I'm pursing a D.O. degree (essentially a less prestigious M.D, but it should definitely stick out among others). I plan to become a physician or orthopedist for a couple years. I've always wanted to work on Wall Street, so I wanna give it a shot. Is it possible/likely to land an IB job? If not, then even a finance-related career on wall street?
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MDs that break into IB typically do so by doing a summer associate position in their pentultimate year before joining full time. If you start residency, IB is more or less off the table
PE/VC is possible for experienced physician entrepreneurs. Rare but having met a few of these docs, they took a lot more risk than most doctors would to get their businesses off their ground (fast growing companies with a lot of clinics/a service for consumers or clinicians, not just a private practice for example). Ended up wealthier than every other doc I've met.
Why is that? Do employers dislike older age?
You can do residency and then do an MBA --> IB. I've seen a dentist do this btw. Just never a MD/DO.
Orthopedists clear 500K starting...
Sports orthopedic surgeons can work 40-45 hours a week for 500K in saturated markets and probably 600K+ in LCOL areas. Stay in medicine if you're able to land a high paying specialty like ortho.
It’s always been a goal of mine to work on wall street. I would take it over the 600k salary.
So you finish your DO at 25, residency at 30 work 5 years. You’re 35, cruising making 500k+ working 40 hours a week doing knees and driving your Porsche to the country club at 4pm every day and getting drunk in the Locker Room Lounge? Go home to your hot wife, young kids in your McMansion in a gated community in a nice suburb…. And you think, you know what? I’d really like to fuck my life up. And start over making 1/3 the pay at twice the hours with none of the youth and a fraction of the drive and ambition you have at 23?
if you want IB get on it now and trade the 5 years of residency for 5 years of equally long hours in banking and come out ahead. Otherwise, you come out way behind.
if you do the residency and practice, Selling your practice to PE or another group is the way to make bank. Rinse. Repeat. Stay on as whatever title you want … you can even make it a business… but you’ll have no transferable skills to IB after 5 years of private practice. (Slightly different take if you do academic research at an elite institute with a focus on new tech/pharma or publish a lot. But this still wouldn’t be IB...)
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