I'm caught in an interesting trap where a third of my friends are set to become doctors, a third investment bankers/consultants, and another third will be going into tech. I'm also in Canada.<p>When our medical school friends explain their debt, my IB friends get really excited and start cursing them for their <i>luck</i>. Here, apparently, in addition to student loans that don't accrue interest until 6 months after graduation, all medical students are apparently eligible for a $250,000 line of credit at PRIME. Yes, you heard me--PRIME. At this point, my tech friends start to ask why anyone would take debt.<p>Here in Canada, an emergency doctor would make about $250,000/year in Ontario for working what works out (in shifts) to be about 25 hours per week, after he has finished his residency. Assuming this is a similar situation in the states, I don't see why this is so outrageous at all.<p>Oh, and Doctor shortage? <i>Really?</i> It's medical schools that cap entrants, not the price. Take a look at all the qualified students who are rejected each year. I know a bunch.
As a physician (with a BS EE/CS degree which is why I frequent HN), I tire of this argument. If one reads the article carefully, they find that the father Dr. Mark Moy attended excellent public medical school (and lower cost) Univ. of Illinois in Chicago while his son is attending the very expensive (and lower quality) Chicago Medical School (not to be confused with Univ of Chicago School of Medicine).<p>Many graduating doctors get into big debt because they choose to attend private undergraduate and private medical school. Instead of getting into such huge debt, a fiscally responsible medical student should attend a lower cost, quality public undergraduate school and a public medical school.<p>For example, in New York State, one could attend one of the SUNY schools or the public part of Cornell (the Agriculture school for instance) undergrad and then SUNY Downstate Medical School where they would get outstanding clinical experience for the approx cost of private undergraduate tuition alone.<p>It seems odd that Berknanke's son would still be in debt if he had attended both <i>public</i> undergraduate and medical schools and does seem so fiscally prudent on the part of the Fed Chairman and his son.<p>In addition, IIRC, you can have the military pay for full medical school if you serve for four years as a doctor after you graduate if you are not good enough to get into public medical school.<p>In summary, for most people who complain of medical school debt in this country, it is really a sign of not being fiscally prudent on their part or of those of their parents.
I'd say given the salary data, the fact that medicine is a stable and growing field, and the amount of high level training required , these numbers are not really crazy or out of line.<p><a href="http://www.profilesdatabase.com/resources/2011-2012-physician-salary-survey" rel="nofollow">http://www.profilesdatabase.com/resources/2011-2012-physicia...</a><p>After six years of practicing, even a non specialized doctor will be at 200K with the lowest starting salaries around 140K. That is a fantastic amount of money when you consider that it is the lower end of the pay scale for doctors and that it will be a completely secure position in which you can work until death or retirement.<p>250K is a small price to entry into 8Million+ lifetime earnings.<p>Being highly successful in most fields is equated with 150K and beyond salary point, which comes with increased competition and no job security as you move up the ladder...I don't see this as being a bad deal at all, even for those totally self/debt funding.
And to add to this we are heading into an era of what appears to be declining reimbursements. If not declining, then there certainly have not been increases commensurate with increases in the cost of training.
Students are always told there will be a shortage of primary care physicians. I was told the same in the mid 90's as a student. Just because there's a shortage, however, it does not mean that "increased" demand has resulted in increase reimbursements for primary care physicians. Instead, the trend has been the growth of nurse practicioners and physicians assistants assuming greater responsibilities for care, at a much lower cost.<p>So if you are medical student now, my advice would to practice, of course, whatever specialty makes you happy, but don't fall for the shortage of primary care providers schtick - if that's the reason you choose primary care, you will be disappointed.
Of course - you've got to be a True Believer to get that kind of leadership position, and he would have of course taught that to his son. These people actually believe that having any non-monthly expense able to be financed is a good thing, as it is then more "affordable", where affordable means not requiring any sort of planning or saving for the future. Of course this really just causes prices to shoot up, with positive feedback if the good can serve as collateral, which exacerbates the problem causing more people to finance. Essentially they are working to erode the utility of money itself, and revert us back to a social reputation based system where your stature in life depends on your creditworthiness and obedience to your job (stability required to make all those continuing monthly payments).