This is a more balanced perspective IMO. I am a doctor and love my job, having finished training in mid 30s and I am doing very well financially but in a highly paid specialty and I work long hours still. It was and still is hard on my family. But it is very rewarding work.Be aware that there is much loan forgiveness for doctors. Typically 10 years of working for a nonprofit and your loans are forgiven. Residency counts and positions that pay very high salaries can still be considered non profit. Perhaps consider borrowing the tuition and living expenses and have to only pay off a small portion of it instead of using your savings. If the programs go away you could pay off with your personal savings.
Since you haven’t gotten any acceptances yet and still need to do prerequisites that will take 1-3 years I’d assume 10 years from now before your started working as a physician since the shortest residency is 3 years so you could start working around 40.
I am a doctor myself and you could definitely do it. Be aware that many doctors don’t like their jobs and the training is long and difficult.
However you could practice for 20-30 years if you wanted. There are many interesting things to learn in medicine and you can, on the best of days, help people in a unique way.
I am sure you could get in someplace, particularly if you were open to DO and foreign med schools. The difficulty is hard to know if you like the job until after you’ve already committed.
Even though doctors complain about money they usually live in nice houses and their kids go to good schools. The most likely pay outcome is a job paying $200-300k / year — the super high paid physicians who post on bogleheads are not the average physician. So financially you likely won’t do better, although you have good job security as a physician with little age discrimination.
OP, how about as a compromise, becoming an NP, PA, or perhaps CRNA? Much shorter paths and can get you similar comp to an “average” MD salary. You can even practice borderline independently.
Statistics: Posted by snowday2022 — Fri Sep 27, 2024 7:52 pm