...I would never suggest being a doctor if you didn't really like it- 4 years college, 4 years medical school, 3-8 years training post-med school working 80-100 hours a week at $35,000 a year??
I know that there is a lot of overhead including malpractice insurance in the medical field, but is it really that low paying for a doc?
She's talking about residency. And, no, you make more money as a resident than that. And when you get out, your pay essentially depends on your rank in doctor-world.
You need to get into the proper specialty. The best specialties, according to my psychiatrist brother-in-law, have two requirements:
(1) You treat patients with serious, I'm about do die, conditions - cancer/heart problems.
(2) Your patients are relatively well off, with solid insurance, who have worked their lives to accumulate $$$.
I talk to him about doctor status levels. He asserts that psychiatrist is the lowest. I told him that I thought GPs were the lowest, but apparently psychiatrists are even more disfavored (although better paid). Apparently that's the specialty you go into when you get through med school and figure out you don't want to be a doctor.
I'm just grouchy about my (relatively) low salary and near complete disinterest in my job. It's annoying to have to save 50% of your salary.
I just can't tell whether the upcoming sovereign debt catastrophe will slice physician salaries by 50% and/or destroy the economic rent seeking that's present in the better specialties.
