v_therussian

What's a good doctor without half a million in loans? Hang in there, doc I feel you! That's exactly why I went to a school I could just afford to pay for at the time...

tex_phil

500k in loans wtf!

m630

its called the "Dr.s dream", the medical schools are all in on it too, they sell young pre-meds on the allure of potential high paid salaries, but dont tell you it will cost you a half a mil to be in the club and a decade of your life, which will eventually be socialized btw. My closest friend has found this out first hand, after being a chiropractor, he got allured by the desire to cash in as an MD, he went back to school in '03, and still has two years to go!!! This with going to an affliated school in the caribbean to get the quicker program!! He's got over 300K in loans, plus his family has had to support him for years and spent hundreds of thousands in that which you have to add though he'll not have to "pay back" so to speak. Its a joke, he curses every day for the mistake he made but its too late now. He had to leave NY as he couldnt afford it anymore and is living with his fam in Houston doing his residency. And now he believes he'll never make the dream money as the market has changed drastically in the last decade, he'll make a good living but be paying loans for 10+ years, and lost 10 years of earning income that he'll never recover. MD is not at all what it once was, and the salaries are not what they once were as we move more toward sociliazation, its just a matter of time, and then it will only be those that actually want to help people and not in it for the $$$ that will be known as Drs

pjinca

2 points, 1) the Dr's in "socialized medicine" earn a VERY good living, as evidenced by many Dr's in England who at least as well as their American counter parts. 2) If you're getting into medicine not to help people but just to make oodles of cash so you can get a yacht, you're an asshole and don't deserve to be a Dr anyway.

Dr's salaries worldwide

Despite the apparent discrepancy between salaries, Dr's in England also don;t have to pay nearly as much for Malpractice insurance and they get bonuses for actually making their patients healthier (getting them to quit smoking, lose weight, manage their diseases like diabetes, etc) so overall they are easily doing as well as American Drs are.

m630

the fact of the matter is, most, not all, but most people go into medicine for the $$$, its just a fact of life in our society. I see what that says about the UK, but I have many friends over across that pond and they would argue this point. Drs in their system make an OK living, but not at all on the level as the US in any way, shape, or form. Malpractice is surely a driver in the expense for Drs, we always have to stop and thank the bloodsucking ambulance chaser personal injury lawyers, just like the members of congress

But its all good, if you go into it for the right reason, ie to help people plain and simple, like specialized medicine such as surgery, then I say you should earn as much as possible, but for most general practices, the fact is that Drs just read from books and cash in, they have no magic wand or magic powers or knowledge to heal, they just read what the book tells them to prescribe, and bills our insurance companies nicely for their precious time . This is the facts of medicine in our society, just another industry that has their own interests in mind first and foremost. Put it this way, do you know anyone in their right mind that would go into an industry and pay $300K-$500K for their higher ed degree on top of their bachelors and waste 10 years of earning power if they didnt think they were going to be paid very very well??? The motivation is most certainly the pay day, or they'd work for free, same as with the schools, there's no reason for med school to charge what they do, but they feed into the system and cash in on peoples greed. its the american way i suppose.

Ricracing

The gas is so cheap in US that you should be ashamed.

In EU a liter of gasoline costs about ?1,5 per liter.
One ? is about $1,5 and one gallon is about 3,8 liters.
This means you guys should pay about $8,50 a gallon,
and I'm afraid that you will in the near future.

Do you guys really understand the debt that your county has?
The US Governments debt is about $115 000 for every single citizen,
plus the State and County debts you live in and your own ones, of course!

Only the Gross National Debt is growing by $1,62 Billoins a day since the September 2004 and is now about 14,500,000,000,000 US Dollars!!!
The Chinese are the ones loaning the money, for a large part!

Please think for a moment about these hard facts!

DD_545i

If they do, then we'll be paying $20 a gallon here in europe.

m630

Thats one way to look at it, but conversely, one may say that the EU taxes gas so much for socio-economic reasons and car drivers and enthusiasts are footing the bill. What also should be understood that if gas did rise to those levels in the US, (which they could not unless there was another oil embargo from the entire world against the US) the US public would stop driving and buy cars and hence BMW would go out of business, affecting you and the rest of the auto enthusiasts in the world. Circular discussion really, as much as we in the US are looked down upon, our economic buying power has fueled the autoworld and made our beloved car companies what they are today, you dont think that if BMW lost 50% of its sales revenue that they would still be in business now, do you?

DD_545i

That seems a bit serious for a WTF thread. We just want to bitch about stuff that initially seems unfair and then don't want to dig deeper and find out it might not be

m630

Touche! The markets are crumbling as is my lifes savings so we sometimes forget to laugh it off!!!