Friday, April 29, 2016

The absurd cost of becoming a doctor

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I start this article with a disclaimer: I am not here to comment on the decreasing salaries of physicians or the knowledge that I will never get paid the way the prior generation of doctors got paid. It is hard for me (and the American public) to feel bad for anybody making more than $200,000 a year when the median household income is in the mid-$40,000 range.

What this article is about is the absurd costs of becoming a doctor (both in medical school and residency). Let me tell you my story to put things in perspective.

I went to a state undergraduate university and, thankfully, left that school with no debt. I then entered a public medical school, with no way of paying the tuition on my own. I faced the decision of taking out loans or dropping medicine and doing something else. I stuck with it — like many of my colleagues — because I could not imagine not being a doctor; and honestly, I was naive about the financial hardships I would undergo.  I lived at home for 2 of the 4 years of med school, was single for 3 of those 4 years, had no kids, and had amazing parents that subsidized my living arrangement with home cooked meals and car insurance payments.

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