Maintaining Professional License Throughout MD School?

[powerlift]

Hi all, 

I will be finishing my masters degree in OT in August and will be starting med at McGill right after. I was wondering whether it there is any benefit (residency or clerkship wise) to maintaining a professional licensure with the OT college throughout medical school? It would be around $1k/year and I believe medical education will count towards the minimum hours needed to maintain the license, so not a huge investment. Any thoughts or experiences would be appreciated!

Thanks,

PL. 

[Lesigh2]

Are you going to be working?

[JohnGrisham]

Doesn't make sense. If you had already worked for a few years and had experience, it would be feasible to work part time during med school..but as a new grad without experience to "coast" on, its less likely to be fruitful to work part time etc. So I would save your licensing fees and move on.

[Bambi]

Waste of money at this stage. There is really no point to doing this. It won’t be beneficial to you in any way.

[powerlift]

6 hours ago, Lesigh2 said:

Are you going to be working?

I was thinking maybe during the summer off next year for a month, but if having another professional license or OT work experience doesn't benefit applications to residency/clerkship it's probably not the smartest way to use my time next year. :/ Thoughts?  

[Scorbix]

Any benefit you might gain is likely already achieved by having your OT degree. Maintaining a license solely for the purpose of being able to put it on your CV and potentially practicing during the summer for a short period of time at the expense of potentially missing out on other more beneficial opportunities seems to not be in your best interested. I have classmates who have maintained professional licenses, but they worked on weekends throughout pre-clerkship and now no longer practice due to time commitments in third -- and soon to be fourth -- year. I personally would focus on other opportunities that are more related to the speciality(s) that you are interested in, and making connections which might benefit your residency application.

[NLengr]

Don't bother unless you can pick up work throughout the year (and you want to do it).

We had a couple pharmacists in my class and they worked on a couple weekends a month at Shoppers. I guess nurses might be able to do the same thing (although there could be mountainous issues with the useless nursing union). 

None of us who came from non healthcare fields (lawyers, engineers etc.) kept their licence because you couldn't pick up work. 

It seems to only work for fields where you can drop in for a shift and then leave without issue.

[Zuk]

Would it make any sense if simply maintaining a professional license (without gaining significant work experience) benefited people when it comes to residency and clerkship?

[NLengr]

14 minutes ago, Zuk said:

Would it make any sense if simply maintaining a professional license (without gaining significant work experience) benefited people when it comes to residency and clerkship?

I guess it would. But from a practical point of view there is no benefit during clerkship and residency.

[Zuk]

24 minutes ago, NLengr said:

I guess it would. But from a practical point of view there is no benefit during clerkship and residency.

I fail to see why parting with 1K per year should confer any extra value on top of the value that is already conferred by OP having gone through OT school. Of course there could be some angle that I am missing. 

[sangria]

Not OT, but I've been keeping my license for sentimental reasons and nothing else.

It makes no sense. I know I will someday stop renewing it.

[w8list]

Makes no sense to maintain it.

I'm letting my nursing license and real estate license expire lol

[NLengr]

8 hours ago, Zuk said:

I fail to see why parting with 1K per year should confer any extra value on top of the value that is already conferred by OP having gone through OT school. Of course there could be some angle that I am missing. 

No you aren't. I just wasn't clear enough in how I wrote it.

Theoretically, maybe you could somehow spin it as a selling point in certain specific situations. 

Practically, that situation is extremely unlikely to occur. 

Not worth paying the money. 

[JohnGrisham]

13 hours ago, orthoooo said:

Makes no sense to maintain it.

I'm letting my nursing license and real estate license expire lol

Nursing makes sense if you pick up casual work. I know a few nurses who did that through medicine. Good pay and good scheduling with turning down shifts you dont want.

[Lesigh2]

On 7/12/2019 at 7:23 PM, powerlift said:

I was thinking maybe during the summer off next year for a month, but if having another professional license or OT work experience doesn't benefit applications to residency/clerkship it's probably not the smartest way to use my time next year. :/ Thoughts?  

Yea not worth it. Personally, I work throughout the year which is beneficial financially for me but can’t say just keep a license for the sake of it will benefit you any. Especially with no clinical experience I imagine it would be more difficult to find work. 

[ploughboy]

On 7/12/2019 at 12:55 PM, powerlift said:

Hi all, 

I will be finishing my masters degree in OT in August and will be starting med at McGill right after. I was wondering whether it there is any benefit (residency or clerkship wise) to maintaining a professional licensure with the OT college throughout medical school? It would be around $1k/year and I believe medical education will count towards the minimum hours needed to maintain the license, so not a huge investment. Any thoughts or experiences would be appreciated!

Thanks,

PL. 

Disagree that it's not a huge investment.

So $1000 for your M1 year, presumably from your LOC.

After a year, that will be about $1037 (P-0.25, compounded annually for simplicity).

In your M2 year you spend another $1000 to renew your licence, so now you owe $2037...but wait, there's interest so it's really more like $2112.

Lather, rinse, repeat for M3...M4...R1...R2...

By my math, you'd owe about $6800 at the end of your R2 year for a licence that it sounds like you won't be using.  If you do a five-year residency, the number is slightly north of $10k.  And that assumes no change in interest rates (currently at multi-generational lows), and that your provincial college doesn't increase its fees (funny thing, those fees always seem to increase at a rate significantly above inflation).

Up to you, but unless there's some (future) financial return on keeping the licence I can't see how it's worth it.

 

 

 

[rmorelan]

On 7/12/2019 at 10:23 PM, powerlift said:

I was thinking maybe during the summer off next year for a month, but if having another professional license or OT work experience doesn't benefit applications to residency/clerkship it's probably not the smartest way to use my time next year. :/ Thoughts?  

well I am not saying it won't be helpful - I mean it might depending on what you are doing etc. 

As another factor - do you enjoy the job? Is it likely you could keep doing it? Does it link up with any of your medical interests otherwise? Ha, it is better than a lot of other ECs I have seen people have. 

Nothing stopping you with keeping in the short term either and dropping it later. 

Everyone will have a personal take on this - I my case my other than pure MD skill set was the edge that got me almost every other advantage I have. It is amazing how everything you know never becomes useless ha, although in the the long run you won't be needing the actual OT license. 

[powerlift]

3 hours ago, ploughboy said:

Disagree that it's not a huge investment.

So $1000 for your M1 year, presumably from your LOC.

After a year, that will be about $1037 (P-0.25, compounded annually for simplicity).

In your M2 year you spend another $1000 to renew your licence, so now you owe $2037...but wait, there's interest so it's really more like $2112.

Lather, rinse, repeat for M3...M4...R1...R2...

By my math, you'd owe about $6800 at the end of your R2 year for a licence that it sounds like you won't be using.  If you do a five-year residency, the number is slightly north of $10k.  And that assumes no change in interest rates (currently at multi-generational lows), and that your provincial college doesn't increase its fees (funny thing, those fees always seem to increase at a rate significantly above inflation).

Up to you, but unless there's some (future) financial return on keeping the licence I can't see how it's worth it.

 

 

 

 

LOL trueeee, I did not consider compounding interest. Thanks for the heads up!

[striders02]

3 hours ago, ploughboy said:

Disagree that it's not a huge investment.

So $1000 for your M1 year, presumably from your LOC.

After a year, that will be about $1037 (P-0.25, compounded annually for simplicity).

In your M2 year you spend another $1000 to renew your licence, so now you owe $2037...but wait, there's interest so it's really more like $2112.

Lather, rinse, repeat for M3...M4...R1...R2...

By my math, you'd owe about $6800 at the end of your R2 year for a licence that it sounds like you won't be using.  If you do a five-year residency, the number is slightly north of $10k.  And that assumes no change in interest rates (currently at multi-generational lows), and that your provincial college doesn't increase its fees (funny thing, those fees always seem to increase at a rate significantly above inflation).

Up to you, but unless there's some (future) financial return on keeping the licence I can't see how it's worth it

Based on this comment, I'm wondering if I've misunderstood something about the LOC. Particularly, I'm unclear on how paying off the interest each compounding period affects the rate of interest accrual.

As a hypothetical, let's say in one compounding period I spend $1000, which becomes $1037 after interest is applied. I then pay off the $37 in interest. In the next compounding period I spend another $1000. Is the 3.7% interest applied to the entire outstanding balance ($2000), or just the amount that was paid in the most recent compounding period ($1000)? 

In either case, the total amount of interest paid will be the sum of simple interests that were applied at the end of each pay period; in the former, (1000+2000)*0.037=$111. In the latter, (1000+1000)*0.037=$74. Basically I would have thought that paying off the interest at the end of each compounding period curbs a compounding effect.

[ploughboy]

1 hour ago, striders02 said:

Based on this comment, I'm wondering if I've misunderstood something about the LOC. Particularly, I'm unclear on how paying off the interest each compounding period affects the rate of interest accrual.

As a hypothetical, let's say in one compounding period I spend $1000, which becomes $1037 after interest is applied. I then pay off the $37 in interest. In the next compounding period I spend another $1000. Is the 3.7% interest applied to the entire outstanding balance ($2000), or just the amount that was paid in the most recent compounding period ($1000)? 

In either case, the total amount of interest paid will be the sum of simple interests that were applied at the end of each pay period; in the former, (1000+2000)*0.037=$111. In the latter, (1000+1000)*0.037=$74. Basically I would have thought that paying off the interest at the end of each compounding period curbs a compounding effect.

Where are you getting the $37 to pay the interest from?  If you don't have an outside source of income (as many med students don't), then effectively you'll wind up taking it from your LOC.

True that as a resident you'll have an income with which to pay the interest, but that's now taking income that you could be spending on something else.

[rmorelan]

2 hours ago, striders02 said:

Based on this comment, I'm wondering if I've misunderstood something about the LOC. Particularly, I'm unclear on how paying off the interest each compounding period affects the rate of interest accrual.

As a hypothetical, let's say in one compounding period I spend $1000, which becomes $1037 after interest is applied. I then pay off the $37 in interest. In the next compounding period I spend another $1000. Is the 3.7% interest applied to the entire outstanding balance ($2000), or just the amount that was paid in the most recent compounding period ($1000)? 

In either case, the total amount of interest paid will be the sum of simple interests that were applied at the end of each pay period; in the former, (1000+2000)*0.037=$111. In the latter, (1000+1000)*0.037=$74. Basically I would have thought that paying off the interest at the end of each compounding period curbs a compounding effect.

it is compounded yearly so that the end of year two you will owe 2000 x 0.037 = 74 dollars because your total amount you owe is 2000.  

that actually isn't technical the compounding effect. Compounding is the annoyance where you owe interest on interest at the end of year 2 if you didn't pay off the 37 dollars - i.e. interest is owed on 2037 rather than 2000. 

It is slightly more complex because interest is actually charged monthly ha, but that is obscuring the point.