Where did your brother and/or his colleagues go to medical school? An example of an ortho starting out in texas. http://www.physicianrecruiting.com/jobs/ORS/tx The opportunities are out, you just have to look for them.
Dazed- sorry to say but you're quite disillusioned regarding medicine. I AM a doctor. Wen't to a top 10 med school and a great residency, but those things have NOTHING to do with how much money you make. I specialize in Emergency Medicine, which is at the higher end of the income range. As others have said, not sure where you're getting your info. That ad that you posted did not include many things, such as it likely does not cover malpractice insurance, which will be 100K-200K per year, probably does not include overhead, and mentions nothing about hours involved or how many nights of call per week. Working 24/7 with your beeper on always and up 5 times a night is no fun for sure, and yes, many doctors do have that lifestyle. The largest determining factors for income are specialty and state you practice in. Primary care, for example, (family practice, peds, and internal medicine), which makes up the bulk of physicians, earn between 60K and 120K generally, depending on state. Emergency Medicine, working equivalent to a full time job number of shifts, pays 120K or less in many states (AZ for example pays very low) up to 300K in others. I live in Las Vegas, which pays the high end of the scale. Let me just say, medicine SUCKS! Of the about 50 doctors that I current know and interact with, including my wife, at least 47 hate their job and are looking at pursuing different careers. First, there is 4 years of useless medical school, most costing 50-100K per year, then 3-10 years of residency and fellowship, depending on specialty, which truly is non-stop, not exagerating-torture. Pretty much your whole waking life at the hospital, being payed 30-55K/year ( I made 31K my first year, 35 my 3rd, which was 6 years ago). So let's say you think cardiovascular surgery sounds nifty (8-10 years of residency/fellowship). Thats 14 years after college when you finally will begin your life. So you'll be about 35 years old, be probably 300K in debt not including your undergraduate, perhaps married, unlikely kids yet, and done essentially nothing with your prime physicial years-no travel, no vacations, no sports. Then, when you finally get your first real job, you'll probably be starting around 300-400K/yr for CV surgery, with a pretty darn demanding and time consuming job. So then... hopefully you'll love the job. 90% of medicine now is paperwork and avoiding getting sued. 9/10 doctors currently hate the job, all specialties. I'm not making that number up, that's my personal experience and interaction with all specialties in my role as an emergency physician. So here I am, 36 years old, married thankfully, no kids, debt paid off, working part-time in medicine trying to find a different career, hopefully trading if I'm really lucky. So if you still have some unusual passion for medicine, go for it, getting into medical school has never been easier as less and less people want to do it.
Seem to be a trend here. I interviewed with D.E. Shaw earlier and got rejected. I have good software skills, good stats, but not enough advanced maths though(Differential Equations, etc). Physics is more important and much more difficult to learn.
Some of the things that you have said are true, while others are not. Look at the first spine offer on my link, it covers malpractice, it doesn't say how many days you would be on call though. And a medical school education does not cost 50-100K per year. I never said I liked cardiovascular surgery, I know they are worked like dogs as are all surgeons, but at least none of the doctors will ever be unemployed. However, again, if one is smart enough to be a doctor, he/she will definitely be smart enough to find a job. How advanced does differential equations knowledge have to be? Would 1 year of calculus be enough? or is more required?
50K is more like it at a top school. Here's a breakdown from Brown's site. Facts and Figures What Does Brown Medical School Cost? The following is the first-year medical budget for the 2005-2006 nine-month academic year. Financial aid is available for these expenses: Tuition $34,472 University Fees (with Health insurance) $2,981 Books, PDA, and stethoscope (Other components of the diagnostic kit are provided to students by the Medical School) $1,330 Rent/Utilities (9 mo. year, $720/mo.) $6,480 Other Living/ Miscellaneous Expenses $4,789 Local Transportation $1,940 Stafford loan fees $128 Total $52,120
Dazed, you can refute my reply all you want, who's the doctor here? I really don't want to go into details of first year income guarantees, which are common in medicine, but they are not a salary guarantee, nor an ongoing salary rate, merely a "loan" of sorts which will provide supplementation of gross collections shy of that amount, generally has nothing to do with expenses that still have to be paid, and generally any amount paid out by the guarantor must be repaid. Oh, and by the way, an attitude like your posts show would probably get you severely pummeled in medical school/residency.
for a quant job a PhD or at least MSc would be ideal in math, physics or maybe engineering/comp.sci ... if only undergrad then you will probably need as many courses as you can cram into your timetable of every type of math, statistics, physics. as advanced as you can possibly get http://www.wilmott.com is a quant forum
best revealing post of 2006 on the doctors profession I always thought they just pulled in a lot of dough, didn't know it was almost a nightmare working as one.
I'm a physician recruiter for cardiologists and I see pay packages all around the country. I also see that there are many foreign cardiologists coming to this country, primarily from India, since there is a shortage here. There is tons of money to be made in cardiology, especially interventional cardiology. The route is 4 years medical school,1 year internship,2 years residency,3 year cardiology fellowship plus 1 more year for interventional cardiology; so you'll be about 32 or 33 when you're done. If you want to make money, work in a rural area, since they generally pay the most. One client is paying 400k salary in rural Illinois for example, whereas in Atlanta and Orlando, you'll get 250k salary to start, plus you get production bonuses as well at most places. Most practices, you become a partner after 2 years and partners can earn over 800k and this is in Sarasota, not a totally desolate area either. You'll be able to retire at 40 if you want to, all the while knowing that you helped people along the way.