Do you think doctors are rich people?

[Anonymous]

Yes, doctors are rich. Lots of loans, but many came from wealthy families who paid the tuition. Most of us non doctors were not making much money in our 20s. We were also paying off loans, taking entry level jobs or finding ourselves. Many who don't come from money choose NP or PA education because the loans are doable. So once again, doctors are rich, and some richer than others.

[Anonymous]

My DH is a pcp making $250,000. We both came from lower middle class families. The only financial help we ever had was for our cheapo wedding 14 years ago. Our cars don’t break down anymore, we can grocery shop without looking too closely at the prices, and we take a few vacations a year with our kids. Yes, we feel rich in comparison to how we grew up.

[Anonymous]

My BIL is finishing up his fellowship in internal medicine/addiction medicine and is looking to work at safety net hospitals (ie the public interest equivalent of doctor jobs) and he’s getting offers of around 200k in major metro areas. He’s been in the PSLF program since starting his residency, where he made something like 60-75/80K per year, so he’s only looking at non-profit hospital jobs where his loans will ultimately be forgiven.

[Anonymous]

I'm a pediatrician working in an underserved remote area. I grew up on a farm in the 70s without electricity, but I live in one of the 2/3 of dwellings out here with electricity, so definitely a step up.

Obviously, I paid for my own schooling. i did it through a mix of working as a live-in housekeeper, student loans, part time jobs, and waivers for teaching at the university.

[Anonymous]

^^Making just over $200,000 now, with hardship pay. It's expensive to ship things.

[Anonymous]

OP, real estate in/near Boulder is super expensive. We would like to retire there but everything (almost) is a million dollars.

[Anonymous]

Another perspective. My spouse is an MD/PhD (so no debt of any kind in exchange for an extra 4 years of training--MD/PhDs are fully funded).

I saved for retirement on behalf of both of us and we entered attendinghood at age 33 with over 600k in retirement. It was supertough, but market timing and intense budgeting diligence did the trick.

He's also a subspecialty pathologist. Currently makes 270k and can expect raises, eventually topping out at 400k. The chair of his department makes more like 550k.

It's a 9-6 role. He doesn't interface with patients at all; he's almost like a specialized computer scientist. Low stress. NEVER works nights or weekends. The lifestyle is simply amazing.

For all these reasons, pathologists tend to have long careers--there are paths in their late 70s still tottering around hospitals (for better or worse--this isn't our plan).

Yeah, we're rich. Subspecialty pathology feels like one of medicine's best-kept secrets, especially in the COVID era.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friend’s husband is a hand surgeon. The last I recall was an average salary of $500,000.

This sounds about right.

Op, do you consider 500k HHI rich?

Some people may think that is rich. Others won’t. Dh is a ortho. He makes $1m+.

Ortho...dontist? Pedist?

Orthopedic surgeon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:So I have this one friend and she married a doctor. He is a hand surgeon. They live in a very small house in Boulder, so no way they are rich. So my question would be why so many people consider doctors rich?

Lol that you think the size of someone's house is an accurate measure of their wealth.

I don’t think anything that’s why I am asking

You literally said their house is small so they can’t be rich. That’s an odd and probably incorrect conclusion.

And that’s why I am here asking if my conclusions are incorrect.

Your conclusion is incorrect.

Also Boulder is crazy expensive. I do a lot of research on health care prices for my job. Some doctors make bank, but not all. Generally the ones who do procedures make more.

[Anonymous]

Doctors are still rich. It's not like their salaries have decreased (inflation adjusted) compared to what they were making in the 80s. However, they are no longer at the top of the mountain. Salaries in Tech and finance jobs have exploded exponentially since the 90s, shooting them to the top of the mountain.
This is why doctors feel like they are now poor.

[Anonymous]

Money isn't everything. Nobody cares what Einstein earned. It's what he did.

[Anonymous]

Not all doctors are paid well. Some come from family money. I would say they are UMC. We are a doctor family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband worked in a private practice in Maryland, where there are limits on the amount of money doctors can get reimbursed by insurance companies for procedures. The old docs in the practice who started out under the old rules were rich, with huge houses, boats, vacation homes, etc. The young docs on the current salary were barely making ends meet in the DC area. We left, and now feel comfortable on the same salary in a lower COL area. But we are far from rich. Med school loans are costing about 3k per month for the forseeable future. Started saving for retirement, college, etc at age 35 instead of 25. We could definitely be richer if we moved to a less desirable area of the country.

We're paying our DC1's med school and I know it will make a huge difference. Medicine is becoming the choice for only high income families now.

Yes, because it's a $400k degree unless you attend a state school. it's difficult to borrow $400k. My spouse is peripherally involved with admissions at Georgetown and almost all their students are wealthy. It's a concern to many that you have to come from
signigicant money to become a physician.

It’s not difficult to borrow $400k to go to medical school. The student loan companies know that you will pay it back. In fact, the only reason it costs $400k is because they know that the students will be able to borrow it. It’s not like there is anything happening there that costs $400k x 200 students in every class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not all doctors are paid well. Some come from family money. I would say they are UMC. We are a doctor family.

UMC is rich.

Primary care are not UMC at least in Metro areas unless they own a large part of the practice.

I know a doctor that owns a large part of a large practice in a specialty and owns part of a surgery center where he does his outpatient surgery. He is rich. Even more than UMC with a couple million a year plus his equity.

It varies just like lawyers. Partners at elite biglaw firms make seven figures. They are UMC fairly quickly. After 20 years of doing that they are also fairly rich. Partners at smaller firms can get to UMC but together to be really rich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another perspective. My spouse is an MD/PhD (so no debt of any kind in exchange for an extra 4 years of training--MD/PhDs are fully funded).

I saved for retirement on behalf of both of us and we entered attendinghood at age 33 with over 600k in retirement. It was supertough, but market timing and intense budgeting diligence did the trick.

He's also a subspecialty pathologist. Currently makes 270k and can expect raises, eventually topping out at 400k. The chair of his department makes more like 550k.

It's a 9-6 role. He doesn't interface with patients at all; he's almost like a specialized computer scientist. Low stress. NEVER works nights or weekends. The lifestyle is simply amazing.

For all these reasons, pathologists tend to have long careers--there are paths in their late 70s still tottering around hospitals (for better or worse--this isn't our plan).

Yeah, we're rich. Subspecialty pathology feels like one of medicine's best-kept secrets, especially in the COVID era.

I am a subspecialist pathologist (we are basically all subspecialists now, except for a few people who only do a surgical pathology fellowship and they go to private practice).

Your husband’s experience is very different than my experience and that of my friends/colleagues (most in our early to mid 40’s).

We all work long hours, including weekends, and get held up in the hospital for frozen sections. There is enough variability in our hours that we can’t always be there for daycare pickups, necessitating nannies or other high-cost childcare arrangements.. It’s actually an fairly high stress job - you look under a microscope at pieces of tissue that are often tiny, put a name on it, and then a surgery is performed or chemo is given based on your call. If a pathologist screws up it’s a big deal - and (depending on the speciality) we will see dozens of specimens/day. It’s a lot of responsibility with time pressure on frozen sections, and I wouldn’t characterize it as low stress. It is true that we don’t have to deal with patients, but dealing with the other doctors can be aggravating.

Most of the early/mid career hospital-based pathologists I know in the DMV make in the mid 200s-300s (except for our colleagues at Hopkins who I hear are making significantly less than that). We can make better money if we move to the middle of nowhere, though.

Your husband has a unicorn of a job. Perhaps he is in laboratory information systems, molecular diagnostics or artificial intelligence/image analysis? I will hope for your sake that the chairman and the hospital administration stay benign. I fear that the money-grubbing administrators will find the path dept soon enough, though.

Also, I think that those long careers in path are going to be a thing of the past as the admins try to drive out the older guys (they are expensive).. A number of my friends are just burned out, and recently made the jump to industry. I am considering it, too.