Renumeration not that great actually

[rmorelan]

My partner is a writer. So potential income hard to predict.

 

large to predict is not zero of course Stretch out the timeline to cover a decade and estimate total income based on industrial averages to give a rough yearly income. Don't put a zero in the category just because you aren't sure - I think that would overly conservative.

[NLengr]

large to predict is not zero of course Stretch out the timeline to cover a decade and estimate total income based on industrial averages to give a rough yearly income. Don't put a zero in the category just because you aren't sure - I think that would overly conservative.

 

Maybe the partner is staying home with the kids for the sake of argument.

[rmorelan]

Maybe the partner is staying home with the kids for the sake of argument.

 

Well sure - but that is factored into the math - and for how long? I mean eventually the children will be in school....

 

It is all about the long term view with this stuff

[NLengr]

Oh hey, another thread with a lot of preclerks and nonmedical students brushing off the exorbitant debts that residents and staff physicians have to deal with.

 

Don't worry, in a few years you'll come around.

 

They know it all the answers until they are actually faced with reality once they start clerkship.

 

I remember the changes people in my class went through when they suddenly hit the real world of clinical medicine.

[dagobear]

Well sure - but that is factored into the math - and for how long? I mean eventually the children will be in school....

 

It is all about the long term view with this stuff

 

True, I was thinking of worst case scenario. And your calculations and the numbers are putting me somewhat at ease, finally.

 

I am realizing it would help tremendously to have some positive role models of women physicians who've managed family life with a successful clinical and research career.

 

I will be seeking them out actively.

[aaronjw]

They know it all the answers until they are actually faced with reality once they start clerkship.

 

I remember the changes people in my class went through when they suddenly hit the real world of clinical medicine.

 

And some of us accept the responsibility of our actions.

 

For all those that bemoan the debt then maybe we can go back to the period when there were no LOC's and going into medicine was only for the wealthy and affluent? No debt to worry about then...

[jock2doc]

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/01/seriously-doctors-say-theyre-underpaid/

 

Stumbled across this online. It's an american article but still quite interesting. As far as the whole renumeration thing, I firmly believe it is a matter of human capital (rmorelan, as an econ major you should appreciate this). There are few, if any careers I know of that require the training of a physician. I am not necessarily saying they are underpaid, but physicians commit to training for a long period of time and as a consequence, are differing consuming/living today for years down the road. Coupled with the fact that they are clearly talented/intelligent individuals, they do deserve to see a generous return on their investment.

[A-Stark]

And some of us accept the responsibility of our actions.

 

 

Your self-righteousness derives from no first-hand knowledge nor any direct experience of medical training, be it undergraduate or postgraduate.

 

For all those that bemoan the debt then maybe we can go back to the period when there were no LOC's and going into medicine was only for the wealthy and affluent? No debt to worry about then...

 

What, you mean like 1920? People in practice now who graduated before 1995 probably made it through med school with fairly minimal debt, to say nothing of their undergrad degrees. Neither of my parents had any debt, and they were able to work part-time during the year or in the summer to cover all expenses. My dad - who graduated from UofT medicine in 1977 - worked as a janitor in the morgue (including night shifts), which to me is preferable to debt.

 

Of course, there was no way I'd ever have been able to work part-time or in the summer to pay $15,000 in tuition plus living expenses. The situation isn't much better for undergrads, but the point is that student debt has utterly exploded since the Chretien government (and Paul Martin) cut transfers in 1995. And while no one seems to argue that tuition should be without any public subsidy, if you grant subsidies, it's pretty clear that the degree of subsidy is fairly immaterial, except of course to the people paying the fees in the first place.

 

In general, the "echo" generation has been screwed over by policies developed over the last 20 years - tuition increases, unpaid internships, real estate speculation/bubbles. The only thing we can be thankful for is that poor planning in the US has provided for us historically low interest rates. God help us if they start going up.

[Birdy]

Well I'm sweating bullets since May 14th of this year.

 

Let's say I come in with 200K debt, as an attending monthly income net being 7K. I'd have to pay 2K towards the loan for 10 years to be in the clear, roughly speaking.

 

5K a month for my kids and living expenses. Let's say I live in Vancouver and the rent is obnoxious at 1.5K for a 3BR apartment in Vancouver proper.

 

So that leaves me with 3K for food, entertainment, and kids. Let's say I want 3 kids. Especially since there'll be babysitters needed, music lessons, swimming lessons, camps, maybe even a special school.

 

That's going to be doable but tight. Especially if I want to save some towards retirement.

 

When your kids need expensive (full time infant/toddler) child care, they likely won't be in many lessons, and even when they do start with the extracurricular activities they don't get really expensive until they are into competitive stuff. That isn't until they are in school all day. So you won't have expensive child care and lessons/activities at the same time.

 

Also, $3k a month after housing and debt is pretty comfortable, IMO. That's more than the average Canadian family would have. We have much less than that ourselves and live fairly decently. $3000 a month for food, entertainment, and kid stuff wouldn't be anywhere near 'tight' for us. It would be a very comfortable budget for most families. You will be just fine.

 

Realistically, you will likely make more than that, and your debt will eventually be paid off - 10 years is not forever - at which point you'll have considerably more budget flexibility.

[rmorelan]

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/01/seriously-doctors-say-theyre-underpaid/

 

Stumbled across this online. It's an american article but still quite interesting. As far as the whole renumeration thing, I firmly believe it is a matter of human capital (rmorelan, as an econ major you should appreciate this). There are few, if any careers I know of that require the training of a physician. I am not necessarily saying they are underpaid, but physicians commit to training for a long period of time and as a consequence, are differing consuming/living today for years down the road. Coupled with the fact that they are clearly talented/intelligent individuals, they do deserve to see a generous return on their investment.

 

I do appreciate it

 

Side note - my choice to go into medicine was one of those silly case studies we used in our econ class at Waterloo for fun and practice. It was interesting going through this on a real example! A little scary as well - I am also a full trained and practising computer programmer as well so putting that into the mix so there are some reasonable counter arguments to going into medical - purely from a math perspective

[bloh]

All this numbercrunching is not taking into account that you are spending all of your 20s in essentially poverty while being an overworked scut monkey. The price of that can't be calculated so easily

[rmorelan]

All this numbercrunching is not taking into account that you are spending all of your 20s in essentially poverty while being an overworked scut monkey. The price of that can't be calculated so easily

 

Well there is that aspect Not that far off some other fields unofficially of course - I mean in business, law, engineering, research....everyone starts at the bottom usually.

 

I would still say you are hardly starving during residency.

[deeman101]

No one is starving in med. Unless you go to the states. Most people live lavishly in Canada (affluent backgrounds notwithstanding), and it is nice to do that when you have to work so hard.

 

I don't know why psych is such a hot topic here. In quebec they just got bumped to an avg pay of $400k a year.....more than gen surg. To basically talk to people and Rx meds. Consults are $270 a pop, and has a multiplier of 1.5 after 9pm and 2.5 after midnight. Yea....$675 for a max 1 hour consult (that your resident does and you review the next morning) to assess suicidality. Hard life, some one has to do it.

[apache]

Yeah, exactly, most doctors deserve what they make, some a lot more, since let's be serious, you're not finishing a difficult residency where we can objectively backtrack and see your errors. The thing I laugh at now is psych can be backtracked, and honestly, I just laugh at it at this point, because the discipline shoots itself in the foot, psych could be one of the highest paid disciplines period, shatzberg I think, I forget, him or Nemeroff, theoretically figured out Ketamine for depression in the early 80's, I can get down to the level of talking about how to alter different atoms to change binding selectivity on hypothetical drugs, I think so differently, everything to me has to be interlinked, meaning, I don't do guess work, I know every detail from the atom to the behavioral manifestation to the sociological, lol, oh god, my brain goes so fast and processes so many streams of info, like, I have 3 very easily delineable genetic mutations, I know all the details to the dot, I don't forget things anymore, I could never type as fast as I think, my posts seem scatterbrained because if I gave just a tangent, it would be at least 40,000 words, I rail off 5 pages a day, can follow 3 conversations at a time, takes no time, I can go back in conversations like 8 hours, I just stopped forgetting facts, lol, like, I seem crazy cause I would never discuss the type of stuff I can get away with, or in other words, I can afford to give a **** so much because well, lol, let's just say that to quote one person, a year of your life sounds like a movie, you just can't win in the end, and the types of stuff I mean, lol, I'm not going to talk about publicly, the whole point is that you don't talk about what really goes on, no one has any idea of the whole different world that exists right underneath the democratic, lawful, equal-bs society we project, lol, I've seen it all, and yeah, if you **** with vulnerable people, you realize pretty quick that not only am I freaky freaky voluminous and fast, but I go tit for tat, play dirty with with me, I'm a utilitarian, and whatever edge I should get freaked out, I just go right back, until you realize that you reach your limit before I will, and yeah, that's why I'm not on CBC ranting, lol, there'sso much backroom **** no one sees, there's literally a whole other society, different rules, that most people in medicine never see, because we select for people who are risk averse, average on openess to experience, lol, nothing shocks me, ****, i determine my own morals, people will use externally internalized perceived immoral means to immoral ends, I just care about the ends, let's just say I wouldn't have the luxury of being such a loud mouth if I wasn't capable of being someone so idiosyncratic that yeah, try and shut me up... I always see people just jump in too deep, and think they can't back off, even though they know they're ****ed, and honestly, I don't like fighting, or arguing, but it's just a means to and ends, I can beat you by the book, by crook, however... and well, let's also say we see only a small fraction of even what goes on in our community, once you go down the rabbit hole, lol... it's like, nothing is what people thinks it is, and yeah, more rarely, I'm lucky enough to be able to be slightly public and well, I wouldn't try and touch me, and eventually everyone backs off, the only difference is how long they persist. On a more cheery note, you should see some of the parties doctors, lawyers, dentists, and the "deviant" people that know how much of a game the whole public projection of life's realities is, they're crazier than everything you could imagine, the nepotism is just everywhere, lol, let's just say people like Charlie Sheen exist, they can do whatever, and pull it off, put a smile on in the morning, and give a great performance you'd be envious off, I've met a few, they're pretty good times.

 

No one is starving in med. Unless you go to the states. Most people live lavishly in Canada (affluent backgrounds notwithstanding), and it is nice to do that when you have to work so hard.

 

I don't know why psych is such a hot topic here. In quebec they just got bumped to an avg pay of $400k a year.....more than gen surg. To basically talk to people and Rx meds. Consults are $270 a pop, and has a multiplier of 1.5 after 9pm and 2.5 after midnight. Yea....$675 for a max 1 hour consult (that your resident does and you review the next morning) to assess suicidality. Hard life, some one has to do it.

[deeman101]

^ you are seriously manic or at minimum hypomanic right now. I don't mean that in a good way.

[schmitty]

No one is starving in med. Unless you go to the states. Most people live lavishly in Canada (affluent backgrounds notwithstanding), and it is nice to do that when you have to work so hard.

 

I don't know why psych is such a hot topic here. In quebec they just got bumped to an avg pay of $400k a year.....more than gen surg. To basically talk to people and Rx meds. Consults are $270 a pop, and has a multiplier of 1.5 after 9pm and 2.5 after midnight. Yea....$675 for a max 1 hour consult (that your resident does and you review the next morning) to assess suicidality. Hard life, some one has to do it.

 

I find that hard to believe...you have a source to back that up?

[Gametime24]

All this numbercrunching is not taking into account that you are spending all of your 20s in essentially poverty while being an overworked scut monkey. The price of that can't be calculated so easily

 

The beginning of my 20s was spent as an undergrad trying to get into med. I was hardly a poverty-stricken scut monkey. I had a few scholarships, low rent, and a pretty good research job each summer (funded by nserc and other awards) and spent some time teaching the mcat with great pay. I partied at least once every weekend, usually once during the week. Poured 100+ hours into nba 2k13, have a long-term gf that I spend good time with, intramural basketball, competitive boxing, some really great volunteer programs that I thoroughly enjoyed, tonnes of watching sports with my friend group, CoD, etc. Sure, some nights you had to put in good hard work, a BScH in chem is like that, sure some days you were busy from when you woke up till well past midnight with volunteering and school work. But if you enjoy where you volunteer and enjoy what you study, it's not that big of a deal and easily outweighed by the ludicrous amount of fun I've had with my friends and family during UG, it's been a great time and the full 4-month summers where I leave my research job at 4 in the afternoon and have nothing to do but enjoy the sun, water, and beer with my friends has been amazing.

 

I've got quite a few friends in preclerk at various schools too that have all had a great time thus far, so at least the first half of my 20s, until I hit clerkship are some of the best years of my life and I have absolutely zero complaints about them. (well, maybe just one complaint about this one prof that gave ungodly amounts of lab reports and marked like an ass).

 

Anyway, I've heard clerkship is tough, and I can imagine residency can be hellish, but that's really just a little over half your 20s. clerk and res together is only 4-7 years depending on speciality. 4-7 << 10. It's not a decade of scut work, it's 4-6 years of fun and great times followed by 4-7 years of hard times. Sure, it'd be nice if it was all roses, but, as with most things, you have to work hard if you want something great. Clerkship and res are supposedly where we put in that crazy work.

 

 

Now, take this with a bit of a grain of salt. I'm only just accepted and so I can really only talk from experience about UG, and from friends experience about preclerk. It's possible clerk and res will suck so hard that I will change my opinion on all of this after I experience them, but from where I stand now, I loved UG and think that, in the end, the pain of clerk and res will be well worth it.

[Chamilt]

A lot of good points on here and I can honestly see both sides but still believe that MDs are compensatedd adequately for the most part.

 

But a comment above made me think about why I chose medicine over a PhD which I'd been accepted to do in a field I absolutely love.

 

Do get a PhD you are looking at a minimum of 5 years graduate school: fast track a PhD (I know there are freaks out there that pull it off in less). In reality, your funding window is only 6 years (2 years MSc and 4 years PhD) but most people struggle to actually finish in 4 years. Depending on the program average length of completion is more like 5-6. Although it is a different type of work, if you talk to most phds, they are likley putting in 60+ hr weeks for the entirety of their phd

 

If you aren't lucky enough to get an external scholarship or have a supervisor that gives you stipends you are living off anywhere between 10-25 grand a year for those 5-8 years. With a normal scholarsip it would be more like 30-40. And of course there are things like the George vanier (50 grand) which you'd be living it up as far as grad students go. And of course you don't have the huge debt of medicine.

 

Then most starting associate/assisstant professor jobs aren't much more than a residents salary (60-70 grand a year) after 10+ years of school and you likely arent making over 100 g until you get tenure (another 5-8 years) and you're peak salary is likely somewhere between 100-200 grand a year which you won't hit until your mid 40-50s, if you ever do.

 

So compare that to a family doc who after 10 years is making 150 grand plus and has AMAZING job security and can work pretty much whereever they want I think it's pretty amazing.

 

I love to teach and this is the reason I wanted to do a phd (be a prof) but in my field I would need to go whereever the job is, and that could be anywhere in north america and even the world, if you are lucky enough to get a job! I think mabye 15-25% of PhDs get academic positions, and this varies between fields. As long as you don't go into something like cardiac, your job security is likely pretty solid in medicine (obviously this has been talked about in depth in many other threads).

 

Anyway, my point is that when I was deciding between med school and PhD, medicine looks pretty damn good. And the reason I chose it was not because of the money but because I can work whereever I want and will have amazing job security.

[rmorelan]

A lot of good points on here and I can honestly see both sides but still believe that MDs are compensatedd adequately for the most part.

 

But a comment above made me think about why I chose medicine over a PhD which I'd been accepted to do in a field I absolutely love.

 

Do get a PhD you are looking at a minimum of 5 years graduate school: fast track a PhD (I know there are freaks out there that pull it off in less). In reality, your funding window is only 6 years (2 years MSc and 4 years PhD) but most people struggle to actually finish in 4 years. Depending on the program average length of completion is more like 5-6. Although it is a different type of work, if you talk to most phds, they are likley putting in 60+ hr weeks for the entirety of their phd

 

If you aren't lucky enough to get an external scholarship or have a supervisor that gives you stipends you are living off anywhere between 10-25 grand a year for those 5-8 years. With a normal scholarsip it would be more like 30-40. And of course there are things like the George vanier (50 grand) which you'd be living it up as far as grad students go. And of course you don't have the huge debt of medicine.

 

Then most starting associate/assisstant professor jobs aren't much more than a residents salary (60-70 grand a year) after 10+ years of school and you likely arent making over 100 g until you get tenure (another 5-8 years) and you're peak salary is likely somewhere between 100-200 grand a year which you won't hit until your mid 40-50s, if you ever do.

 

So compare that to a family doc who after 10 years is making 150 grand plus and has AMAZING job security and can work pretty much whereever they want I think it's pretty amazing.

 

I love to teach and this is the reason I wanted to do a phd (be a prof) but in my field I would need to go whereever the job is, and that could be anywhere in north america and even the world, if you are lucky enough to get a job! I think mabye 15-25% of PhDs get academic positions, and this varies between fields. As long as you don't go into something like cardiac, your job security is likely pretty solid in medicine (obviously this has been talked about in depth in many other threads).

 

Anyway, my point is that when I was deciding between med school and PhD, medicine looks pretty damn good. And the reason I chose it was not because of the money but because I can work whereever I want and will have amazing job security.

 

plus if you want you can even still be a professor - ha, there are docs that do basically nothing but research and teaching - still make more than professors etc (they are basically it seems like up graded professors - it is an interesting career path)

[Chamilt]

plus if you want you can even still be a professor - ha, there are docs that do basically nothing but research and teaching - still make more than professors etc (they are basically it seems like up graded professors - it is an interesting career path)

 

Yes this is what I hope to do! At least be something like 33% clinical care, 33% research and 33% teaching. That would be amazing. I dont think I would like be completey clinical or completey research though.

[Chamilt]

Wow I just mis-spelled completely twice in three words.

 

FAIL

 

And I apparently can't count either, 4 words.

[dagobear]

Anyway, my point is that when I was deciding between med school and PhD, medicine looks pretty damn good. And the reason I chose it was not because of the money but because I can work whereever I want and will have amazing job security.

 

 

And it's more family condusive as a woman, eventhough it's a challenge to balance family life and clinical obligations, it's at least protected to some degree.

 

In academia you are basically on your own, ok admittedly there are now new measures being talked about but haven't really been implicated. Still, I cannot imagine looking my kids in the eye not knowing whether or not I can support myself and them through a grant which I may or may not get in two years! These kind of insecure funding landscapes have turned me off from pure science!

 

Though I really really value the scientific training I received. It will serve me well forever.

[Chamilt]

And it's more family condusive as a woman, eventhough it's a challenge to balance family life and clinical obligations, it's at least protected to some degree.

 

In academia you are basically on your own, ok admittedly there are now new measures being talked about but haven't really been implicated. Still, I cannot imagine looking my kids in the eye not knowing whether or not I can support myself and them through a grant which I may or may not get in two years! These kind of insecure funding landscapes have turned me off from pure science!

 

Though I really really value the scientific training I received. It will serve me well forever.

 

 

GREAT point! I totally forgot about the whole funding (ie your job!) system that you need to constantly work on.

 

Publish or perish. At least at the research intensive schools.

 

Albeit, once/IF you get tenure. I'd argue that is probably the most secure job in the world. Unless you are secret serial killer/super professor!

[dagobear]

This has been sent around in the lab recently:

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/06/female_academics_pay_a_heavy_baby_penalty.html

 

Sad but I can relate. Well I am glad I have a golden parachute now, no matter how challenging it may be to operate it. At least I have it.

[Chamilt]

Good article. And I agree with most of it. Academia is not alone with this problem but I would argue that is more pronounced there. Most of my experiences in research faculties and the major uni's in ontario have been resemblance of an old boys club.

 

But I am a rare specimen in that I have been on the other side of the spectrum. A male in a female dominated profession which I feel has also hindered some progress, opportunities etc....

 

So I can definitely relate!