> Specialist medicine beats finance in many ways, particularly lifestyle. (Autonomy, work hours, vacation). If you're in private practice, maybe, but that's r

> Specialist medicine beats finance in many ways, particularly lifestyle. (Autonomy, work hours, vacation). If you're in private practice, maybe, but that's really not the case anymore. And in any case, private practices are a dying breed. If you're an employed doctor, you have essentially zero autonomy with regards to your practice, your work hours aren't that flexible (or forgiving), and you don't get that much vacation time. What you describe certainly did apply to doctors one or two generations ago, and still applies to some of the outliers today, but it's not true for the vast majority of doctors anymore, and the direction of the trend is very clear and has been for many years. > As always going to a top school changes the calculus significantly compared to everywhere else. Not as much as the residency and/or fellowship does. The top schools charge more, but ceteris paribus, the residency is a better predictor of how much money you can make. Both of those effects, however, are swamped by whether or not a doctor actually lasts long enough after their fellowship to become one of those incredibly lucky high-earners. As much as people might not want to believe it, specialty medicine is a very competitive and cut-throat world, and there's a reason that so many would-be doctors burn out before ever seeing the thick paychecks referenced in this thread. > I don't believe the 30 year figure for specialists It's true, though if you choose not to believe it, I'm not going to argue the point further.