MD/MBA to IBD help

Healthcare banking/PE/VC

What I want to know is how difficult it is to land those fields, not just what fields are available.

Not too hard if you go top 5 MBA harvard opens doors

Are you going to a top 5 business school?

Haha, why do you want to do banking? Shouldn't you be gunning for a dermatology residency right now?

So basically...you went through medical school even though you had doubts about practicing? Seems like a harsh way to spend 4 years. I guess figuring out you don't want to do it is better late than never...

^^^^^^^ Dude, i have the feeling you have been misinformed by the media XD. Are you planning to apply just after graduating? If your answer is yes, you need review admission policies of MBAs.

Basically from high school I got into this program where I was guaranteed into medical school as long as I attended the UG, because I thought then I for sure wanted to be a physician. As a result, I never bothered applying to Ivy Leagues. I ended up not staying at the medical school associated with my UG because it was so expensive. Anyway, the UG is ranked in the 20s, and the med school I ended up going to is ranked in the 10s/20s based on the year.

ivoteforthatguy: keep in mind I'm looking at finance, not consulting. I thought it was difficult/impossible to get into finance as an associate straight from an MD degree.

I do not know how hard it is to get into a top 5 B-school, though someone I know at my medical school has done it without work experience (he got Harvard). However, I do have a guaranteed spot at the Rice MBA program since my medical school is Baylor (associated with Rice)...all I have to do is fill out the application. I did not know whether a Rice MBA is worth anything when it comes to getting an i-banking associate position.

Never mind why I want to go into finance, all I am asking is have any of you guys seen it done, an MD/MBA (or even an MD) going straight into associate at an IBD firm.

Also, you guys mention that one may not all make it up to VP/director. As for the exit ops, aren't they still pretty good? After 2-3 years as associate, don't you pretty much start at $200-300 at an exit op, and only go up?

You might find people on here much more generous with help if you presented an intelligible explanation for your switch.

Frankly if you don't want to do medicine because you think it's overly mindless, the first fear of the members of this forum is that you're screwing yourself heading to IB, and we're hardly eager to help.

To be 100% honest I think you want to do finance because you think it is more prestigious and you are going to win millions with little effort by the time you are 35. Also because you see that in medicine you will actually have to work a lot and go through a lot of crap to earn those 700k. You should reevaluate those ideas.

I started studying medicine and did a year before going to business. The reason for me at the time where that I did not wanted to work as a doctor by the time im 40, I didnt wanted to see patients, nor work in ER or be a researcher. When I was 15 I stayed in Germany as a exchange student with a person who was an economist, had a great family and, as I recently discovered, is worth over 10m. He had a great family and went to work each day because he liked to do it. He was, and still is, my role model. I decided I wanted to be like him, to invest in companies and develop them and wanted to learn about the business world. When I approached him looking for advice, by the time I was deciding to leave medicine he told me the following: "only if you do what you like you have a chance of doing it well, and only if you do it well you have a chance of being successful". He then suggested me to research about what I was going to get into. As I am just starting in finance I might not be the best person for advice, however it has not been easy. Furthermore I have been pre-admitted into a top European MBA, and have been a week doing MBA coursework there, and one thing I have discovered is that experience makes a huge difference.

Finally, I remember once that I asked a guy doing medical physics why he choose his career path. He answered me "because of the money" and I cant agree more. If you want a relatively secure and rewarding career stay in medicine. I you have some interest in finance and will take the risk, go for finance. I would just tell you to think what do you want to be doing by the time you are 40-50 weighted on the chances you will actually be able to do it. Research the industry, from all I have seen and heard is full of repetitive work. I have the feeling you are framed by the whole "prestige" and the "models and bottles" idea. Do what you like, if you feel like going into finance I believe you of course want, but do you know what would you be really doing?. Money in medicine is not bad, how much do you really need, how much do you want?.

I guess I should explain my reasoning, or else people will plug in my motives with their own guesses. I certainly do not care about the models and bottles idea of finance, I am not materialistic by any means. My main goal in life, as abstract as it may sound, is to be able to enact change. Being able to do so requires power, and the most surefire way to power is money and to be in the right company of people. One can also achieve power by becoming a celebrity or through some other one in a million route, but money is the most secured route. Even if I do not obtain that kind of power, what I can do is build enough wealth so my future kids will never have to worry about working for the sake of material possessions ever again, and they can only focus on self actualization or enacting change to mankind the way they see fit.

In medicine, not only do you not make good money, the people you are surrounded by are not inclined to move up in the world. Most are just hard workers who do their jobs, and mentally I suffer from boredom talking to most of my peers. There are some who choose academic medicine and do have goals as lofty as mine sound, but they too only enact change one paper or one management protocol at a time. The days of breakthrough medical advancement by physicians are over, the bottleneck/fountainhead of progress is in technology and molecular/genetics. Thus, being a physician, not only am I thwarted from building power, I am also thwarted from enacting major scientific changes.

I also do not see what I am doing in medicine as being ethical for someone who is a rational/thinker...if anything, I often feel like I am wasting society's resources by prolonging the painful lives of those who bluntly put, are better of accepting their mortality. A CEO or VC can have a much larger impact on the world than a physician can, once again, from a rationalist/thinker's perspective. The CEO/VC deals with an entire system at a time, whereas the doctor only treats one (usually old) person at a time. How high someone in finance can go in terms of their influence on the world is much higher than the potential of a physician.

Basically, I find that finance/business is more ethical of a profession than healthcare. What is ethical is subjective to the individual. I have always been a very mathematical/logical person, and I know for a fact that if I did medicine for a living, I would just be doing a job and not building towards any personal goals. Btw, I am an INTJ by myers briggs if that means anything to anyone.