Dropping medical school for investment banking

I'm (25) in my second year of medical school and I'm just not happy with where things are going. There was always something about business that attracted me and I'm particularly interested in investment banking or private equity. But I have no experience whatsoever and I have no idea where to start, but like most, I want to work for a bulge bracket bank. I'd really appreciate some honest advice how I can get there!

 

Do you have a network that can not only get you in to an interview, but that can also get you hired? And "network" here means "inside track of close family and friends willing to risk their reputation and livelihoods for you," not same random dude you met at a "networking event" or added on LinkedIn. Do you have a good brand name UG school (HYP etc.)?

If you answered no to any of these questions, forget it. Or well, don't forget it, but realize you are potentially giving up a relatively high and nearly guaranteed-to-be-there salary for a gamble.

 

BB bank is just the most attractive idea because of my competitive nature. I know I can learn this business, I just don't know where to start. What advisory shops should I join? How can I get in?

 

UG was at Top20 USNWR private university.

I have a friend who's a 2nd year IB analyst at a boutique bank, a close friend in consulting in NY, and friends in other areas in finance.

I realize what I'm giving up, so how should I go about breaking into this business?

 

Try to network with top healthcare groups. Sell your knowledge of the science to them.

Better yet if you’re interested in biotech VC or hedge funds, network with them. You could have a shot at graduating med school, skipping residency and starting at one of them FT right out of med school.

I was a premed in college, even took the MCAT (got a 516) and decided to pursue IB right after graduating college. I’ve been in similar (but certainly not the same!) shoes.

 

then in your spot, you kinda need to shoot for an M7 or similar MBA because hiring anyone older than 23 as an analyst is exceedingly rare. And you don't get associate out of undergrad. And beware that if you friends can only land you back office, you're gonna have a hard time getting a top MBA. Honestly, you'd have a better shot of Wall Street if you complete your MD/residency and then make your switch or go for a top MBA. You hear about more guys who completed moving fields after getting their MD than med-school-dropouts doing it.

 

It's difficult to describe how much I'm considering the career change. With my currently limited network, what's the best position in finance can I realistically attain (on Wall Street)?

 
jy_gby:

It's difficult to describe how much I'm considering the career change. With my currently limited network, what's the best position in finance can I realistically attain (on Wall Street)?

How many accounting/CS courses do you have in UG?
 

It depends if you are willing to settle for less than a BB. The process for getting into a BB is very formal, so its hard to get in if you are not following the standard trajectory (i.e. high gpa in freshman year, internship in sophomore and getting FO after internship). However, boutiques and MM have a less formal recruiting process, which could allow you to break in regardless of your background. You need to be able to commit to networking and learning key finance skills on your own (understanding acccounting, modeling, valuation, etc)

 

Career option A: Being around sick people 100 hours a week for the rest of your life.

Career option B: Staring at an excel spreadsheet 100 hours a week for a couple of years and then get fired.

Pick one.

 

I cannot believe this. You have completed your pre-med, have gotten into med school, got past your first year, and now you're going to throw it away for a career you know little to nothing about?

If you think it's going to be easier: It's not. If you think the hours are going to be better: They're not. If you think you will be better compensated: You most likely won't. If you think you will feel better about the work you're doing for society: You won't.

Honestly if I had the interest and the fortitute to get through 4 years of bio and organic chemistry and then GET INTO med school I would do that 1000000% of the time and actually help to contribute to society.

...

All that being said, if you still really want it, you can probably do it best by focusing on healthcare banking, and trying to stick it out in your school for as long as you can. Having that advanced degree (MD or MBA) is going to be crucial for you.

I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples, bastards, and broken things
 

Dropping out of med school is the worst decision in my opinion. Finish the school, work a couple of years as a doctor, and if you still want to break into IB/ER, shoot for a MBA business schools ">M7 MBA and leverage your medical knowledge. I would guess, that there are not that many pharma analysts with such a medical background

 
quality_matters:

Dropping out of med school is the worst decision in my opinion. Finish the school, work a couple of years as a doctor, and if you still want to break into IB/ER, shoot for a MBA business schools ">M7 MBA and leverage your medical knowledge. I would guess, that there are not that many pharma analysts with such a medical background

What? Have you ever even read a Pharma report? A very large portion are MDs or MD+Phds.

 

Finish your degree. Do an MBA at a solid university then leverage your skill set into a HC banking/ research team. Your age won't be a massive factor post MBA as many of your class will be doing similar career changes.

 

I also tend to agree that coming out of the med school no one forces you to be a practitioner. You have a decent chance finding a job in finance/consulting related to health care (it would be silly not to leverage your medical background). You can later play however you want based on expectations vs reality check, but if IB is still a dream, MBA will be the most vital option at that point. Good luck!

 

Finish you medical school and then pursue IB or whatever. You can always do business as a medical doctor in the healthcare sector so you don't have to do ib to accomplish this. At least complete medical school so you can have a back up in case ib doesn't work out

 

As someone with in-laws who are both doctors and own their own practices, I can tell you without a doubt you will make more money as a general surgeon, working in a medium sized hospital, than you will in investment banking or equity research. The hospital in their current town has an opening for a urologist, signing bonus is $1M, salary is $700K, and hours are a flat 40 per week. Most of the physicians leave by 4:00pm to go play golf at the local country club. I don't know very many jobs where you can make that type of money, working those hours, with very little stress. A private practice physician working as a general surgeon in a small town can make anywhere from $1.5M to $2M per yr and gets unlimited vacation along with setting their own hours. My father-in-law had another physician cover his patients and office for a month so he could travel around Russia. He routinely takes 2 months off a year for vacation and still drags down the aforementioned sums. Also, remember there will always be sick people, you will always be able to have/find a job, finance will not treat you that way.

As a current analyst at an institutional manager I will work 60 - 80 hours a week for the next 52 weeks. I have taken 1, 1 to repeat that, vacation in the last 24 months, and it was from a Tuesday to a Sunday (I got to come back to 200+ emails). I don't make anywhere near what a physician makes. That will be your life for 3 years (likely in perpetuity) if you decide to leave med school and go "into finance"...however, if you really, really, like my life, I would suggest you enroll in a post-bac program in quant finance at either University of Chicago or Columbia. These programs, and others like them, give you the foundation necessary to apply to financial engineering or MSF programs at Top - 15 schools. To give you an idea, my wife did the post-bac at Columbia and got into most of the Econ PhD programs she applied to. She ended up going to Vanderbilt, however, she was accepted into Columbia's Masters' in Quantitative Finance and other top-tier MSF and Fin engineering programs, her UG was a private liberal arts college.

To finish, given that you made it into med school, which is really hard, you would very likely get accepted to post-bac programs available at Top-10 business schools. If you do well in the post-bac you should be able to get into a good graduate program. From there do an internship during the summer after your first year and you will likely get an offer during your second year. The grass is always greener on the otherside....I've contemplated leaving finance to go to med school but after careful consideration it wasn't the right choice.

 
Best Response
ThorsteinVeblen:

The hospital in their current town has an opening for a urologist, signing bonus is $1M, salary is $700K, and hours are a flat 40 per week. Most of the physicians leave by 4:00pm to go play golf at the local country club. I don't know very many jobs where you can make that type of money, working those hours, with very little stress. A private practice physician working as a general surgeon in a small town can make anywhere from $1.5M to $2M per yr and gets unlimited vacation along with setting their own hours..

This is just ridiculous.

Flat 40 hrs per week? Leaving at 4:00 PM? Very little stress? General surgeon in a small town can make $1.5M to $2M per yr?

HAHAHAHA

I'm a physician and all my friends are in different specialties (plastic surgery, ortho, uro, neurosurgery,ROAD, etc) In other words the specialties that make the most coin. And none of them make from $1.5 to $2M per year, much less in a small town AND as a general surgeon. Just look at any compensation report and you will see how off target those comments are. (If you feel so inclined look here: http://www.cejkasearch.com/compensation-data/physician-compensation-dat… )

The highest paid surgeons are the neurosurgeons, to get there you need to finish medical school with great grades and ace the USMLEs after that you need to endure 7 years of residency + 1 (optional) year of fellowship at a set salary of $50,000 give or take depending on geography (CoL adjustment). And the average salary after training is $600-700K.

As to the 40 hrs per week, that is just laughable. A day in the life of an attending neurosurgeon in Johns Hopkins (MD from Harvard, summa cum laude) starts at 5 AM, rounds on patients and checks pre-ops, performs 2-3 surgeries after that goes to clinic, finishes paperwork, checks on post-ops and complies with any academic or research commitments. Leaves hospital at 7-8PM. This is Monday to Friday. Not counting call schedule. The best part is that his salary is $750-850K per year.(irony)

Oh and I forgot about the stress; although this is subjective, I think most people would agree that it is a really really high stress job. Making the slightest error means death or paralysis, besides the obvious economical repercussions produced by malpractice and there is also the imminent risk of losing your license if you fu*k up.

Finally, I leave you the average compensation of a general surgeon: median $240,463 (which is $1M short of your quote) http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=General_Surgeon/Salary

Urologist: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Physician_%2f_Doctor%2c_Urologi…

Neurosurgeon: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Neurosurgeon/Salary

To the OP, I've been in your shoes. My advice: Option 1: Finish medical school and look into the 1-year accelerated MBA at Cornell Johnson for MD's or Wharton EMBA. Option 2: stay the course, continue medical school BUT learn finance, accounting, valuation and modeling on the side. Start the CFA, network and pass Level 1 and Level 2. Get some kind of financial experience (internship). Check www.dropoutclub.org constantly and apply to positions.

In option 1 you get MD/MBA in option 2 you get none but you MIGHT get to the Street faster.

If you want IB and/or PE definitely option 1. If you want ER and/or HF then 2 will suffice.

Also, start in boutique get to at least a VP level and then transfer to BB if it makes sense. BB's are very structured. In a boutique you can move higher faster, once you get to an income generating position you can lateral.

 

They both own their own practices, so yes, those sums are accurate. Not common, I know, but can be. Just like hedge managers can make 9 figures in a year, not common, but occurs Yes, there is a shortage of specialties that serve regional areas, so those salaries for that particular region and hospital are correct. It's hard to get specialist to live in a town of 24,000 people that serves as the only hospital in 30 mile radius. I would never want to be a doctor or specialist in a large city, the pay is often half of what a doctor can get in small to mid sized towns. My brother-in-law is a urologist and that sum comes directly from their private physician practice. Averages are skewed, and given my sample size of 3, that should tell you where that sits. Also, as you know, salaries at hospitals are entirely different than salaries at private practices.

 

I really appreciate all the input guys. There are various reasons why I may be in the process of dropping out. I'm just trying to do my best to look a new beginning while I'm still have the chance.

From what I've gathered, I should start with a post bacc in finance (at a top 10). Look for summer internships at boutique. And network, network, network. Apply for MSF (at a top 10). Find IB/ER analyst job ( at boutique?). Apply for M7 MBA after working for #? years. I'm not sure what's possible after that. BB? Private equity?

Would this be realistic? Or am I still shooting in the dark?

 
jy_gby:

I really appreciate all the input guys. There are various reasons why I may be in the process of dropping out. I'm just trying to do my best to look a new beginning while I'm still have the chance.

From what I've gathered, I should start with a post bacc in finance (at a top 10). Look for summer internships at boutique. And network, network, network. Apply for MSF (at a top 10). Find IB/ER analyst job ( at boutique?). Apply for M7 MBA after working for #? years. I'm not sure what's possible after that. BB? Private equity?

Would this be realistic? Or am I still shooting in the dark?

Shooting in the dark. No one (at least in the figurative sense) is hiring 25 or 26 year old interns unless they're already MBA business schools ">M7 MBA. Its just not in the culture of Wall Street to have older interns.
 

The internship (as well as the full-time job) would obviously have to be in another city. I also can't imagine any Wall Street company offering post-grad internships. I'm just trying to figure out how I can get started and progress from having no credentials/experience to eventually, earning an MBA business schools ">M7 MBA.

 
my name is goldstein:
Dude, you go to Cornell and are complaining about frat kids with connections? You got a internship your freshman year and you're a rising sophomore knowing you want IB which is good. IMO doing Econ or transferring into ILR is your best option, your major doesn't really matter at a target school just get a 3.5 or above. Trust me you're at no disadvantage lmao.

You want some advice premed2finance ? Ignore shit like this. Also, stop stressing you have plenty of time left in undergrad to snag a nice summer analyst spot and line up a gig for post-graduation. Just network to the best of your ability, always put your best foot forward, try to keep that GPA above a 3.0, and keep on trying. A PWM internship isn't bad and shows interest in finance (on your resume) and a willingness to gain exposure through work to things that interest you. Start networking yesterday for next summer's analyst spots, and keep in mind that if it was easy then everybody would be an investment banker. Good luck.

 

I am a long time lurker here, but a lot of folks have posted previous threads stemming from STEM, to non-traditional backgrounds breaking into finance.

Get into Econ or Finance at Cornell, and get the highest GPA you can have. Start networking during/after your sophomore year to land summer internships roles.

Keep it simple as possible. You'll be fine. Cornell is a great school. I work with a lot of engineers from Cornell at the big Q in the engineering test teams.

 

Hi,

You can take some online courses to help you with the skills you need for the job (finance, excel, powerpoint, financial modeling, etc.). You can find most of these on Udemy at deep discounts (there was a new year discount going, not sure if it's still on - or you can search for promo codes and apply those).

As for how to break in, the key is to network as much as you can, call people working at investment banks and set up informational meetings. Ask about their typical day, culture, work-life balance (if it exists), and anything else that is important to you. This way you can make sure you like investment banking before you get a full-time job. It's not going to be easy though (but it's not rocket science either, it just needs hard work).

Have you considered consulting? Many management consulting firms hire people from the medical sector since they have the required knowledge and skills to help out hospitals and companies operating in this sector.

If going to school again is an option, consider doing an MBA or, if this isn't an option, a specialized masters in finance (you can take the prerequisite courses before you start grad school). This will help you a lot, especially if you go to a target school since most banks and consulting firms hire from there.

 

Hi flybanker.

Thank you for your response. I am open to going to school again and strongly considered an MBA, but what about the prior experience requirement? How would my application be any bit competitive? I've researched that if you're not going to a top 15-20 B-School, it's a usually a waste of time and money (both that I can't really expend at the moment; moreso time).

thank you,

 

Ignore micro/macro econ and do financial accounting instead. I would suggest talking to alumni in IB/finance to get a better sense for what the job is before going headfirst down the path.

It may be possible (but not probable) that you could get a role as an analyst at a healthcare focused boutique or a small firm, but you will have to do some networking. Assuming you don't want to MBA just yet, the other route would be to do a one year master's in finance (search around on WSO for like MFin, probably some good threads).

 

Are... you okay?

I know one guy who went to med school for a year (in '08) I think and then got an offer at a decent non-coverage group in IB at GS (think Activism Defense-type) which is pretty good. He said it was incredibly hard, and he came from a near-perfect background (Harvard Med, Princeton 4.0 UG, parents in finance), so it's not impossible- but almost impossible.

 
Kazimierz:

Are... you okay?

I know one guy who went to med school for a year (in '08) I think and then got an offer at a decent non-coverage group in IB at GS (think Activism Defense-type) which is pretty good. He said it was incredibly hard, and he came from a near-perfect background (Harvard Med, Princeton 4.0 UG, parents in finance), so it's not impossible- but almost impossible.

@Kazimierz I don't have his background, unfortunately. Is he still around? Incidentally, do you know a good consultant?

 
seafood92:

damn homie why no plastics

Ha. There must be a reason for the trope that goes: “Surgeons: sometimes wrong but never unsure” and I know a few. My friend cut the nerve, every time, without fail. He wants to be a surgeon (with a Bentley). We “love you” anyway.

So, now what?

 

So, while going back to undergrad is probably impractical if not impossible now, (or is it?) I only have Calc I. How and where do I fill in the gaps?

@iggs99988: ?

 

First question for you. How are your conversational skills in English? Next, what made you want to get into wall street and not stay in medicine? If you are on linkedin, I would suggest cold emailing analysts at investment banks and writing something like, "Hello Mr. XX, I see you are in investment banking and I would love your advice, as I would like to be an investment banker. I know it may be a busy/off season right now, but I would love to hear your advice on how to best position myself to obtain an internship at "XX" for the summer of 2018 or the summer of 2019.

Thank you very much,

XX"

You really should take finance courses during the last part of your schooling, because if you do not have classes like that under your belt, it will be much harder for you. You also must develop a very thick skin if you wish to survive wall street. Investment banking is very hierarchical, you as an analyst, you will endure a lot of crap from those above you. Let me know if you have any other questions, and I hope that helps.

Array
 

Hi thanks for your reply. I think my spoken English is fantastic as I have lived in Australia for 8 years as a chile before coming to china.

I have a question, in my med school we do not really have an option for taking finance courses.

I was thinking maybe after graduation i would do a postgraduate in statistics or maybe finance ? i wonder is that possible/helpful ?

I look forward to your reply

thank you

 

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