Majors/careers for a kid who wants money and work/life balance

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01/01/2026 14:25

Subject: Majors/careers for a kid who wants money and work/life balance

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Anonymous wrote:So he basically wants money but doesn’t want to work hard? Isn’t that what you are really saying, OP?

That’s the dream! Don’t be jealous you didn’t think of this.

Dermatologist or orthodontist. Hard to get into but the careers aren’t as stressful as other kinds of medicine. But you make bank.

I don't see him wanting to go through medical school or residency.

He will NEVER make it thru. My kid who is a resident doctor put in 120 hours last 7 days. That's like 17 hours/day in avg. I don't see OP's kid willing to do that.

Physician here. This is not typical any longer. I did my residency at Stanford, and even back then it wasn't like this. Now, many residents are unionized, get Uber vouchers after call, 80-hr max, etc. Besides, residency isn't the issue. The burnout comes much later, mid career, and not at all related to long hours.

Regardless, I agree about avoiding medicine.

Can you say more about this? What's do you see as the cause of burnout?

NP. All my physician friends in our 50s are in various mode of burnout mitigation or recovery. Most pervasive sentiment is loss of autonomy in clinical practice, especially in ambulatory medicine. Sure, hours are fine (8 hrs of clinic). But every year, hospital C-suite administrators and even academic departments (ie not private equity owned private practice) take away clinician's scheduling flexibility and force docs to add more patient slots or double book every hour. I miss the days I used to 'only' have 24 patients on my schedule. Now, it's 30+.

Imagine having 30 meetings in one day with 30 notes to complete, only to go home and have an inbox full of time-sensitive messages you did not have time to open during the course of the said 30 meetings.

Even if I find the medical aspect intellectually rewarding and fulfilling, I am simply drained every day, every weekend, and because it never ends, it becomes a grind. The happiest physician friend is a neurosurgeon. Maybe things are different for surgeons with better nursing or PA support.

Another new poster, physician couple as are the majority of my multi-specialty group practice. Two physicians in the past 20 years have retired or left medicine due to burnout earlier than planeed. All of the others have retired when they planned to, often at age 58-65 due to having plenty saved, some work past 70 by choice because they love it.
Residency as PP says is easier now, 80 hr a week average, for 75k-80k annually, whereas it was 27-30k in 2000-2003 and there were no hour caps (changed around 2003-4). Adjusting for rent in my med school in the mid atlantic and spouse's in boston, the resident salary is significantly better. The hours are mixed differently, but overall better. 80hr average remains difficult. Nothing is as hard as residency. Dermatology friends make 450+k. Many docs (peds, endocrine, gyn, plastics) we know are part time(33-35 hrs a week, or 3 full days, not 45-50) and make 200-300k as Part time (peds is the lower one).
The subspecialists in our multigroup as well as the hospital owned colleagues we have in other parts of midatlantic to northeast make 500+k full time if they want to maximize to 30 patients a day plus maximal procedures. They do not have to do that. That puts someone at the top 10% of production.
95% of medical practice is RVU based: your pay is based on the work you do. It has been like this for the majority of the past 20 years, not new. Yes there are bonuses given at large hospital based groups for the top producers but you can choose not to chase those. At teaching hospitals your research funding is part of your salary, but you often have days dedicated to research rather than seeing 22-30 patients 4.5 days a week. There are plusses and minuses to the different models, salarywise and lifestylewise. These are all choices medical residents make when starting their job search.

Internal med "max" production in our group makes 450k (no procedures) for 4.5 weekdays, 26 pt a day is the max our schedule holds for IM, and no weekends. That salary and those hours/volumes are fairly standard for the top producing IM docs across the region and up the coast. Those of us who want better lifestyles and ability to leave work 4:30pm on our long weekdays, or block for school events for our kids, still have one weekday as a half-day (full-time schedule is 4.5), zero weekends, "settle" for the average production salary of around 360k. 360k is plenty of money for one person especially when the spouse is also making similar as a doc.

While I love my job and have great work-life balance as do most colleagues, it is not a job for someone like OP who sounds as though they don't want to work hard yet want the big money. When residency is 3-6 years after 4 yrs of med school after 4 yrs of working hard to get almost all As undergrad while doing research and volunteering, it is not an easy path to big $.
I have never heard of anyone with a lot of $ who coasted. We have lawyers who worked their butts off for years to have a good life balance now, private equity friends and those who started and sold companies who have great lifestyles at 50 but most certainly worked their butts off in the early years, more than 80 hrs per week.

surgeon mom from before - interesting post to read about different specialties. salaries aside, my head would explode seeing 30 pts/day, 4 days/week. kudos to you. i do enjoy clinic but it's bc i only have 1-2 4 hour clinics/week where i see ~ 10 pts (mix of new, post-ops, and established). i operate 1-2 days/week (those are longer 10-12h days) and teach ~ 1 day/week so it's a really nice mix in my view. i can't imagine having 100+ notes to write, when it's hard enough for me to get through 10!

This is why my brain feels fried, with a permanent glare of EPIC on my retina.

For PP who suggested concierge medicine, it's not a solution for every physician. One has to contend with customer service that are more 'clients' and less 'patients.'

OP - If your child is interested in health care, there are other less stressful jobs, like PA, nutritionist, PT/OT, therapists, neuropsychologist, etc. With experience, I think these providers can command good salary in private practice.

OP here:

I am reading this with great interest because I have another kid who is interested in medicine or an allied health career.

But this kid would prefer an office type job. Accountant, wealth advisor, finance, data scientist . . . all seem like better matches for him.