Has it come down to this?

Aptly titled, Medical Student in Debt, a blog asking for donations to fund this student’s medical school education. (via Dr. Crippen)

Comments

Anonymous
He’s roughly $60,000 in debt? That’s really not that bad. I’m a first year medical student in the US, and after my first year I am already $41,000 in debt. I wish I would only end up $60,000 in the hole.
Anonymous
I understand that salaries in the UK are, on the whole, lower than in the US, but I have no sympathy for UK students who whine about how much their education costs. This kids problem isn’t that he’s $60k in debt at the end of his degree, it is that he comes from a culture that expects everyone EXCEPT the family or the market to help him through school (ie the tax payers).
My parents aren’t loaded; I’ll graduate with maybe $180k in debt by the time I’m an MD, but at least they help feed and shelter me. You have to wonder what this kid’s family is up to if they can’t help him buy some ramen …
oh and for the record, the 30,000 pounds of debt he’ll have? even as a junior doctor (resident) he should be able to clear it in about 5-6 years.
Anonymous
Is this really a good investment?
$41k of debt will take about $80k of pretax earnings (especially if marginal tax rates revert in 2010 or sooner), or $175-200k of collections (not billings) in your future practice to repay, and this is before you factor in the interest on your loan.
Now add to the opportunity cost the foregone wages and benefits of not being employed right now (probably about $50k or more) and carry that forward at about 8% appreciation.
As you can see, the total opportunity cost of your situation (forgone wages plus debt plus respective interest over time) is HUGE and will require a very high income in the future.
Sounds risky to me. A prudent investor should expect a higher rate of return on this investment than doctors in the past who had a more stable economic environment.
Good luck.
Anonymous
“My parents aren’t loaded; I’ll graduate with maybe $180k in debt by the time I’m an MD, but at least they help feed and shelter me. You have to wonder what this kid’s family is up to if they can’t help him buy some ramen …”
I put myself through medical school without ANY family assistance and graduated with 27k of debt from a state school in 1989. I had a $5/day food budget. This buys mostly carbs such as ramen, and I now blame my poor diet and irregular exercise regimen in medical school/residency in part for my current metabolic syndrome (lipids were messed up since leaving college, wonder why?)
I cannot imagine repeating my experience in today’s environment and will definitely not encourage my children to follow in my footsteps.
Even the blind have 20/20 hindsight.
Anonymous
I can’t stand beggers.
Regarding this one:
His debt load is not disproportionate to the earning potential of British physicians, which is quite good now actually. A lot of his countrymen will finish school with less valuable degrees with similair debt levels.
My wife and I both, just to se how little we could stay nourished on, managed to eat a balanced diet for a while on 8$ a week while in medical school. (1980′s)
I also snuck around and did a little paid work on the sly in the hospital–putting in a couple of hours in the middle of the night in the lab helped out.
And house sitting for the profs when they were on vacation. 10$ a day to sleep in their bed, feed their dog, and eat out of their fridge.
Everything was hand-me-downs from family or bought at goodwill.
But I never ever begged.
More and more people have no shame about begging. Hayek was right about what he said socialism would do to the British character.
Anonymous
to the Anon who did the economic analysis of becoming a doctor: of course it isn’t the optimal way to earn money. But any prudent economist knows that dollars are only a proxy for utility which is actually a complex function of many things, including income.
If my utility function was a simple function of lifetime income, I would have gone to law school or gone to wall street after college, gone back for an MBA on the company dime and made a mint. But the fact remains that I derive utility from the study and (hopefully) practice of medicine which would take a significant amount of money to replace.
Anonymous
…Save that thought for when you are pulling your hair out giving a deposition, missing your childs baseball game for indigent drunken trauma in the ER, appealing insurance denials, being audited by Medicare, dealing with employee embezzlement, all the while being told your services are being devalued every year for perpetuity.
At the end of the day you are running a business providing medical services. You pay yourself last, after every other bill and salary has been paid.
At the same time you are a charity without an endowment; a saint to some, a sinner to others.
In a few years the utility bill that doubled last year will be the only utility function of concern.
All the same, you will be glad for the experience. Just realize that taking care of patients is the easy part much of the time.

Has it come down to this?

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