6 ms·

In countries where it's more socially accepted for doctors to work part time, and where half a doctor's salary is a livable wage (i.e. you don't have to pay off

by Cass 12y ago

In countries where it's more socially accepted for doctors to work part time, and where half a doctor's salary is a livable wage (i.e. you don't have to pay off half a million dollars of student loans), a ton of doctors do, especially women who want to stay home with their kids. Hell, here in Germany I know a lot of residents who are happy to take half their €48.000 for half the work hours. (I don't envy American doctor working hours, but I sure do envy their salary.)

chimeracoder 12y ago
> (I don't envy American doctor working hours, but I sure do envy their salary.) Once you factor in the levels of debt they have at that point, you may not be so envious: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/1-million-mistake-becoming-a-doctor/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/1-million-mistake-becoming-a-doc... I can't remember where I saw the statistic, but the number of years it takes for a physician to have a positive net worth after leaving medical school has been increasing dramatically. (This is because debt from medical school and undergraduate have increased nominally, while the expected income of a physician has dropped dramatically[0]) [0] Again, the magnitude of this effect varies by state, but it's a nationwide trend.
- pcrh 12y ago
  Relative to the income received after qualifying, the debt incurred during training is not so burdensome. That article you linked to cites the average debt of newly qualified doctors as being ~$166,000, and their income averages $270,000 pa., so about 5 months of wages.
  - chimeracoder 12y ago
    > Relative to the income received after qualifying, the debt incurred during training is not so burdensome. That article you linked to cites the average debt of newly qualified doctors as being ~$166,000, and their income averages $270,000 pa., so about 5 months of wages. $166,000 is the average amount of debt upon graduation[0] from medical school. You spend several years training gruelling hours for a pittance as an intern/resident/fellow (3 minimum, but after that you're only qualified for the lowest-paying fields - the highest-paying ones require as much as ten years of training). Even someone who just completed their residency is highly unlikely to make $270,000 (or anything close to that). It takes a long time to work your way up to those sums. A doctor who has paid off his/her debt by the age of 40 is the exception, not the norm[1][2]. It's not unreasonable for a person considering medical school to have to plan on taking about 30 years to pay it off[3]. I don't know about you, but I'd consider that burdensome. [0] http://sls.downstate.edu/financial_aid/AverageDebtofMedicalSchoolGraduates.html http://sls.downstate.edu/financial_aid/AverageDebtofMedicalS... [1] And this is assuming that they got a free ride for their undergraduate degree and didn't have to pay tuition or take out any loans there. [2] http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/how-long-does-it-take-to-pay-it-all-back.853448/ http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/how-long-does-it-tak... [3] https://pay.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/17iuse/how_long_is_it_typically_taking_medical_students/ https://pay.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/17iuse/how...
    - pcrh 12y ago
      That is how investment works. You invest money in order to gain a highly lucrative career. Your first link does not show numbers much different from the previous article linked. Your second link bemoans that a $100K income (which is below the median for qualified physicians) "goes pretty quick" -- try telling that to the average American worker. The reddit link doesn't contain anything substantive. You state that the pay during residencies and fellowships is really low, but in fact it is higher that the median US wage. Qualifying as a physician in the US is one of the most secure ways to earn a comfortable well above average income worldwide -- US physicians really have nothing to complain about when it comes to finances.
      - chimeracoder 12y ago
        > Your first link does not show numbers much different from the previous article linked. Correct. I cited that link because it more clearly shows that those numbers refer to the debt upon graduation from medical school, not the date at which the income numbers in the previous article become relevant (which comes several years after the completion of residency). I'm not sure why you selectively quote that one phrase from the second link (which in context is not saying that $100K isn't a lot; it's really just a warning about how much worse it is to triple the principal on a debt with compound interest), and yet ignore the clear evidence that it does, in fact, take decades to pay off the debt (and even then, that's just to break even). Even if you don't like those particular links, it's pretty easy to corroborate that elsewhere. Earning a "comfortable income" on paper is not very meaningful when you could be well into your fifties and still be behind where you would have been at 25 had you dropped out of college at 20 and gone to work for Wall Street or a startup, or pretty much any other high paying job that someone of that caliber would also be capable of. On top of that, as I already said, the income statistics for private practice physicians don't factor in many of the costs associated with maintaining a practice, so it's more like talking about the revenue of a small business than the income of an individual. Medicine isn't really that secure a job anymore, either, contrary to popular belief. That's why so many practices have had to close in the last ten years, and why physician salaries, for those not in private practice, have been on a sharp decline. It's really popular to hate on physicians for supposedly making a lot of money for a supposedly cushy job. That may have been true once, but it's not really true anymore, and it's becoming even less and less true very quickly.

by Cass 12y ago

chimeracoder 12y ago

> (I don't envy American doctor working hours, but I sure do envy their salary.) Once you factor in the levels of debt they have at that point, you may not be so envious: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/1-million-mistake-becoming-a-doctor/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/1-million-mistake-becoming-a-doc... I can't remember where I saw the statistic, but the number of years it takes for a physician to have a positive net worth after leaving medical school has been increasing dramatically. (This is because debt from medical school and undergraduate have increased nominally, while the expected income of a physician has dropped dramatically[0]) [0] Again, the magnitude of this effect varies by state, but it's a nationwide trend.

pcrh 12y ago
Relative to the income received after qualifying, the debt incurred during training is not so burdensome. That article you linked to cites the average debt of newly qualified doctors as being ~$166,000, and their income averages $270,000 pa., so about 5 months of wages.
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  > Relative to the income received after qualifying, the debt incurred during training is not so burdensome. That article you linked to cites the average debt of newly qualified doctors as being ~$166,000, and their income averages $270,000 pa., so about 5 months of wages. $166,000 is the average amount of debt upon graduation[0] from medical school. You spend several years training gruelling hours for a pittance as an intern/resident/fellow (3 minimum, but after that you're only qualified for the lowest-paying fields - the highest-paying ones require as much as ten years of training). Even someone who just completed their residency is highly unlikely to make $270,000 (or anything close to that). It takes a long time to work your way up to those sums. A doctor who has paid off his/her debt by the age of 40 is the exception, not the norm[1][2]. It's not unreasonable for a person considering medical school to have to plan on taking about 30 years to pay it off[3]. I don't know about you, but I'd consider that burdensome. [0] http://sls.downstate.edu/financial_aid/AverageDebtofMedicalSchoolGraduates.html http://sls.downstate.edu/financial_aid/AverageDebtofMedicalS... [1] And this is assuming that they got a free ride for their undergraduate degree and didn't have to pay tuition or take out any loans there. [2] http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/how-long-does-it-take-to-pay-it-all-back.853448/ http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/how-long-does-it-tak... [3] https://pay.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/17iuse/how_long_is_it_typically_taking_medical_students/ https://pay.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/17iuse/how...
  - pcrh 12y ago
    That is how investment works. You invest money in order to gain a highly lucrative career. Your first link does not show numbers much different from the previous article linked. Your second link bemoans that a $100K income (which is below the median for qualified physicians) "goes pretty quick" -- try telling that to the average American worker. The reddit link doesn't contain anything substantive. You state that the pay during residencies and fellowships is really low, but in fact it is higher that the median US wage. Qualifying as a physician in the US is one of the most secure ways to earn a comfortable well above average income worldwide -- US physicians really have nothing to complain about when it comes to finances.
    - chimeracoder 12y ago
      > Your first link does not show numbers much different from the previous article linked. Correct. I cited that link because it more clearly shows that those numbers refer to the debt upon graduation from medical school, not the date at which the income numbers in the previous article become relevant (which comes several years after the completion of residency). I'm not sure why you selectively quote that one phrase from the second link (which in context is not saying that $100K isn't a lot; it's really just a warning about how much worse it is to triple the principal on a debt with compound interest), and yet ignore the clear evidence that it does, in fact, take decades to pay off the debt (and even then, that's just to break even). Even if you don't like those particular links, it's pretty easy to corroborate that elsewhere. Earning a "comfortable income" on paper is not very meaningful when you could be well into your fifties and still be behind where you would have been at 25 had you dropped out of college at 20 and gone to work for Wall Street or a startup, or pretty much any other high paying job that someone of that caliber would also be capable of. On top of that, as I already said, the income statistics for private practice physicians don't factor in many of the costs associated with maintaining a practice, so it's more like talking about the revenue of a small business than the income of an individual. Medicine isn't really that secure a job anymore, either, contrary to popular belief. That's why so many practices have had to close in the last ten years, and why physician salaries, for those not in private practice, have been on a sharp decline. It's really popular to hate on physicians for supposedly making a lot of money for a supposedly cushy job. That may have been true once, but it's not really true anymore, and it's becoming even less and less true very quickly.