<p>Maybe something near half of doctors are women. If all they all have a husband who doesn’t work, all I can say is - Lucky guys.</p>
<p>
Bingo.</p>
<p>And even for the male doctors, most spouses I know work (or worked for many years and are now retired from their career). I know several high level executives whose spouses stopped working to take care of the kids, but I would never generalize to presume that most spouses of high level execs dont work. Maybe they do, maybe they dont. I think its a matter of personal preference or perhaps commitment to other activities (volunteer /committee work, entertaining). Who knows.</p>
<p>I generally make the assumption that spouses work no matter what the income level of their partners. Most spouses of well educated people that I know are professionals in their own right and work. I know a couple of physicians who are married and job share while the kids are growing up. The advantage for the spouse of an MD is that he/she often has the advantage of not working in times of need (child care, elderly care) or working part-time. It’s an advantage that most don’t have.</p>
<p>I don’t…</p>
<p>You don’t what?</p>
<p>Kluge, I agree that “going broke” is probably hyperbole. But I wholeheartedly disagree with this:
In my culture growing up, the most noble profession one could aspire to was to be a “doctor”. In fact, there’s an old joke where the president of the US brings his mom to his inauguration and she remarks to the secretary of state sitting next to her “you see that guy up there, his brother is a doctor”</p>
<p>When “becoming a doctor” no longer holds the esteem it once had, the “best and brightest” will absolutely be motivated to go into more prestigious and lucrative careers. Maybe not “en mass”, but certainly the trend will be there. Certainly many current MDs are actively discouraging their children from going into the profession-- that was unheard of twenty five years ago.</p>
<p>qdogpa wrote: I don’t know a single Dr whose spouse works, heck my spouse isn’t a Dr and i don’t work. </p>
<p>qdogpa…that works for you…and that is fine. BUT the reality is (as pointed out upstream) that many married couples have dual incomes…not just doctors.</p>
<p>There are many choices to be made in life…and your choice of jobs is one.</p>
<p>I know doctors who are contemplating closing their practices but it is NOT because of the money they earn. In fact, some haven’t done so because they need to earn that money. They are thinking about leaving medicine because they are tired of the liabilities, long hours, on call weekends, and general stress of the job.</p>
<p>I told both of my kids…pick a career because you LIKE it, not because you think you will become wealthy.</p>
<p>Is it necessary or desirable for the ‘best and brightest’ to become doctors? It is a profession with wildly different intellectual demands depending on the exact role. I would think a really intelligent person would go crazy with boredom if they were stuck in a room in some clinic year after year handling trivial ailments, one patient every five minutes.</p>
<p>Audiophile - my husband’s father was a surgeon and actively discouraged my husband 25+ years ago not to go into medicine, so I don’t see anything new here. Now he went into law instead and that profession has really changed if you want to be realistic. I know because I’m also a lawyer.</p>
<p>We also know a large number of doctors. Of them (greater than 20 in number), only one would recommend becoming a doctor NOW.</p>
<p>Agreed^^^ i was just noting doctors i kow, their spouse doesn’t work, but they are involved in many ventures…They are not sitting home having daily mani-pedis…the doctors we know live extremely comfortable lives, but work hard to be where they are…and dual income families have become the norm, but many dual income families i know(YMMV) do so to keep a lifestyle they can’t afford…cleaning people,landscape people,country club memberships, etc…i bet they could live a similar lifestyle if theyndid’t farm out all the chores …</p>
<p>it may be a regional or rural vs urban thing too qdogpa… reimbursements vary in different parts of the country…fwiw…i dont have a cleaning lady, dont belong to any country clubs, and mow my own grass (H is not home before dark to do it and son allergic to grass 
)</p>
<p>you will probably hear alot more complaining shortly if they dont fix the medicare fee schedule…doctors about to get hit with almost 30% cut… major problem for us as about 60+% of practice is medicare.</p>
<p>Without question^^^one doctor i know, an OBGYN guy, got fed up with insurance andfee schedules,he dropped all insurance and only takes cash…His business has never been better…he is able to spend more then 5 minutes with each client, and those who can afford his rates ,LOVE him</p>
<p>Starbright- I just want to say thank you.</p>
<p>Personally, I am amazed at how much time & effort docs & their staff have to devote to billing & insurance issues. We have a MD on our board & she is only available for a sliver of time on Wednesday evenings and Friday evenings, when she takes a break from paperwork. She does paperwork before & after the meetings, often beyond 8pm. She is a solo practitioner. Another doc on our board wakes every morning at 4am so she can be at work by 5:30 or so. She is in a group practice with the federal government. </p>
<p>Some docs I know often do NOT encourage their kids to be docs because of the brutal hours and stresses. Nonetheless, of docs kids we know, several have kids who are going into medicine and their folks let their kids choose. Partly it seems to depend on the kids’ interests & partly it seems to depend on the working conditon/hours/quality of life the doctors in the kids’ lives have had, which does not surprise me. A goodly number of the kids in our medical school are kids of doctors. It is still extremely difficult to get admitted to medical school.</p>
<p>In HI, single-income families are a rarity, among all income-classes. In fact, having more than one job is not uncommon.</p>
<p>Have already read/heard of Medicare patients having difficulty getting physicians to accept them and do imagine the problem will worsen as reimbursements are cut. The additional problem is that many/most insurers follow what Medicare does, so the cuts may spread.</p>
<p>When I was calling docs to help S find one, out of a dozen docs (ranked the best in that city), only SIX had people who answered the phone (got voicemail on the other lines). Only two practices were accepting new patients, with only one of them having both of the two docs in the practice accepting new patients and one with only the junior partner accepting new patients. One of the other docs who wasn’t accepting new patients also said he would no longer be accepting insurance as of the end of January.</p>
<p>My doc son in law (4th year resident) really likes academic medicine and will probably stay in it for some time. He has signed up for 4 more years at Vanderbilt- 2 fellowship years and then 2 teaching years. He won’t be extremely rich, but he likes it and gets out of all the insurance, practice etc hassles. My daughter does work and probably always will, but won’t bring in big bucks since she is a minister (unless she becomes Presiding Bishop. 
)</p>
<p>A couple of things. First of all, I think doctors encourage or discourage their kids to follow them in their professions because of how they view their satisfaction in there job. I hear that engineers have kids who become engineers. Maybe because their kids have the same interests. Or maybe because the kids know what their parents do and see how they enjoy their jobs. </p>
<p>I also don’t know any physicians who are going broke. I do know many physicians who have not had the best luck in running their businesses. I know many who have had their office managers embezzle from them. It’s really shocking. As I like to say, they don’t admit you to medical school because you are a good businessperson or can relate to people, you get into medical school because you did well in o chem. </p>
<p>Anyways I know someone who is a physician. He would love to have a partner. The hospital in his town has been actively looking for another doctor in his specialty (something they have a big need for). The hospital is willing to pay someone handsomely to come to this medium size town and pay the doctor a salary which is pretty similar to what the other partner is making after 15 years practicing. They can not find anyone and have been looking for quite a while. I hear that young doctors out of residency can go to a bigger city and make the same amount of money and they don’t want to live in a smaller more rural area. Makes me think that they are not really hurting for money and no body is going broke.</p>
<p>Many of the pulmonologists in our state are aging. Most are 50+ & many are semi-retired. Still, there aren’t many young docs coming to fill in the ranks. Many of the younger docs are opting to go into sleep medicine or become hospitalists because they find it more gratifying and they can have more control over their hours and fewer emergency calls. In fact, there are probably only a handful of pulmos 50 & under. It is a problem that will be growing as our population ages–about 10% of our state has asthma and about 30,000 have been diagnosed with emphysema/chronic bronchitis.</p>
<p>mowc… my 2014 son will apply to md/phd programs in order to do research BUT swears he will never practice as an md with a private practice. we dont encourage him to consider it either.</p>
<p>I know many doctors who while not going broke are making much less money than used to. They are stuck in big homes that they cannot sell, their retirement funds grow slowly, if they were invested in real estate they may have lost a lot of money. Some practices like radiology are laying off because women are not getting yearly mamograms etc. They make too much money for financial aid except for small loans for their children’s college education. Divorce and starting over financially is common among doctors. They are a group that often just works harder without complaining because many of their patients are in far worse financial shape.</p>