What if I became an emergency medicine doctor?

By Pinyo, on September 5, 2007

I applied to medical school in 1995, but I did not get accepted — so the more accurate question is “what if I got into a medical school?” What led me to this? I was reading Mighty Bargain Hunter’s post about how much a lady owed to get her medical degree. To become an emergency medicine doctor, I would have to spend 4 years in medical school and another 3 years in residency. You can read more about this at the Doctors Corner.

Emergency doctors

Photo by DefenseLINK

7 years and $100,000 later

According to Howstuffworks.com, the tuition cost of medical school was around $25,000 per year back then. This amount does not include fees, housing costs, meals, books, equipment, car expenses, etc. So after 4 years, I would have about $100,000 in student loan debt. Follow that with 3 years of residency making about $50,000 a year — I doubt my debt would be any less. Based on this, I would become a full-fledge emergency medicine doctor in 2003 with about $100,000 in student loan debt.

By that time, I also would have missed the opportunity to buy a house before the big real estate boom. As such, my $185,000 house purchased in 1998, could be as expensive as $400,000 in 2003.

The $800,000 advantage

In real life by 2003, I already accumulated $100,000 in savings and owned a $400,000 house with a $170,000 mortgage. So, I was basically $800,000+ ahead of the game. That is a huge price tag to become a doctor. In the long-term, I am sure the doctor will come out ahead due to superior earning power. According to Salary.com, an emergency medicine doctor makes about $200,000 a year.

Of course, there are some limitations:

Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) — doctors could potentially pay more taxes
IRA phase out rule — their high income could potentially disqualify them from using more traditional retirement savings plans
Deduction for Student Loan Interest — their high income could potentially disqualify them from using this deduction. For 2007, student loan interest deduction is phased out for income between $55,000 and $70,000 (between $110,000 and $140,000 for married taxpayers filing jointly)

Well, that was a fun “what if” scenario. I would love to hear from real doctors about their costs of becoming one.

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Pinyo is the brain behind Moolanomy personal finance blog and a few other web sites. If you like this article, please subscribe for free daily email updates.

All posts by Pinyo

9 Comments

Lynnae @ Being Frugal
September 5, 2007, 11:01

It sounds like things have turned out well for you, even though you didn’t become a doctor. And you probably work fewer hours than you would have had you become a doctor, too!
Pinyo
September 5, 2007, 19:52

I think it did. I’d say a $800,000 difference is very hard to make up. I am very happy with my current job, family situation, and financial situation.
Chief Family Officer
September 5, 2007, 20:14

One of the young-ish (30’s) women doctors in my OB/GYN’s practice group has to pay $300K in med mal insurance every year. She probably pays less now since that figure is from a few years ago, but still! I don’t know how much she makes but it must *a lot* to be able to afford that kind of malpractice insurance.
Pinyo
September 6, 2007, 13:21

CFO – welcome to Moolanomy. Wow, that’s a whole lot of money. Are you a doctor? I thought you are a lawyer from reading your blog.
Jonathan
September 9, 2007, 2:00

The main thing is that if you go into medicine for the money, you’ll be much less likely to succeed and the money won’t be worth it.

Most of the doctors I know are doing fine even with lots of debt, although many of them aren’t the best at handling money.
Pinyo
September 9, 2007, 7:56

That’s a great comment. I think you are right, not just about medicine, but about every jobs and careers. If you do it for the money, you are much less likely to succeed.

The doctor who interviewed me still owed student loans. I think he was over 50. May be they are so busy, it’s difficult for them to think about other matters.
Financialgal
April 9, 2008, 19:17

I just stumbled across this blog entry, so my comment is a little late. My brother is an ER doctor and his yearly tuition at the medical school was a whopping $60,000 a year. He went through his residency and got a job as the chief attending at an ER in the Boston area. His yearly salary is north of $200,000, but it is very expensive to live in the Boston area. On the plus side, he only has to work a total of 35 hours a week in shifts, albeit with some overnighters and holidays.
Pinyo
April 10, 2008, 7:49

@Financialgal — That’s great. Do you think $200k and 35 hours work week is typical for an ER doctor? I think your brother got a great job.
PTC
June 18, 2008, 6:45

Oh please numbers here are so off. I have a ton of friends who are doctors now in their late 20s and 30s. My best friend’s wife is actually an ER doctor like you’re talking about and she started at over $400k after her residency two years ago. I have friends who are specialists making mid/high six figures and a friend who is a surgeon who had offers for over $1mm from hospitals in the midwest (he stayed in NYC though and earns mid/high six figures). Medicine is weird like that, while most jobs pay much more in the big cities versus smaller cities, in medicine you actually make a lot more if you move out to the midwest or south because of the lack of talent there.

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