Saving lives, making bank. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Seriously, your mother was right. The ridiculously long graph below (via Vox) ranks the best- and worst-paid jobs in America, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. It was created by Reddit user Dan Lin, who did the patient work of compiling average wages for 820 different occupations. And, as you can see, 13 of the top 15 spots belong to health care professions (in pink), with anesthesiologists nabbing the top spot, right above surgeons.
This speaks to a point Matt Yglesias has made on Slate previously: American doctors are way overpaid, in part because we have far too few of them. General practitioners earn more in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world, and our specialists are second only to the Netherlands, yet it doesn’t seem to buy us more or better care. In the end, it’s one of the many reasons U.S. medicine is so expensive. One could argue that our M.D.s need the high salaries to make up for the time and money they spend in medical school, along with their years toiling as poorly paid residents. But we’d be better off in a system that made med school cheaper and produced more graduates while funding residencies more generously (Medicare already subsidizes most of the training stints). While we’re at it, we could also make it easier for foreign doctors to immigrate here. In any event, we’d probably be better off if the top of this graph wasn’t quite so flush with pink.
I’m only 25, so closer to school than many people here, but if I could go back I sure wouldn’t have been a finance major. I’d be a geologist or a petroleum engineer. If I felt like tackling the med school thing, dentristry/orthodontia seems to be the sweet spot. Life being what it is though, I’m committed to this track or something close to it. I’ve actually looked up what it would take for me to be able to get a masters in engineering but as a business major it would require far too many prep/leveling courses before I could even enroll.
“…should have gone…” haha Most people can’t do it, the ones who make it are truely talented.
IMO, to put it in perspective, a semester of pre-med is much harder than any level of the CFA. MCAT is harder than all 3 levels of CFA together. They told us “pre-med is like trying to drink water out of a water hose, med school is like trying to drink water out of a fire hydrant”.
^ Most people can’t get past those to even think about med school. They told us, and I saw and experienced first hand, 100 start out as pre-med, roughly 50 make it sophomore year, 25 to junior, 12 to senior, 6 or less to med school. And that’s the easy part according to my brother-in-law who made it all the way (I made it to the final 12, probably 7-8 because I threw in the towel before the 8th semester, not the 7th).
Absolutely outrageous. Every single experienced physician/surgeon I know tells me to go into business. I have family member who is an anesthesiologist, who also earned his charter in the mid 80s. He quit managing money and he regrets the move to this day. Private practice is dying. The government reach in medicine is eliminating the profession.
My sis is a junior doc with plans to specialise in obs & gynae. You need serious motivation and dedication, she has pretty much dedicated all of her adult life to medicine. She has never had a boyfriend (as far as I am aware) and it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon for her.
Here in the UK you have to work for the NHS whilst training and they work you like dogs and pay you peanuts. It’s brutal, she has to work nightshifts every couple of weeks and is constantly busy with patients, no browsing facebook or sneaking to the toilet for a snooze.
I’ll gladly take my job sitting on my ass all day staring at screens and moving numbers around in Excel.
Even getting into pre med and graduating is a tough task. Safe to say most MDs are very smart and disciplined. Can’t compare the CFA exams to MCAT or top MBA programs to Med Schools. Med school is hands down much more rigorous and difficult.
To give you an perspective, I went to Bear Mountain over Memorial with several friends. But one of our friends is a surgeon and he couldn’t drink at all because he had a shift later that day. This is legit. He may get a call and may need to go in for a surgery. But finance? what to tweak a model or tweak a presentation with investors? Very important but cannot compare.
I do think Doctors want to be in finance…some because they want to hit BIG. Finance people envy doctors because of high avg pay and respect. They are Doctor X. Director at GS is still Mike.
I think and hope doctors and health care face some serious salary compression in the coming decades. In my opinion the bloated costs are the biggest reason health care is so messed up in this country.
Its the only profession I can think of where the supply is so restricted by people in the profession. Yet demand is about to explode with baby boomers. There need to be more hacksaw medical schools so that it doesn’t cost $400 to have someone tell me I have a sinus infection, or $30,000 for someone to tell me I have acid reflux in the ER. The explanation of benefits showed that I got charged $85 for a tablespoon of Maalox antacid at the ER. The other day I had about $2300 worth of blood work done, and insurance precontracted rate covered $250. Goofy system we have here.
My girlfriends mother was a cardiologist in Mexico City for 10 years before she moved to the US, and graduated from the best schools in the country. Can she practice here? Not until she goes back through not only medschool, but undergrad as well. She can’t even prescribe valtrex to a crack addict.
I understand the pain of not being able to practice in your new country, but sometimes a little research goes a long way. Unless you’re running from a war, maybe it would be prudent to plan a move out thoroughly?
Like we tell all these ACCA Indian CAs and hopefuls trying to move to NYC - zero local experience means you aren’t working in the field you want.
I think the message of overly restricted supply went over your head. There’s nothing that outlaws Indians from working in finance. She didn’t decide to move here to be doctor without doing any research, she moved here because she got married and wanted to be closer to her children who go to American schools.
Saving lives, making bank. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images