6 ms·

No, I would've tried harder in school and tried for med school instead

jl2718 8y ago
Med school just seems like cheat mode now. I didn’t want to be a doctor because I was certain that computers would replace them. And they did. The work of doctors is 95% obsolete in the advent of better diagnostic tests and internet health information, with ‘AI’ taking the last scraps of relevance. Doesn’t matter. Doctors are a government-protected class, with wages held high by regulation, insurance subsidies, and immigrant labor restrictions. This causes massive social problems, and cannot end soon enough. It seems to me that the amount of work it takes to be a good systems programmer, over an entire career, absolutely dwarfs the demands of medicine. There are many coders in bioinformatics that are more competent at medicine than most MDs and get paid a fraction for much longer working hours. There are also MDs that do both, and consider the medicine part their well-paid hobby.
- dahdum 8y ago
  MDs are limited in quantity due to regulation, as you point out, but that also means the competition to become one is rather brutal. Long schooling, residency, work hours and then most specialities end up with only upper middle incomes. Doesn't sound like cheat mode at all to me. Hitting a boot camp and then pulling $100k+ doing web dev is the cheat.
- sincerely 8y ago
  >The work of doctors is 95% obsolete in the advent of better diagnostic tests and internet health information, with ‘AI’ taking the last scraps of relevance. This seems like a hugely strong claim. Could you elaborate?
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  GPs don't make a ton of money anymore. Most are replaced by PAs. Specialists still have important skills. And all those bioinformatics and medical automation projects rely on MDs.
aeternus 8y ago
Grass is always greener I guess. Most of the doctors I know work tough hours and envy the engineer lifestyle. There also isn't a huge gap in pay unless the M.D. is specialized, but then you have quite a few years of low-earning vs. engineer's almost instant earning power so probably comes out about even.
- dcldcl 8y ago
  I see doctors as being more stable in later career than engineering. I don't really have any data for it; that's just my gut impression. Also you can be a doctor anywhere. Being an engineer in tech feels like you're geographically stuck unless you're willing to make other (career) trade offs.
  - aeternus 8y ago
    Yeah, you definitely don't hear about ageism being a concern for doctors. Family & internal med doctors can work pretty much anywhere, but specialists don't have a ton of choices when it comes to geography. Positions in desirable cities can actually be very competitive and hard to find.
- borplk 8y ago
  The difference is doctors basically "keep moving up". Unless you screw up massively, once you get in it only gets better. For engineers, you get "used up and thrown away". The default pathway for software engineers is not that great for a large portion of people.

Med school just seems like cheat mode now. I didn’t want to be a doctor because I was certain that computers would replace them. And they did. The work of doctors is 95% obsolete in the advent of better diagnostic tests and internet health information, with ‘AI’ taking the last scraps of relevance. Doesn’t matter. Doctors are a government-protected class, with wages held high by regulation, insurance subsidies, and immigrant labor restrictions. This causes massive social problems, and cannot end soon enough. It seems to me that the amount of work it takes to be a good systems programmer, over an entire career, absolutely dwarfs the demands of medicine. There are many coders in bioinformatics that are more competent at medicine than most MDs and get paid a fraction for much longer working hours. There are also MDs that do both, and consider the medicine part their well-paid hobby.

dahdum 8y ago
MDs are limited in quantity due to regulation, as you point out, but that also means the competition to become one is rather brutal. Long schooling, residency, work hours and then most specialities end up with only upper middle incomes. Doesn't sound like cheat mode at all to me. Hitting a boot camp and then pulling $100k+ doing web dev is the cheat.
sincerely 8y ago
>The work of doctors is 95% obsolete in the advent of better diagnostic tests and internet health information, with ‘AI’ taking the last scraps of relevance. This seems like a hugely strong claim. Could you elaborate?
fjsolwmv 8y ago
GPs don't make a ton of money anymore. Most are replaced by PAs. Specialists still have important skills. And all those bioinformatics and medical automation projects rely on MDs.

aeternus 8y ago

Grass is always greener I guess. Most of the doctors I know work tough hours and envy the engineer lifestyle. There also isn't a huge gap in pay unless the M.D. is specialized, but then you have quite a few years of low-earning vs. engineer's almost instant earning power so probably comes out about even.

dcldcl 8y ago
I see doctors as being more stable in later career than engineering. I don't really have any data for it; that's just my gut impression. Also you can be a doctor anywhere. Being an engineer in tech feels like you're geographically stuck unless you're willing to make other (career) trade offs.
- aeternus 8y ago
  Yeah, you definitely don't hear about ageism being a concern for doctors. Family & internal med doctors can work pretty much anywhere, but specialists don't have a ton of choices when it comes to geography. Positions in desirable cities can actually be very competitive and hard to find.
borplk 8y ago
The difference is doctors basically "keep moving up". Unless you screw up massively, once you get in it only gets better. For engineers, you get "used up and thrown away". The default pathway for software engineers is not that great for a large portion of people.