A year or 2 or 5 is not going to make an appreciable difference in overall earnings or the shortage of physicians. Agree with many of the points above. I am a mid-career physician in academics in a low-paying specialty located in the Northeast where physician salaries on average are lower in relation to the high cost of living. I have no idea when I will retire. I am burnt out, but even on my worst days, I cannot imagine not seeing patients or teaching residents/students because this is now who I am. Most of my colleagues retire in their 70s, not because they don’t have the money to retire, but because they are doctors and they like their work even in this difficult health care climate. I cannot complain, I am comfortable. However, this is not a career path for someone trying to be super calculated about return on investment. I personally think medicine is a stupid career choice for someone who is just thinking about money, even for high-paying specialties. There are easier ways to land on this salary without all the delayed gratification of so much schooling, stress, liability, and money (to pay for schooling and the delayed earnings/retirement). I am fortunate I finally paid off the last of my student loans (2 years before my kid starts college) and am very comfortable, but I don’t do this for the money. I don’t say all of this to discourage people, I actually encourage kids to choose this, but people need to go into eyes wide open, which brings me back to the original post and gap years. I know no one who took gap years and did nothing. People applying to medical school are driven. They are working and generally doing some sort of medical or service related job. They are saving money for the upcoming lean years. I took one year. As a first gen, low income student, gap year was not in my vocab but medicine was not on my radar until mid college so my timing was off by a year. I am so glad I did. It is hard to be so young when you start seeing patients in medical school. Having some maturity and life experience is beneficial. I see those skills in the students and residents I teach who have done something else before med school. And additionally, this time can help confirm (or not) that they really want to take this path. Better to learn that before sinking more time and money in. It is an easy path to feel stuck in pretty quick because it can feel hard to quit once you jump through so many hoops. It is good to get off the train and soul search a bit. Also nice to live a more normal life for a bit in your 20s! When things were tough in med school or residency, I would often think about my job that year (along with other jobs I held) and know that I could have maybe done it for 5 years max and then I would have been bored.
Sorry for long post, some of it a little off topic. I am sure others may have different experiences, but this is how I see gap years and medical training in general.
And physician shortages will only get worse with the current state of health care. To attribute any of the current physician shortage on a year or 2 that bright, dedicated people take off to work in their early 20s, feels a bit like victim-blaming.
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