The Downsides to gap year before med school

L_NewEngland
Wed, 24 Sep 2025 16:33:24 +0000

thumper1:

I don’t know one retired physician who has financial issues.

I actually do know a couple that, while not in dire straits, are not super comfortable by any means in their retirement years. Both are PCPs/Family Docs.

I do think in both cases they are outliers, in one case because they were not very bright with their money or had other medical issues of their own that made life more complicated. I certainly don’t think it had anything to do with gap years or the profession not being compensated.

And as someone said, a lot of people i know who did gap years (younger folks) it was because they had to finish pre-reqs (decided to med school late) or weren’t 100% they wanted to be MDs and needed some space to decide. It is an enormous decision, really.

I think a bigger issue in terms of access is the number of people with MDs who don’t practice at all, or more commonly work very part-time and do research (which could be done by PhDs).

I am not saying we should ban that either, but impacts workforce more than gap years.