[defen]

There's also the part where you spend your 20's in med school/internship/residency. Hard to put a dollar value on that. There's obviously nothing inherently wrong with it, but it takes a certain kind of person. And you had better be damn sure you want to do medicine before committing to such a program.

[vuvuzealot]

What lucrative or otherwise worthwhile profession do you not waste your youth toiling away in? Other than trust fund custodian of course.

[defen]

Tech? You don't even need to go to college to be a successful software engineer. No matter how smart you are, if you want to be a doctor you have to do undergrad, med school, residency. 36 hour shifts, 100+ hour weeks vs working at Google. With tech you can work from anywhere, you can choose your risk/reward exposure, and if 10 years in you decide you hate it, you don't have a mountain of debt.

In medicine's favor I will say that the median income is probably higher, the median social status is much higher, you have a much better chance of directly making a positive impact on many people's lives, and you work in a field with a more balanced gender ratio.

[peterbessman]

This. And resdency is not the life destroyer people make it out to be anyway. You can find plenty of single residents in the bars of Baltimore. Whatever the demands of their program may be, its not like they're spending a year on an aircraft carrier or whatever. There are certainly downsides to the gig, but the "overworked and underpaid" idea really needs a reality check.

[re_todd]

Good point. Even with a Bachelors in Computer Science, it can be hard to make the industry average until you have at least 5 years experience.