Calling all business owners & physicians!

Well, I'm a medical student and have a degree in economics. Worked for a few years with the gov't as an economist before going to med school. I really don't see the reason "starting a business" would be a backup plan. That's a pretty big task unless you're talking about some online thing on the side and not a full time with employees stand alone store, lol.

 

At this time, I can't, in good conscience, recommend medicine of any sort. All the 'Dope and Mange' going on out there has driven many practitioners out of medicine. All the while, many bright young minds who in times past would have been the ongoing future and progeny of the noble profession are choosing to not enter the field.

As far as a back up, things are murky elswhere as well. My colleagues are not necessarily flocking to any specific alternative areas: they are merely exiting.

Primary care (and the definition and scope of it will vastly expand) will be occupied by nursing level personnel. Not that I am making a judgment call, for there are plenty of nurses in our family clan, but simply remarking on the level and amount of education, and even to a certain extent, the corresponding foundational clinical experience being built upon.

Specialists will ultimately be salaried, and equally, and equally low.

I've worked alongside many formerly Russian physicians during my residency training in NYC. It was plain and painful to see that in a socialist healthcare system, there was no incentive for one to strive for excellence (my own physician likes to say "You never lose betting on human nature!"), for if one sees 2 or sixty patients a day, the pay would be the same amount of rubles. I've seen them show up to a 'code' and pull out the call-schedule to see which of them should be participating, while as surgical residents we are already busy doing what is needed.

While Amerika is still the land of opportunities, my only nebulous recommendation is entrepreneurism.

Socialists and their uptopic, meiopic ilk will never comprehend that a free-market system tends to successfully select the best of everything. If you could become a physician and make 30K a year you would likely apply your hard-earned skills and talents elsewhere and earn a better living.

Don't entertain the fictional altruism that people would still want to work like dogs to become doctors 'just because they love people and just want to alleviate the suffering.' Having a family to support and paying taxes (and paying tithes to the Ferrari technicians and parts sources) will tend to infect one with the incureable disease called reality!
Remember what my friend and colleague says about human nature.

 

It's more time consuming than anything. If I didn't have savings coming into school from my job, I would be financially ruined by the time I graduate (34 months from now). I'm planning to leave with about $110k worth of debt. I'll live a really frugal life on $16k a year during residency and spend the $20k extra for loan repayment. High debt load will make any job your love miserable in the end. I'm trying to avoid that...don't want to worry about finances at my job.

What jungathart says is correct. Nurses will start to encroach and already are. Even shady practices as those with the doctorate in NP want to be called "doctor" instead of nurse. Medicare is what is screwing the system and it won't last that much longer imo. I won't be surprised if they axe funding of residencies and make hospitals pay for it.

Heck, it's so screwed up that at my old job they used the numbers I generated in one day in XLS for Medicare reimbursement rates (to lower them). Section 3401 of the health care bill...that's how messed up the system is. A 23 year old's 1 day numbers that aren't made for medicine are being used to lower reimbursement rates. Wonderful.

 

Either internal med, emergency med, or radiology. I've volunteered a lot in emergency medicine and like it. My preceptor for first year was a radiologist and I'm doing research on the side in interventional radiology. If I don't do EM or IM, I'd prefer interventional radiology. Biggest downside for me is that you're pretty much attached to a $1mm+ piece of machinery. Can't really take that everywhere you go. IM and EM are easier to provide care without needing ridiculous equipment.

 

Radiology is a pretty good field.

 

I think this is the first thread i've read in the 'off-topic' section in a LONG LONG TIME where the O.P has a legitimate question without some sort of alterior motive.

 

He's new. Don't hold it against him...

Welcome Kevin!

 

I am also enroute on becoming a physician in the near future. So far I still have the love for it three years in. We are also decently protected as students in terms of hours, exposure to difficult situtations and responsiblities. Perhaps my opinion will change as an intern, but as of now, I think it's a great profession. Of course, nothing is perfect. The insurance system is the suck, and you will hear about it if you have long term relationship with your patients (ie. anything that's not EM). The hours and lifestyle can be pretty awful, so you really have absolutely love what you are doing. Your significant other and children have to be very understanding. People don't generally like being sick, and the hospital is a dark place for them, so it is inherently an tempered and ugly environment.

But it is an incredibly rewarding career to actually have made a real difference, maybe not in the grander scheme of things, but you can make a very real difference in the lives of your patients, which is what keeps me going.

By the way, med school is not what its all made out to be. All of this new 'doctoring' stuff which has popped up in the last twenty years has really taken the teeth out of the medical education. For majority of schools, it will be a breeze for you.

 

If you really want to be a doctor nothing will stop you. If it does, you shouldn’t be one. It is all about determination, commitment, and the desire to give help. Medicine can be a beautiful, fulfilling, powerful, rewarding life. The road is brutal and only for those pure at heart. If you have doubt, don’t even attempt to go there.