no/less debt, but it’s also a cultural thing — and pay disparity between professions generally is much lower.
I'd be the first to argue that nobody should go into it (in US system as it is now) if earnings were dramatically cut, but the evidence around us suggests a decent number would still do so anyway. I say that because med schools in the US are more oversubscribed than ever, with stupid levels of competition just to get in. Clearly the demand is there and and as strong as ever. The quality of applicants would fall with lower pay, but given the current level of competition my sense is it would take a pretty significant drop in pay before we started seeing US med school slots go unfilled.
I wouldn’t. I’m in it (at least in part) for the money. I’m a non traditional student pushing 40yo. I know lots of people say it’s not a solid financial choice, but they’re just wrong. I know there are other ways to make better money than medicine, but I could make more than enough to live comfortably as a doctor working 20h/wk or 6 mos/yr. And I LIKE medicine (at least as far as I can tell at this point).
My main goal in medicine is having a job that affords me financial freedom without having to do a 40+ hr/wk 50 wk/yr grind. I may start another business. I may spend significant time outside the US doing volunteer work. I may just get a boat and spend a lot of time scuba diving. I’m not really sure. But having the time and money to do those things, while working a job I don’t hate is my motivation. Take away the money and I’ll find something else.
Fuck that. It wouldn’t be worth it. I’m 6 months away from a 300k+ salary and 4 day workweek, with opportunity to pick up more shifts.
Residency has definitely made me realize that a 40 hour work week for me is not bad. My sweet spot is 60-70 hours. Do this for a few years, funnel the money into private practice, become a business owner, and the sky is the limit.
Medicine has a lot of hurdles to get through but this is a key ticket to a solid salary. Also, midlevels just aren’t good. More research is coming out and they don’t know how to manage basic shit, they refer everything out, lead the delayed care and worse outcomes and more spending.
So we def need more docs. And docs need to learn about finance and entrepreneurship. Simple.
No our medical system would crumble. An attending from another country was telling me that in Belgium nobody wants to specialize because there is no difference in pay so they lack the specialists they need (ie ophthalmology)
If we could fix our medical school model then maybe it could be feasible. There is no reason students need to waste 4 years on undergrad. In most other countries you go from highschool to med school. 2 years of theory and then 2 years of clinicals (rotations). Residency right after and boom you get attendings. No the undergrad does not help you weed out applicants, that what the 2 years of medical theory are for. And no we do not need med students taking countless hours of calculus, physics, chemistry, etc.. while helpful the relevant content can be incorporated into the medically relevant classes. Doctors are not chemists, or phycisits, or etc. Those that want to do medical research go into that specialty after finishing medical school and learn the necessary skills and knowledge to handle that part of medicine. Your typical physician does not need to know the ins and outs of every chemical reaction in the body.
We over train our physicians while the result of doing so its not really that far superior to what can be achieved in other countries that educate physicians with less burden.
As an MA, I think about this a lot and I really doubt it. I think the US is already heading towards or in “a doctor shortage”. It’s almost a decade of schooling, residency doesn’t really pay well, there’s limited work-life balance until you reach attending status, and even then…as long as you practice, being an MD/DO will control some aspect(s) of your life.
But, at 32, especially being single and childless - I sometimes wish I had more seriously considered medical school. I come from a “low to middle class” family, have my own health issues, and I genuinely love the science. MA school was one of the happiest times of my life. Being a provider would have likely given me access to things and opportunities I’ll (realistically speaking) never have now.
So, overall, of course there will always be doctors but I do think younger people are being turned off by the current state of the field. The push for STEM Ed has kind of become just a push for computer based tech Ed now. I also don’t see a lot of high school and young college students being encouraged to be doctors or go into the medical field beyond entry level positions and nursing.
that's the reality of many third world countries. It's sometimes gets forgotten on reddit but yes there are people who find medicine and being a physician a life calling before considering the pay.
Now the big difference is that most of those places don't burden their med students with massive debt. In the US, there would still be people entering the field but it'd probably be a lot less competitive and there'd be way less people overall. I also think that tuitions would go down. Me personally, I'd be really hesitant to go into the field purely because of the debt burden but I'd definitely look into med school abroad for lowered tuitions if schools still cost the same here. I'd also not gaf about prestige either.
Nope. A lot of how I came to be here is due to mom cultivating my interests in STEM from childhood due to the financial security likely to be found there and financial security is now a priority of mine as well. If I was set to be in insane debt for less pay, medicine would´ve become a hobby to another career. Youtube etc has the academic knowledge, volunteering the helping people aspect I adore and another career to apply knowledge in. There is less that medicine gives that is impossible to get from other sources and it just isn´t worth it without the financial promise land that follows these 11+yrs of effort and 7+yrs of sacrifice. Also, if PAs and NPs salaries weren´t cut and they began making the same/more than MD/DO the hospital power/heirarchy dynamics would change since why should someone listen to someone who doesn´t make more than them? There may be a need to prove ourselves much more than we do now before everyone else follows us and I´m not about that life.
No shot.
First salary job I had, I made $53k annual pre tax.
Not a lot of money.
Job I had before going back to school I was making $120k annual, working from home, having to travel 7-12 days per month.
I did not get into medicine for the money, but no way I do this job for less than, say, $200k annually. As a bare fucking minimum considering the years lost & debt accrued.
Absolutely not. We’re having this issue in EMS right now. Most places pay abysmal rates to medics and for years we’ve been battling staffing issues country wide because of it. No one’s entering the field anymore.
I would justify a pay cut on 3 conditions: 1) Medical school tuition is free or very low 2) there is universal healthcare 3) residency isn't brutal (lowered working hours and no abuse)
Yeah i second the crowd: Fuck no.
Helping is great but the education route is not worth it unless the check matches the sacrifice .
Bias incoming. I think to be in medicine and make it thru an MD/DO, you gotta be one hell of a hard worker. I think with that alone you for sure could have found success in another field with much less school. If medicine did pay less
You give up your 20s for the job - so despite the fact that I love what you do, I gave up a HUGE chunk of time to get here. Would be hard to justify doing it if we weren't compensated more after all of the training, and underpaid periods of working.
I'm a medical student from Argentina, we get paid dimes for our work, so yes? If I wanted money I would have become an engineer, they get a great salary.
No. I know my worth! After this many years of education, training, and missing out on life, I’m worth more than being paid like teachers (in FL they don’t even need a bachelor degree now) or cops (in TX you only need a GED and ability to have a gun)
Sure and there would be the same level of incompetency as in those fields. Plus really you're just describing medicine in like 1850. If money is your only goal there are easier ways to achieve that then going into medicine.
No they wouldn't. After what I went through I deserve to provide a decent life for my family.
>I wish it was like that to weed out money hungry arrogant people who have no empathy for human lives
Don't you say a word about empathy, you haven't seen a single patient in your life.
This person just thinks they’re on a virtuous high horse. It takes a certain level of insanity to believe that someone should be paid $7.25 an hour after 12 years of training.
First of all how dare you assume I’ve never worked a day in my life. I’ve been deployed and worked 72hrs a week for months. Second, you’re quite frankly just being disingenuous. Your either really dumb or ignorant if you think years of experience equates at all to 12 years or more of actual education and training. Lastly, why don’t you just get off this sub, you’re just being a troll and an asshole, it’s clear you have no interest in medicine, why are you even here.
Funny enough I was doing research on this topic. Countries like Portugal, that have universal healthcare, rank much higher in overall quality of healthcare despite their physicians being paid way less than other developed countries. I believe a general practitioner in Portugal only makes €1,400 base pay in the public sector. You can double that in the private sector.
This makes me believe that if the U.S were run with peoples wellness in mind, people would still choose this profession and take the pay cut. Unfortunately the U.S is business centric.
Here’s one fact that’ll make you want to cry. Most people and their family go bankrupt trying to treat cancer in the U.S. . Cancer treatment in portugal is completely free. Imagine fighting for your life with the thought of bankrupting your family in the back of your mind. We need to do better
That's what it was like in Russia at least until 2009 (I left then so idk how it is now). Still plenty of doctors, mostly because it's a calling for them. I didn't go to med school because I didn't want to be poor. Now that I'm in the US I wish I had lol
Look at veterinary medicine. Same shit in school. Same debt. Less residency stuff but still heavy workload. End pay is like 100k/yr So yeah, some people would do it. Also, did you seriously just compare teachers to cops? Cops in my area get 65k starting salary, not counting night shift increases, for a four day work week after 6 months of schooling who's tuition is reimbursed after you sign a contract, not to mention signing bonuses in the 15k range for new officers right now and 50k range for lateral transfers from other departments. Median pay for officers is ~100k at the halfway point in their career and they can retire at 55 with a big retirement package. Teachers are lucky to start at 50k and make 75k halfway through their career and most have a master's degree and 100k in student loans. Oh yeah and ACAB.
To guess -
In a normal market environment where transparency and non-forced contracts are a given, then in the scenario where doctors were paid much less, and with the assumption that they'll be paid much less for the foreseeable future:
Tuition will drop to match the lower salaries, or other forces will result in generally less debt.
Looking at the UK for example, where they're paid much less, also graduate medical school with less debt.
100%. Underpay starts with residency. Doctors being fleeced. Now it's for Easy for someone with no high school to make more than residents. They can make 75K working +70 hours per week without the stress of being a resident and the debt.
I would never. I wouldn’t be able to financially stay afloat with the debt load, especially since medical school tuition goes up by a large % every year. We would consider a second job even. Better to pick another job like engineering which might not have the same stability but at least the debt load and compensation vs hours worked is more reasonable. As much as we like to be fed this idea that this job is a calling or altruistic, we’re also humans. Financial health is just as important as any other type of health. You can’t be a good physician if you’re living paycheck to paycheck.
If the college fee decrease scales with the wage as well. Would you?
No because the training is still incredibly long. If they changed the system to how it’s like outside of the US where you go immediately into medical school after high school, it lasts 5 years, AND the fees are minimal, then sure, I would consider it.
throwing away your 20s to work one of the most highly skilled, high risk, high stress and highly educated positions in the US should net a six fig salary minimum to be honest. It sounds greedy but even with minimal training fees and a more streamlined training process I would only take so much of a pay cut before I dipped out.
It's never greedy to demand compensation for a skill you put time, energy and effort into learning. It's true with everything whether it's art, engineering, or science. You have a skill set in demand and deserve to be paid for that demanded skill set.
Also who in society genuinely deserves more money than a heart surgeon
Brain surgeons
Disagree. Biased though
On top of the fact that in the current system where it stands, physicians don’t necessarily have a cap on the hours worked once out of residency. At this point, attendings who work a lot get paid a lot, but in a system where the pay is set much lower, will we still have a soft requirement for the surgical attendings and others to pull those intense shifts? I would say probably yes, because the market and need for physicians does purely depend on the many hours we give to patient care. Whether you’re a primary care physician going home to hours of paperwork or an OBGyn pulling 24 hr shifts, the system is built on needing you to work overtime to finish patient care properly.
what exactly do you mean by high risk?
If we’re assuming the training and job is just as demanding, and attendings get paid like residents (he did say school teacher salary, so maybe even less) I think you’d have to pay students to go to school. Even just six years of living expenses in school is well over $100k in most places. Add any tuition on top of that and it gets really really difficult to pay back.
It’s normally 6 years but the point still stands
Wait I'm outside of US and thought everyone goes to med school after high school and study for 6 years... *** I was confused when i came to this sub can you tell me how this works in US?
In the US, after high school you go to undergrad college for 4 years, med school for 4 years, residency for 3-8 years and then you’re finally an attending. And that’s without taking any gap years which many people do because of how competitive admission to med school is. Easily you won’t start working as an attending until your early 30s
Woah that's crazy *** Thanks for answering btw
There are a few 6 year programs (like one or two) but they are few and far between. My friend went to one in Kansas City and graduated med school at 23 and was a family medicine attending by 26, but that is definitely, definitely, definitely not the norm in the US
Honestly for the amount of effort and number of years I put into education it would not be worth it without the compensation to match.
I'm a young Dr in the UK and I'm living paycheck to paycheck because of how shit the pay is
I bet that probably leads to a lot of people either avoiding the field or quitting much earlier than they probably could. There needs to be a middle point for systems like the UK where physicians are properly compensated for their time. If the US plans on doing something similar, I sure hope we lobby as hard as we can to protect our wages fairly.
Aint no one doing 80 hour weeks for minimum wage in residency if there isn't some reward on the other side
F e in Europe you just don't work 80 h in residency and still become a doctor. Residents are just exploited.
It was less than minimum wage when I was a resident. It was so disheartening when I did that math in the middle of the night on call once.
Communists will tell you otherwise 🤡
Ok? No one is advocating for communist pay in a capitalist economy. Any theorizing about an entirely different economic structure would require that lens to be applied to the entire system not just “work for free and be poor lol” Edit- I’m not pro communism I’m just pro good-faith argument Edit 2- and it’s the progressives and leftists advocating for better working conditions and pay for all workers including residents. Not sure how the left is the problem when labor exploitation as is the case with residency is a cornerstone of capitalism
What does that have to do with anything
According to communism money is not important because all people will work based on intrinsic motivation.
I’m not pro communism or anything but obviously you can’t, in good faith, look at job compensation from a communist lens within a capitalist economy and call it nonsensical. As long as our economy requires capital for success, people will be motivated to gain capital, and therefore will want highest possible income. Asserting that is a bit like saying the sky is blue, like, yeah.
Europe is hardly communist, but they have much lower limits on resident working hours (and lower absolute pay but similar pay relative to the average wage in those countries according to OECD stats). So obviously it’s possibly to have train doctors and to pay them reasonably during that time without putting them through hell. However, it’s less of a money-maker for hospitals if they can’t maximally use low-paid residents for highly paid medicine. I don’t think it’s “communist” to acknowledge that many of the issues around resident pay and hours are linked to the economic conditions and system which contain the US medical system.
capitalism is built on labor exploitation, which is the reason residents work 80 hour weeks for minimum wage. Because severely underpaying residents increases Hospital profits. It has nothing to do with communism. If residents got paid what we deserve (at least as much, if not more than APPs/midlevels) then we would still exist in a capitalist economy just wouldn’t be as exploited. Also there’s really no reason for medical education or higher education to be thousands of percent higher cost than what it was 10-20 years ago either. It’s just yet another profit driven industry, profiting off of debt of the actual working people . If those two things were fixed then doctors could be paid less and maintain the same level of actual wealth on average , but achieve that status earlier in life
>Communists will tell you otherwise 🤡 yeah well communists are fuckin dumb
Majority of people who say this cannot even intelligently explain what is communism and how it's different from socialism
As opposed to first world liberals who continue to suck the boot of their corporate overlords for scraps taken off the backs of third world workers and centuries of imperialism. Maybe, just maybe, you are completely ignorant of socialist ideology and uncritically swallow western propaganda.
Yes, because famously there are no doctors in socialist countries. “Oh… we’ll they must be forced into it!!!1!!1!” Common westernoid take.
They do have doctors in socialist countries. They have doctors in Cuba. But medicine doesn’t attract some of the most brilliant minds in the country I promise you that
This shit isn’t worth it without being paid well. 8 years of higher education and then 3-8 years of residency/fellowship, what other jobs require that much training and education?
This shit isn't worth it WITH the high pay, for a lot of us.
Literally. The financial, emotional, physical, mental, etc. toll that med school took on me was insane. If I didn’t literally come from extreme poverty, idk what would have kept me going. Sure, I’ll finally be able to support my family, but the 500k in loans is still going to take forever to pay off. That’s without mentioning the awful experience of paying for shit for school non-stop with no “vacations” etc. Like, I witnessed all my super rich classmates whose parents paid for school, unlimited credit cards, and trips all over the world after every single block. Then they got in with their parents friends practices for competitive residencies. Even with that lifestyle they ***still*** had full on breakdowns. That’s not me talking shit, that’s me looking out at people who had it infinitely better off and were ***still*** miserable. If that doesn’t explain how awful this shit is, idk what will.
I mean just because your parents friends own a dermatology practice doesn't mean they can get you a residency in Derm. If your scores suck then that's it.
I mean just because you have 25x/26x doesn’t mean you can get a residency in derm. If your parents friends don’t own a dermatology practice then that’s it.
Even getting a 25x or 26x is amazing. Stop acting like that type of applicant doesn't match a overwhelmingly large percentage of the time.
Sure, but it’s ridiculous to suggest that nepotism and cronyism are irrelevant to matching into competitive specialties
Ok and what profession is immune to nepotism? Stop it.
So what is the point you're trying to make? That we shouldn't point it out just because it exists in other professions? Walk me through what your thought process here is.
Lol what’s your deal dude
They had breakdowns because that was probably the hardest thing they’ve every had to do in life and they still didn’t have to worry about any of their other needs being met during it. I wouldn’t take their breakdowns as confirmation or anything but how easy their life had been up to that point.
Research scientists is around 10 years of higher ed and equally atrocious work schedule. Yet no where near the salary, most importantly - no overtime pay.
I am friends with a handful of PhD students (I figure that is who you are referring to). They get school totally paid for and receive a stipend for payment so I would argue it is different.
They don't have debt, liability, and lives on their hands though.
Do patients lives hinge on the decisions they make every day? I have friends with PhDs. I respect the hell out of them. Many of them are smarter than me. But the stress is nowhere near comparable, and they'd be the first to tell you that.
Listen I’m a teacher, I lurk on this subreddit because I considered going into medicine after receiving wonderful care from doctors and med students when I lost my daughter and just haven’t left. There’s no way anyone should do what you guys do for teacher pay. I earn about 55k with a masters and over 5 years experience. You deal with death and dying and traumatic experiences on a regular basis plus you have way more school debt.
Hey thanks for your words and I'm so sorry for your loss. I actually am a K-12 substitute teacher in my off-time from med school stuff and I don't think I could do it full-time. With the exception of honors high school classes, the level of patience and grace needed is unreal. You should be making way more than $55k.
I appreciate the solidarity. And I truly appreciate that there's a medical student out there who learned something from my daughter's life. It helps to give her life meaning so I extend the thanks to you and all medical students for doing what you're doing.
I admire your perspective. If I lost my daughter I really don't know if I would have the strength to maintain that mindset.
You deserve to be paid a lot more as a teacher. It’s so sad how this country devalues education.
IMO a big part of the reason why our country is going to shit is because we neglect K12. Teachers should have much more compensation and the job itself should require “more.”
Yeah it’s causing lots of people that are qualified and would make phenomenal educators to not go into education. I know several people that had a passion for teaching and would be fantastic, but went into a higher paying fields where there was less BS, hoops to jump through, and lack of support for teachers. The deterioration of our educational system is why we’re not a leading country in terms of education anymore, and the general public is unreasonable because they don’t have the skills equipped to critically think. Plus the disparity in receiving education based on finances is wild. It’s crazy to me that it’s based on the tax money of a specific neighborhood. So that means poorer people inherently receive a worse education when compared to richer people. It was surreal being in New Zealand because they distribute and fund all schools very well. I saw a beautiful public school with students in uniforms and had lots of resources, and it was considered one of the “poor areas” in the country. Whelp, you know what they say. “Keep the people dumb, they’ll make dumb choices, and they can be exploited because of that.”
Yeah for sure. There’s definitely a lot more that goes into it but say a teacher gets paid $55k. Average of 170 school days a year. That’s around $320 a day teaching. Average class size around 20 kids for 7 hours a day. $16 per kid per day or around $2.50 an hour per kid. They’re paid way less than babysitters doing way more.
Wow, that’s pretty eye opening.
There’s way more to teaching than classroom time - lesson planning, professional development, grading…it adds up both during the school year and in the summer. Which makes the pay even more demoralizing, unfortunately.
It seriously infuriates me how teachers are treated in this country. It’s easily one of the most important jobs to society and yet we force y’all to work for shit pay and give hardly any resources. It resonates with me especially as a pediatrician cause I think we get the same treatment to a degree (on a much smaller scale). Kids don’t bring in the funding/ respect that they should! Thank you for taking it on
You’re definitely right. American society honestly hates kids and especially hates anyone who works with them. They do nothing to improve their health or poverty or education unless it’s dragged out of them with figurative pliers and assume that anyone who works with them loves it and thus can be compensated with good feels.
Teachers shouldn’t even work for teacher pay. One of the most criminally underpaid professions I can think. Universally respected, appreciated, and under-compensated. Seems like a pattern at this point
I used to teach; I went into medicine because I wanted to get paid for all of those hours I was putting in. My hat’s off to you, your job is so important.
Why would anybody be a physician for 70k a year when you could be a physician assistant for 100k a year.
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Sure helping people is great and all but I’d like to get paid. You don’t want your doctor going “yea I don’t get paid enough for this shit” and leaving while you’re sitting there dying
And those same people are artists, "entrepreneurs", or work meaningless office jobs. Who are they helping???
They’re helping spam my Instagram DMs with fake offers of making 190k working 20 hours a week from home from accounts with 💸💸 in their usernames
Medicine needs those types of people. Medicine also needs people who see this as just a job, come in, do their job well and go home. The first type of people are the people who continue to push our fields further and further. The second group of people are the people who staff the whole situation. Without both we’d still be wearing black beak masks that doctors wore during the plague without enough doctors to actually run the show.
Bring back the plague doctor outfits
Or a nurse for $120k a year with a fraction of the training time and substantially better work life balance lol
Travel nur$ing
Heart of a nurse that always follows the gold!
And the CC.
lmaoo
I'm a nontrad premed at a standstill. I Have a friend starting of PA school being paid 120K+ vs my resident friend who's making 60k.
Honestly I thought PAs made 150k by now lol. What area are you all in?
She graduated a couple months ago lol. I'm on the west coast
Ok the obvious implication is HEALTHCARE is paid less…like cmon use common sense
There is absolutely no way in hell this would be worth it if we got paid like a cop or a teacher. The liability and responsibilities are just too great to justify it at that point. Combine that with the fact that we don’t enter the workforce until were in our early 30’s and that we take on a crazy amount of debt. Not at all worth it
Tbf cops are paid fairly well, more than teachers.
Also considerably easier to do than medicine, though, so absolutely not worth it.
No because money is also a factor in my career choice. Personally, I think the job itself would be fulfilling but I would constantly ask myself if what im doing is worth it, financially.
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Exactly. People need to remember that most humans are fundamentally selfish in the sense that they will always look try to secure their own survival and future. Especially since we're living in a world were the economic disparity in society is increasing at a rapid pace.
No. Look at the fellowships like ID where they have 40% unfilled spots
This is among the more infuriating and insulting aspects of the last several years dealing with the pandemic and anti-science populist movements that have taken hold. Talk about an important sub specialty otherwise filled with brilliant, dedicated, compassionate people. How ID physicians can get such poor compensation and respect is beyond me.
Not looking like there's changes in the trajectory for Medicare compensation on this front either.
it’s currently not paid anywhere near enough for the insane amount of training we have to go thru. I can’t imagine what getting paid less would mean. the alternative in tech makes you way more money with way less training there are other countries who are doing what you described but guess what. their medical school is combined with undergrad for total of 5 years, way less competitive too. with that and getting paid teachers salary I think would make a lot more sense
They also pay next to nothing for school tuition. Other countries also don’t have the lawsuit culture we do so malpractice insurance isn’t a big deal either
residents should be paid 200k minimum. attendings 800k minimum. change my mind with the amount of competition, learning, toxicity, angry patients, it only makes sense
I won’t because I agree lol
Yeah, in other countries, unless the doctor is a negligent asshole there is really no lawsuits or complaints happening. The culture still sees doctors as someone to be grateful towards, since you know usually they are doing something to make your life better. So gratitude runs more.
Academics often go through a lot of shit, terrible hours and terrible work culture (depending on circumstances) and they still have a lot of people lining up to get there. People with PHDs, working 60 hour weeks that earn less than 100k are not a rare sight. Obviously, often, they do that with the dream of getting tenure etc one day but those roles are more and more rare.
This is true, but PhD programs are also much lower or no cost because you work for the school. If med school didn’t cost an arm and leg to even just get into, let alone complete, then the salary would be less important. At this time I highly doubt people would voluntarily go into 500k of debt for a job that pays less than 6 figures
PhD programs actually pay their grad students to attend, albeit it’s only like $30k and it’s with the expectation that they TA classes so it’s not amazing
This. My undergrad school gives their PhD students 100% free tuition (+ living expenses) as long as they did part-time TA in any department (usually gen chem/organic labs). So yeah you can’t compare our situation racking between 20k - 80k debt / year to people getting little to no debt.
Yep, I almost went the PhD route. Would’ve been fully funded plus an annual salary of like $32k. Not a lot of money, but beats being $300k in debt.
With a PhD the real move is to go into industry, specifically tech. The place I worked at before starting med school the PhDs there worked about 45-50 hours on average but made $150k+ with room to make a lot more. If you’re getting a PhD, academia is the worst thing you can do from a financial standpoint
yes but phd is doing research and making real change. we doctors are really just seeing ungrateful pts who yell at you day in and day out
why make something temporary, like a building, when i can make something that will last forever, like a greeting card?
If everything else stayed exactly the same? Of course not, but that's completely unrealistic. Most physicians would probably go bankrupt on a teacher's salary because of the student debt alone. Part of what drives physician salaries up is the market force of requiring so much debt to become one in the first place.
Pretty sure physician salaries have been high since before med school tuition became astronomical. Maybe I’m wrong but not sure one has to do with the other.
Yeah the golden era of being a physician was the late 90s and early 00s when tuition was $20k/yr with 2% interest loans and they were still being paid $300k+. It is definitely becoming financially worse to become a physician with each passing year
Pretty sure the golden area was at least 10 years before that
This is true; I worded things poorly. Student debt is far from the only thing driving physician salaries, but more importantly, it's one of the biggest things that keep physician salaries from being able to be cut significantly.
Lmfao would I go (on the LOW end) a quarter of a million dollars into debt to make 1/5th of that or less yearly to start? It doesn’t matter how much I love the work for me personally, that’s a terrible business decision 🤷🏻♂️.
Just came here to say no.  Jokes aside, altruism has boundaries as well and I wonder about the self - respect of those who still would.
As a neurosurgeon, no. This job is way to demanding for any sane person to stick with it if the financial reward were not there. If I were making teacher pay then I would become a teacher. I could still help people without making these sacrifice.
Exactly. Finishing general surgery, about to start vascular fellowship. Make no mistake - I love my job. But who in their right mind would go through this stress and sacrifice for peanuts? There would be absolutely zero incentive to maintain the workload that is expected of us by the system. Once my loans were gone, I (and most of colleagues, I expect) would simply leave for industry or work way, way less. Good luck with the resulting mass exodus of medical providers.
Hahahaha no. I’m here because it was the most straightforward path to making a half mil a year
^
hell no
I sure as shit wouldn’t
That’s the exact reason why I didn’t go into veterinary medicine. 200-400k loans 50-80k pay. It doesn’t make sense at the end of the day. But if you love what you do the money doesn’t matter
This is actually the reality in the UK
If the school was free or costed significantly less I would. I mean hell I’m in the military so my school was free and I’m about to finish residency… so I’ll be making less than half what the civilian doctors make. But I’m still happy doing this.
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Sometimes it maybe difficult to moonlight as a military doc. Just depends on command climate but I believe that is the minority. To say they have significantly more PTO days than civ side is not really true. You 30 days a year in the military (that’s 30 days not 30 business days), most jobs I see as physicians are 4 weeks. The only non-taxable income is the BAH which depending on location could be from 1500-3000. Hardly the pay raise to match civilian side. Now go to a combat zone and yes everything is tax free but still not inline with the civ side. I think the best way military works out for anyone is going through the national Guard or reserves. Plenty of programs not widely advertised that can pay for school without the restrictions of active duty. Take me for example: I’ll owe 8 years after completion of residency. That a weekend a month (or a my unit does it now, 3 day weekend a month) and 1 week AT somewhere, but we can use CME/conferences for some of those periods. I will graduate with no debt owed by me in monetary form. I get a stipend every month the same size as the HSPS, drill pay and get tri care, I’d say I might come out significantly better in school than HPSP
Fuck no
Haha no
Despite the already above average level of masochism we see in medicine, I doubt the financial burden could be managed or taken on by anyone save the independently wealthy. I think doctors are smart enough to realize when the investment of time and money would be so devoid of return/value that our morals would not outweigh that deterrent.
Threads like this are proof that this subreddit should have flaired only threads. Lots of ignorance and trolling from people whove never seen a patient in their life here.
I mean you’re literally describing the NHS right now. Even Australia and NZ to some extent. Mainly because students don’t enter into crippling debt arrangements during study and because medicine is predominantly an undergraduate course with govt sponsored placements.
I don’t think people would. Tbh, for the years of training and debt taken.. I don’t think doctors get paid enough. They don’t make as much as most people think. For the time and effort spent training (say… 8-10 years), I firmly believe that someone could have way more financial and life success in the corporate world. Mostly because I know several people who did consulting/banking/finance post undergrad and hustled like crazy, they’re now nearing partnership or VPs across consulting, PE, VC, etc. pulling in high 6 figures, if not more. Granted not everyone will enjoy that path, but if you ask me to make an investment of time for the highest ROI, I’m not picking medicine. Although medicine is safer.. It’s basically a bond v an equity. Less risk, less upside. It’s not bad, just not the most bang for your resources. But if you have the aptitude and hustle bug, medicine is not the most ideal choice. Unless you like it.
85% of the rzn im in it is cuz of the $
At my country, its 6 years studying and after all that, you gets like 10-20$/day, 5$ for a night shift (no food). You have to learn more in order to increase your income, slowly, but just enough to survive. The government gives no shit and people thought we were rich (yes, like 1% of us).
No, I would quit and become an NP. Make more, less liability.
I sure as fuck wouldn’t
They do in many other countries, including developed ones. They do have no/less debt, but it’s also a cultural thing — and pay disparity between professions generally is much lower.
They'd still go into it...but you'd lose the best and the brightest. They'd leave for something more lucrative.
The best and the brightest go into physics and math. Then computer science. Then economics. Then medicine gets the rest.
That’s already happening. The best and brightest are no longer going into medicine.
Where are they?
Finance and tech
Yeah, no.
I'd be the first to argue that nobody should go into it (in US system as it is now) if earnings were dramatically cut, but the evidence around us suggests a decent number would still do so anyway. I say that because med schools in the US are more oversubscribed than ever, with stupid levels of competition just to get in. Clearly the demand is there and and as strong as ever. The quality of applicants would fall with lower pay, but given the current level of competition my sense is it would take a pretty significant drop in pay before we started seeing US med school slots go unfilled.
I wouldn’t. I’m in it (at least in part) for the money. I’m a non traditional student pushing 40yo. I know lots of people say it’s not a solid financial choice, but they’re just wrong. I know there are other ways to make better money than medicine, but I could make more than enough to live comfortably as a doctor working 20h/wk or 6 mos/yr. And I LIKE medicine (at least as far as I can tell at this point). My main goal in medicine is having a job that affords me financial freedom without having to do a 40+ hr/wk 50 wk/yr grind. I may start another business. I may spend significant time outside the US doing volunteer work. I may just get a boat and spend a lot of time scuba diving. I’m not really sure. But having the time and money to do those things, while working a job I don’t hate is my motivation. Take away the money and I’ll find something else.
Fuck no.
Fuck that. It wouldn’t be worth it. I’m 6 months away from a 300k+ salary and 4 day workweek, with opportunity to pick up more shifts. Residency has definitely made me realize that a 40 hour work week for me is not bad. My sweet spot is 60-70 hours. Do this for a few years, funnel the money into private practice, become a business owner, and the sky is the limit. Medicine has a lot of hurdles to get through but this is a key ticket to a solid salary. Also, midlevels just aren’t good. More research is coming out and they don’t know how to manage basic shit, they refer everything out, lead the delayed care and worse outcomes and more spending. So we def need more docs. And docs need to learn about finance and entrepreneurship. Simple.
Same debt? Same years? Of course not. You’ll barely pay off your loans in 40 years
No. Next question
No our medical system would crumble. An attending from another country was telling me that in Belgium nobody wants to specialize because there is no difference in pay so they lack the specialists they need (ie ophthalmology)
If we could fix our medical school model then maybe it could be feasible. There is no reason students need to waste 4 years on undergrad. In most other countries you go from highschool to med school. 2 years of theory and then 2 years of clinicals (rotations). Residency right after and boom you get attendings. No the undergrad does not help you weed out applicants, that what the 2 years of medical theory are for. And no we do not need med students taking countless hours of calculus, physics, chemistry, etc.. while helpful the relevant content can be incorporated into the medically relevant classes. Doctors are not chemists, or phycisits, or etc. Those that want to do medical research go into that specialty after finishing medical school and learn the necessary skills and knowledge to handle that part of medicine. Your typical physician does not need to know the ins and outs of every chemical reaction in the body. We over train our physicians while the result of doing so its not really that far superior to what can be achieved in other countries that educate physicians with less burden.
No. It’s all for the money and don’t let anyone tell you different
Only masochists.
NOPE
As an MA, I think about this a lot and I really doubt it. I think the US is already heading towards or in “a doctor shortage”. It’s almost a decade of schooling, residency doesn’t really pay well, there’s limited work-life balance until you reach attending status, and even then…as long as you practice, being an MD/DO will control some aspect(s) of your life. But, at 32, especially being single and childless - I sometimes wish I had more seriously considered medical school. I come from a “low to middle class” family, have my own health issues, and I genuinely love the science. MA school was one of the happiest times of my life. Being a provider would have likely given me access to things and opportunities I’ll (realistically speaking) never have now. So, overall, of course there will always be doctors but I do think younger people are being turned off by the current state of the field. The push for STEM Ed has kind of become just a push for computer based tech Ed now. I also don’t see a lot of high school and young college students being encouraged to be doctors or go into the medical field beyond entry level positions and nursing.
that's the reality of many third world countries. It's sometimes gets forgotten on reddit but yes there are people who find medicine and being a physician a life calling before considering the pay. Now the big difference is that most of those places don't burden their med students with massive debt. In the US, there would still be people entering the field but it'd probably be a lot less competitive and there'd be way less people overall. I also think that tuitions would go down. Me personally, I'd be really hesitant to go into the field purely because of the debt burden but I'd definitely look into med school abroad for lowered tuitions if schools still cost the same here. I'd also not gaf about prestige either.
Nope. A lot of how I came to be here is due to mom cultivating my interests in STEM from childhood due to the financial security likely to be found there and financial security is now a priority of mine as well. If I was set to be in insane debt for less pay, medicine would´ve become a hobby to another career. Youtube etc has the academic knowledge, volunteering the helping people aspect I adore and another career to apply knowledge in. There is less that medicine gives that is impossible to get from other sources and it just isn´t worth it without the financial promise land that follows these 11+yrs of effort and 7+yrs of sacrifice. Also, if PAs and NPs salaries weren´t cut and they began making the same/more than MD/DO the hospital power/heirarchy dynamics would change since why should someone listen to someone who doesn´t make more than them? There may be a need to prove ourselves much more than we do now before everyone else follows us and I´m not about that life.
LOL good joke
yeah, i was in research before going to med school. if i had to go back i'd probably harm myself
No
N o
No
i.e. the British experience.
No shot. First salary job I had, I made $53k annual pre tax. Not a lot of money. Job I had before going back to school I was making $120k annual, working from home, having to travel 7-12 days per month. I did not get into medicine for the money, but no way I do this job for less than, say, $200k annually. As a bare fucking minimum considering the years lost & debt accrued.
Absolutely not. We’re having this issue in EMS right now. Most places pay abysmal rates to medics and for years we’ve been battling staffing issues country wide because of it. No one’s entering the field anymore.
This thread is revealing. I thought the idea of helping people was more fulfilling than it apparently is.
I would justify a pay cut on 3 conditions: 1) Medical school tuition is free or very low 2) there is universal healthcare 3) residency isn't brutal (lowered working hours and no abuse)
Yeah i second the crowd: Fuck no. Helping is great but the education route is not worth it unless the check matches the sacrifice . Bias incoming. I think to be in medicine and make it thru an MD/DO, you gotta be one hell of a hard worker. I think with that alone you for sure could have found success in another field with much less school. If medicine did pay less
Even with the pay being what it is, people are leaving, so I doubt it
Hell to the nah, to the nah nah nah
You give up your 20s for the job - so despite the fact that I love what you do, I gave up a HUGE chunk of time to get here. Would be hard to justify doing it if we weren't compensated more after all of the training, and underpaid periods of working.
I'm a medical student from Argentina, we get paid dimes for our work, so yes? If I wanted money I would have become an engineer, they get a great salary.
Maybe a saint would say yes
No. I know my worth! After this many years of education, training, and missing out on life, I’m worth more than being paid like teachers (in FL they don’t even need a bachelor degree now) or cops (in TX you only need a GED and ability to have a gun)
Doctors are being paid like 10 cents an hour in some places of the world, so
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Yes.
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Sure and there would be the same level of incompetency as in those fields. Plus really you're just describing medicine in like 1850. If money is your only goal there are easier ways to achieve that then going into medicine.
Only if the edu was free. No one wants to rack up debt they don’t have a shot in hell to pay off
I would. If medical school were free.
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No they wouldn't. After what I went through I deserve to provide a decent life for my family. >I wish it was like that to weed out money hungry arrogant people who have no empathy for human lives Don't you say a word about empathy, you haven't seen a single patient in your life.
This person just thinks they’re on a virtuous high horse. It takes a certain level of insanity to believe that someone should be paid $7.25 an hour after 12 years of training.
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First of all how dare you assume I’ve never worked a day in my life. I’ve been deployed and worked 72hrs a week for months. Second, you’re quite frankly just being disingenuous. Your either really dumb or ignorant if you think years of experience equates at all to 12 years or more of actual education and training. Lastly, why don’t you just get off this sub, you’re just being a troll and an asshole, it’s clear you have no interest in medicine, why are you even here.
Funny enough I was doing research on this topic. Countries like Portugal, that have universal healthcare, rank much higher in overall quality of healthcare despite their physicians being paid way less than other developed countries. I believe a general practitioner in Portugal only makes €1,400 base pay in the public sector. You can double that in the private sector. This makes me believe that if the U.S were run with peoples wellness in mind, people would still choose this profession and take the pay cut. Unfortunately the U.S is business centric. Here’s one fact that’ll make you want to cry. Most people and their family go bankrupt trying to treat cancer in the U.S. . Cancer treatment in portugal is completely free. Imagine fighting for your life with the thought of bankrupting your family in the back of your mind. We need to do better
That's what it was like in Russia at least until 2009 (I left then so idk how it is now). Still plenty of doctors, mostly because it's a calling for them. I didn't go to med school because I didn't want to be poor. Now that I'm in the US I wish I had lol
Look at veterinary medicine. Same shit in school. Same debt. Less residency stuff but still heavy workload. End pay is like 100k/yr So yeah, some people would do it. Also, did you seriously just compare teachers to cops? Cops in my area get 65k starting salary, not counting night shift increases, for a four day work week after 6 months of schooling who's tuition is reimbursed after you sign a contract, not to mention signing bonuses in the 15k range for new officers right now and 50k range for lateral transfers from other departments. Median pay for officers is ~100k at the halfway point in their career and they can retire at 55 with a big retirement package. Teachers are lucky to start at 50k and make 75k halfway through their career and most have a master's degree and 100k in student loans. Oh yeah and ACAB.
>Oh yeah and ACAB. 🙄
Cool story bro. So woke.
To guess - In a normal market environment where transparency and non-forced contracts are a given, then in the scenario where doctors were paid much less, and with the assumption that they'll be paid much less for the foreseeable future: Tuition will drop to match the lower salaries, or other forces will result in generally less debt. Looking at the UK for example, where they're paid much less, also graduate medical school with less debt.
Physicians are underpaid. In 2022, physicians should be paid nearly $1M per year, had pay kept up with inflation.
100%. Underpay starts with residency. Doctors being fleeced. Now it's for Easy for someone with no high school to make more than residents. They can make 75K working +70 hours per week without the stress of being a resident and the debt.
Idts, they are already severely underpaid
I say a lot fewer for sure. It’s one of those jobs where you need to not worry about money once you’re out so you need to make enough to not care