I'm on the last rotation of my third year of medical school. I'll be applying for residency in a few months and am leaning toward psychiatry, though I've considered a few other fields passively and am on cardiology right now trying to rule out internal medicine.
There was some skewed info given earlier about going to medical school not being worth it. There are a number of intangible perks that don't get mentioned, such as job security. Not the type of job security that you'll have employment, but the type where you can dictate where you want to live and still make a salary within a specific range. Comparing it to a PhD is apples and car batteries. Publish or parish is the name of the game in academia. I can't think of any other field that you get out of it exactly what you put in. What I mean by that is that in medicine, how far you go depends on you and what you invest.
We'll see if you sing the same tune AFTER residency and your first couple years of practice.
To call my opinions skewed may be fair. Everyone has their own perspective based on their own experiences...The problem is that as a third year medical student, you lack the relevant experiences to question my description of the field.
In medicine you do NOT get exactly what you put in. You have an absolute ceiling on the amount of money you can make--dictated by the federal government.
I went to a top three medical school. I could have gone to Harvard Law or Wharton business. If I had done either of those and worked as hard as I have through medical school, residency, and practice, I would be a millionaire multiple times over.
Is there a chance that I wouldn't have succeeded to that level? Sure. But the floor for a Harvard law school grad is a salary comparable to most physicians. The ceiling is much, much higher.
The difference is that a Caribbean trained MD will make the same as a Harvard trained MD. Not so in other fields where the cream rises to the top and gets reimbursed accordingly.
A comment on security: It is true that physicians in general have MUCH higher job security than other high-paying fields. Not all fields are equal and not all are currently in high demand. Primary care physicians can work wherever they want but radiologist can't find jobs anywhere on the east or west coasts.
On a positive note, psychiatry is an under appreciated lifestyle field with fewer work hours and decent pay. If you enjoy the field, I applaud your choice and wish you the best.
