The planning of U.S. physician shortages (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: The planning of U.S. physician shortages (2020)

#181

Post by noleetcode » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

the_d3f4ult wrote: post #62

Being a physician is a horrible career move right now. As a former Math/CS major turned eye surgeon, I can't help but think about how much easier my life would be had I stuck with tech. It's hard to understand exactly how hard the job is until you've lived it. I saw 40 patient's in clinic today in 8 hours without lunch or any kind of downtime and then spent 2 hours at the hospital because a patient needed an emergent…

Would you be willing to share your story of how you made the switch? CS major here considering going into medicine (despite your best efforts to convince otherwise :) ) but the general coursework wasn't something I targeted in school all those many years ago.

Re: The planning of U.S. physician shortages (2020)

#182

Post by haldujai » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:41 PM UTC

antisthenes wrote: post #175

haldujai wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re reading incorrectly and I also wasn’t very clear. It’s not a concern and I’m not saying we’re not well-compensated but 7% is something to consider when comparing total compensation across industries (and is one of the easiest line-items to objectively discuss). A larger part of that physician’s income has to go towards planning retirement and inflation (and self managing that) than is being posited here. In ad…

> You’re reading incorrectly and I also wasn’t very clear. There's nothing in your 3-4 posts that is applicable to physicians that also isn't applicable to any other white collar job. > Someone making 400k at a place matching 7% with a good benefits package isn’t making less than a radiologist at 500k in private practice. Sure, but what does it have to do with the discussion at hand? People need to do their due dilig…

> There's nothing in your 3-4 posts that is applicable to physicians that also isn't applicable to any other white collar job.

Disagree in that most other white collar jobs don’t treat their employees as independent contractors/self-employed.

Point of my comments was to compare the total compensation of the highest income physicians (which we are selecting in this hypothetical) with other high-income white collar professions as the pure dollar amount is misleading.

> Sure, but the original point was, people making 400k + 7% or 500k can both easily retire at 50. The rest is pointless bike shedding.

I mean retirement age in general is mostly a spending calculation.

To the original point, my argument is that if you’ve been making interest only payments on ~300k of debt and are starting to earn $350k at 32+ (a similar lifestyle/benefits job to FAANG, but specialist average income is $382k in 2023) it’s not nearly as easy to retire in your 50s as someone who has been making 100k+ from 22 without the debt and a similar # of earning years at 300+.

In other comments people were quoting 500k+ compensation so I apologize I was off-topic addressing that in this thread but was offering perspective on this very small subset of physicians.

Re: The planning of U.S. physician shortages (2020)

#183

Post by TheCoelacanth » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:42 PM UTC

epicureanideal wrote: post #98

the_d3f4ult wrote: post #62

Being a physician is a horrible career move right now. As a former Math/CS major turned eye surgeon, I can't help but think about how much easier my life would be had I stuck with tech. It's hard to understand exactly how hard the job is until you've lived it. I saw 40 patient's in clinic today in 8 hours without lunch or any kind of downtime and then spent 2 hours at the hospital because a patient needed an emergent…

> Physician salaries are the only ones that do not grow relative to inflation Same has been happening to software engineers for the last 10 years at least. Salaries go up but not as fast as inflation. I’ve gotten higher titles and more responsibility over the years but inflation is still winning compared to 5+ years ago. > That said, is anyone hiring an ophthalmologist with CS and Math degrees? As soon as the job mar…

Last 10 years? You must be joking. Software engineer salaries have done much better than inflation over the past ten years. If yours personally hasn't, you should have been asking for a raise or looking for a new job.

Over the past one year, they've probably done worse.

Re: The planning of U.S. physician shortages (2020)

#184

Post by weatherlite » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

JJMcJ wrote: post #180

jimmydddd wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The job security issue is huge. Many of my tech and finance friends in their early 50's are getting pushed out of their jobs, while my physician friends in their 60's can keep their career as long as they want. A family member recently visited a dr. in his late 70's.

A 50 year old physician or lawyer, if they are good, is at the absolute top of their profession and can 90% expect work another ten or twenty or more years still earning top dollar. A 50 year old non-management programmer? Look forward to having 23 year olds asking if you know what an array is for the rest of your work life.

I don't agree about lawyers actually. If you haven't made it into something close to partner level or have extremely valuable knowledge and skillset you'll be seen as a liability. There's plenty of people in their late 20s to early 40s who will be preferred over you. Same goes for most jobs actually, doctors are the outliers. For now...wait till A.I makes progress in medical circles.

Re: The planning of U.S. physician shortages (2020)

#185

Post by labcomputer » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

Pigalowda wrote: post #148

the_d3f4ult wrote: post #62

Being a physician is a horrible career move right now. As a former Math/CS major turned eye surgeon, I can't help but think about how much easier my life would be had I stuck with tech. It's hard to understand exactly how hard the job is until you've lived it. I saw 40 patient's in clinic today in 8 hours without lunch or any kind of downtime and then spent 2 hours at the hospital because a patient needed an emergent…

You’re on the wrong forum to complain about the medical field. These SWE think you’re a privileged complaining brat (ironic) who breezed through the 15 years of school and training and don’t deserve anything but disrespect. You’re part of the medical cartel and for the most part, they despise you. Your salary is deemed too high and you are expensive overhead that needs to be decreased - hence the outrage and populari…

Cry me a river. How horrible it must be to have perfect job security, as close as you can get to tenure, unless you massively fuck up. Oh, and an automatic 1% salary.

> but you can really only complain to other MDs. Outsiders will demand you work more, get paid less, get sued more, and grovel.

Oh yes, this is exactly what I want. I don't care about anything my GP does, except whether they kiss my feet when I schedule an appointment. How do you know me so well?

Re: The planning of U.S. physician shortages (2020)

#186

Post by TheCoelacanth » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

looping__lui wrote: post #133

nemonemo wrote: post #23

I doubt US would be able to see a level of medical accessibility on par with many European countries. The medical education system has a perverse incentive to reduce the yearly graduates -- the less graduates there are, the more profits and prestiges each of the current members can garner (with arguably better trained graduates) -- and as shown in the article, they seem to have monopolistic capability for the throttl…

In Germany I can only see a specialist doctor if I 1) wait half a year, 2) am at the brink of dying or 3) give some cash. Most people have the illusion that the system works because 99% don’t have to deal with it and it’s a nice thing to believe if the yearly insurance fees are about $10k for public insurance (employee+employer). Whilst I agree that in Europe we do not have these outrageous costs for medication and i…

You'll have a similar wait in the US for most specialties.

Re: The planning of U.S. physician shortages (2020)

#187

Post by PheonixPharts » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

soared wrote: post #179

PheonixPharts wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even now 300k TC is pretty easy to get for any competent engineer wanting to work for a publicly traded company that can get comp in RSUs. It's also very easy to get a 200k+ remote eng job, even now, that will allow you to spend as much time with your family as you like, rarely have you working past 5pm, and working in predictable, relatively low stress (potentially fun!) problems all day. The job security is a good…

Your circle of 2/300k engineers does not represent average people. 99% of Americans should not be able to get a faang job even if the exact park was laid in front of them before college.

I have never worked for a FAANG company, or anything close, and can usually not get in the front door at any "prestigious" company.

In my last round of interviews nearly all startups/small companies I talked to where offering 200k+ for remote senior engineers. It's not hard to break 200k remote as a software engineer.

If you're not there I highly recommend you start looking around, even in this market, rather than simply dismissing this comp as "prestigious faang only". Personally I think the 500k+ TCs are going to disappear for all but the rarest of cases (this is closer to what FAANG engs that I know make), but 200k+ is likely to be the baseline for the foreseeable future for experienced software engineers.

Re: The planning of U.S. physician shortages (2020)

#188

Post by trentnix » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

the_d3f4ult wrote: post #62

Being a physician is a horrible career move right now. As a former Math/CS major turned eye surgeon, I can't help but think about how much easier my life would be had I stuck with tech. It's hard to understand exactly how hard the job is until you've lived it. I saw 40 patient's in clinic today in 8 hours without lunch or any kind of downtime and then spent 2 hours at the hospital because a patient needed an emergent…

I've no doubt the stress of your work is immense and the constant threat of litigation (and the expense of the insurance to fight it) can be overwhelming. As a recipient of multiple eye surgeries (I had strabismus as a kid), I am grateful for competent professionals like you. But I think you buried the lede.

In the 2010s I owned a high-end bicycle and sporting good store. It was 7 days of 10+ hours a day most weeks. And it was very nearly non-profit or barely-profit for most of its run. If you know anyone that owns a bike shop, you should give them a hug. They need it.

Nearly every Friday afternoon, just after lunch, a few of my customers who were physicians or surgeons would pull up in their Model X or Cayenne to get service for their 10k road bike they were taking to their vacation home for the weekend. On more than one occasion, one of them would exasperatedly tell me how much they envied me and how lucky I was to be doing what I "loved". As I confronted my busy, work-filled weekend cemented to the shop to deal with the fickle and spoiled public, I had to chuckle as they drove away in their luxury vehicles to their luxury vacation home with a nicer bike than my own.

In retrospect, I've concluded that the real problem they faced is they'd built a life dependent on a physician or surgeon's income. They were told they were building a castle, but instead they built a prison. The fact is, you just can't spend enough money to truly escape the stresses of your work, but you can certainly spend enough money to become shackled to it.

Re: The planning of U.S. physician shortages (2020)

#189

Post by hotpotamus » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

trentnix wrote: post #188

the_d3f4ult wrote: post #62

Being a physician is a horrible career move right now. As a former Math/CS major turned eye surgeon, I can't help but think about how much easier my life would be had I stuck with tech. It's hard to understand exactly how hard the job is until you've lived it. I saw 40 patient's in clinic today in 8 hours without lunch or any kind of downtime and then spent 2 hours at the hospital because a patient needed an emergent…

I've no doubt the stress of your work is immense and the constant threat of litigation (and the expense of the insurance to fight it) can be overwhelming. As a recipient of multiple eye surgeries (I had strabismus as a kid), I am grateful for competent professionals like you. But I think you buried the lede. In the 2010s I owned a high-end bicycle and sporting good store. It was 7 days of 10+ hours a day most weeks.…

> They were told they were building a castle, but instead they built a prison.

The industry term is "golden handcuffs".

Re: The planning of U.S. physician shortages (2020)

#190

Post by belmarca » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

Pigalowda wrote: post #148

the_d3f4ult wrote: post #62

Being a physician is a horrible career move right now. As a former Math/CS major turned eye surgeon, I can't help but think about how much easier my life would be had I stuck with tech. It's hard to understand exactly how hard the job is until you've lived it. I saw 40 patient's in clinic today in 8 hours without lunch or any kind of downtime and then spent 2 hours at the hospital because a patient needed an emergent…

You’re on the wrong forum to complain about the medical field. These SWE think you’re a privileged complaining brat (ironic) who breezed through the 15 years of school and training and don’t deserve anything but disrespect. You’re part of the medical cartel and for the most part, they despise you. Your salary is deemed too high and you are expensive overhead that needs to be decreased - hence the outrage and populari…

Becoming a physician is a choice. Choosing your specialty is a choice as well (to an extent). Staying a physician is also a choice. And an immense privilege.

I have great respect for physicians I have worked with in IT for years. However I do not have patience for this sort of argument. You can always find another job if you'd like to, like everybody else. And unlike the majority of the population, you can set yourself up to have the financial freedom to do so.

No "sane" person "hates" doctors. They just don't pity them.

---

BTW, the tech FOMO is just FOMO. Grass is greener. Software engineering can be very exciting (just like medicine), but also very boring (just like medicine). Compensation is a really bad metric. If you value your time off, then don't become a physician. Sounds to me like some people just can't ever be fulfilled (usually the more privileged)!