Switching from Finance to Medicine
Has anyone jumped from finance to healthcare at some point in their journey? During undergrad? After graduation/early career? Mid-career? If so, why did you do this, how did it go, and what are you doing now?
For clarity, I'm referring to careers in nursing, physician assistants, medical doctors, dentists, dietitians, physical therapists, psychologists, pharmacists, etc. These all require intense schooling and time commitments, so I'm curious if anyone was already, or about to be, on Wall Street, and then had a change of heart.
I've looked into pursing an MD and think the best way to pursue it is to go to the Columbia University post bac pre med program as if you get above a certain GPA they have guaranteed linkages (guaranteed acceptance) to certain med schools. The downside to this route is it is expensive and the program is extremely difficult (especially 2nd year biology).
Linkage-Specific Program Requirements | School of General Studies
So if students at that program meet certain requirements, they don't have to worry about school application/registration for the next __ years bc it's auto-registered? Or do they have to apply to / register for something?
For certain programs if you meet the undergrad and post bac GPA requirements, you are automatically accepted into Med School and don't have to take the MCAT.
Don't pursue MD. You'll regret it. For a site that has a miserable IB-er crying about his job every 24 hours—the number of dumb I want to be a doctor posts is astounding; IB-level suffering, less pay, except for niche surgical specialties (& only in the USA)
Yeah I’ve heard Med School is hell and residency is hell. A low percentage of special freaks love the pain, but a majority hate the process.
I personally know 2 GFC victims (layoffs) that are now doctors. One specialist and the other is primary care. Both went to med school in their late 20s
Also know a BB analyst that went to med school and I believe is now a resident in orthopedics. Went to med school around 25.
It's very rare but it does happen. All three times, someone close to them convinced them to make the switch (their parents, friends in the profession etc.)
Shadow physicians / surgeons and figure out if its for you maybe?
I know a lot about the medical field and would never want to make it all the way to be an attending. Way too much work and the system is so fucking broken. Also a lot of medical doctors have massive egos and you may find more arrogant people in that profession than finance (which would be surprising to most but at least from my anecdotal experience, fairly accurate).
Genuinely curious, what makes you want to pursue such an intense switch? Especially with how increasingly insufferable the medical field is becoming between injection of politics and overly burdensome regulation, I have a hard time understanding the interest (particularly having been pre-med looking at med schools myself before switching to finance).
I'm curious about what precisely you mean by politics; also to what extent do you perceive regulation being an issue (asides the usual patient litigation that's popular in first world countries)?
I have some sympathy for this, and some people do truly learn in the middle of their career that they want to do something completely different. In my family, there was one person who started out as a nurse who later decided to become a dentist. Another was a nurse and decided to go into academia and statistics. People's tastes change, and there's always something to be said for self-exploration leading to self-actualization.
That said, there's also some merit to the idea that if you work really hard to get a high-paying job in business, it might not always make sense to go somewhere just because you think the grass might be greener. With finance, you can make more money than almost any doctor. I know some crazy surgeons who pull down $10MM in EBITDA basically by themselves, but those people are insanely rare. I know a lot more private equity and real estate people who can do that, and it's a much more replicable thing.
Hang out with some more real estate people. I know real estate guys in their 50s and 60s who basically have infini-money because they buy self-storage, apartment buildings, or strip malls in places like Arkansas. It's totally the Millionaire Next Door. These people have good lives, and they aren't always looking over their heads to see if CMS is going to drop the hammer on their Medicare reimbursements.
There's something to be said for our profession being a good one, although self-actualization may call you elsewhere. Your path will generally call to you; you need only listen.
I’ve actually been battling the same decision. I think I could fulfilled by a career in medicine. I graduated and have been working in real estate for 2 years. Working in an office is souls crushing… I’d rather be in a hospital or health care setting helping people. I’m just worried about the daunting fact that I will probably only finish school in my early 30s and then become an attending in mid to late 30s…
Let me know what you decide!
Pfft, I really would not recommend it unless you can't imagine doing literally anything else.
Medical school is just as intense as IBD, and once you graduate you will be absolutely locked in to the career. Your medical degree is mostly worthless in business as 90% of what you learn are clinical skills and not transferable, whereas your value will come solely from the fact that you are a doctor. Good luck trying to leave if you don't like clinical medicine.
Imagine you are the internal medicine resident on a sick and dirty ward, there is 5 COPD patients, one with left ventricular failure, one with acute kidney injury, one with peritonitis, and to top it off a few old ones with terminal cancer. Everyone is suffering, everyone's health is declining, and it is an all round sh*tshow. No free tea, coffee, or a healthy lunch. No comfortable office, climate controlled environment, bonuses, or reasonable working conditions. Unpaid overtime, 36 hour calls, 80 hour work weeks for 60k.
You would have to be mental to leave a career in finance to start over in medicine. Unless you have a particular affinity for helping 80 year olds make it to 85. (Or it has been your childhood dream, and for some reason or another, you didn't have the chance to pursue it, and now you do). If you are not that type of person, good luck finding your 'fulfillment' in your 'job'.
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