Young doctors in debt

Or, why medical students don’t choose primary care:

But for this generation of doctors, and for Meg and Chris in particular, financial security won’t come guaranteed with their medical licenses. As health-care economics squeeze physician salaries, rising college and med school tuitions are putting young doctors ever deeper in the hole.
Chris and Meg live frugally, work hard and are making the kind of investments in their future that would make any parent proud. But they’re also on track to finish their medical training in the next few years with a staggering $700,000 in debt.

(via GruntDoc)

Comments

Anonymous
of course, in the article cited, one of the two physicians chose pediatrics, which most people would consider primary care.
Anonymous
Yes, that is because there are a lot more internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, etc. spots than orthopedic surgery or cardiology spots. Not everyone can be a cardiologist. It is competitive!
Ty
The reason why their combined debt is 700k instead of 450k or so is because they bought a house using a mortgage, which layered on top of their original debt.
That also changes their repayment parameters, because the mortgage likely has a higher interest rate than their student loans (which sound as if they mostly used sub and unsub Stafford loans, not many private lenders).
So: the number’s misleading.
But I attend a school with higher tuition than theirs, so I feel their pain. Reminds me to send some evil thoughts towards my state school, which saw fit to reject my attempt to avail myself of reasonably priced education.
Happyman
there are a LOT more cardiology spots than rheumatology spots – so by the logic of anon 4:47, rheumatologists should make much more money than cardiologists, right?
The situation with pediatrics is appalling – to spend that many years training & make less than most NPs & PAs. Anyone who defends that, or justifies it with “cardiology is competitive” is just an idiot.
And there are more cardiology fellowship spots than GI, pulmonary, rheumatology, heme/onc, and infectious disease spots COMBINED. So it’s not simple supply & demand, but rather it’s more about certain specialty groups lobbying medicare for procedural reimbursement, etc. This affects overall income for a given specialty, & eventually drives motivations for pursuing a specialty. That’s why competition goes in cycles, with a delay of a few years after some medicare changes.
For example, ophthalmology became intensely competitive about 15yrs ago, when medicare reimbursement for cataract surgery was big. Then there was GI, with reimbursement for colonoscopy/egd, and now it’s cardiology & orthopedics.
It’s all about money, always has been, and always will be (like most everything else).
Anonymous
Happyman when did I EVER say that this situation is okay. I was merely replying to the first anonymous who said “of course they chose pediatrics…”. I was merely stating that there are more spots in these professions than there are in others so this makes sense. I didn’t say anything about money. SOOOOOOOOO… it looks like your insecure Happy self owes me an apology.
Anonymous
The first comment was probably in response to Kevin’s subtitle: why medical student’s don’t choose primary care.
He chose to make a point about debt forcing (encouraging?) people not to choose primary care by linking to a story where the person chose primary care? Ironical.
KoKo
The husband made the mistake of not going to the University Illinois and becoming an MD after he was accepted by that School instead of becoming a DO. Far greater earning potential with the MD degree.
U of I was only $9000/year while the DO College was $29000/year.
Another mistake was buying a dumpy condo in a poor market, when they would have been better off renting a small apartment on the Northside of Chicago.
Anonymous
just for the record, I went to the University of Bologna for $200.00/year. The only cost was living expenses and learning Italian. If one wants to do it less expensively one can find a way.
Anonymous
is it true that md’s make more than do’s? or just because there are more do’s in primary care than md’s?
why would they live on the northside of chicago to go to loyola and christ?
Anonymous
Koko,
Your comments on this blog continually miss the mark. A DO has the same potential to make the same as an MD. I am a partner with a multispecialty clinic. There is no pay differential between MD and DO in any of the specialties.
But yes they were dumb choices

Young doctors in debt

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