I’m 27. I’m a doctor. My hospital pays me 200K USD a year. But finance has always been my dream. There’s just something about finance that fascinates me - the prestige / glory / aura, the interesting financial math, etc.
As such, should I continue to be a doctor and make a stable income for now then worry about my dream later on, or should I pivot to finance earlier on in my career and give up medicine, knowing that there’s a chance I might make less money?
(Please feel free to ask me follow up questions if necessary.)
A few classmates did the shift from medicine to finance, albeit they were dual majors and it came after they decided they really didn’t want to deal with clinical medicine life anymore – patients, hospitals, etc. They transitioned leaning on their medical training/expertise, like going into the health practice at a consultancy like McKinsey then networking into banking or private equity or going into equity research then sector funds or long/short funds. For them, starting from scratch as a finance or banking analyst was a waste of sunk time/energy into medicine. (For me, I was STEM, pre-med, contributing to research and my mother is a doctor, so I could have easily gone into medicine at the cross-over of research and clinical, but I got hit by a realisation in uni that I couldn’t bear to listen to patients’ complaints all day long.) If you are still on the fence, you can always trade your P.A. and do CFA to test whether the jump is worth it for you; maybe this fulfils your needs for applied maths and making some $ while still continuing to practice medicine. Or, if it is less about finance and wanting to be more commercial, then perhaps broaden your search to transitioning to medical technology or chief medical officer in an insurer.
There is absolutely no reason to dump 200k job to jump corporate ladder. As of today, 90% of so called banking jobs don’t pay remotely close to what you are making and are nothing else than glorified corporate jobs. The rest 10% would be hedge funds or proper trading floors in US BB. I hate to say it, but chances of getting one of those are super slim, unless you are great quant or mastered the art of corpo bullsh!t.
I would never dump a well-paid doctor position for a banking position! You are lucky to be achieving 200k per annum at 27 - banking and finance is glorified - you are just a number grinder on spreadsheets at beginning and going through very tedious contracts if you are in IB and M&A/Corporate Finance etc. The fun part is the deal making and at senior levels - will take you awhile to get there, if you ever do (super competitive and even the best don’t make it - they burn out). I wouldn’t bother - a doctor is more prestigious!
OP- if this table is still accurate you’re earning almost 3x the average that other people earn in your position. If you got an offer from finance that was 3x the average for people in that position then I’d say take it otherwise it seems like the medical field really wants to keep you
I will note the most obvious career transition would probably be to work as a doctor for a few years then transition into either equity research at a bank or work in venture capital for a fund investing in healthcare firms. If you’re set on moving to finance, wait a few years, enjoy making a difference in the world, then do one of these
The hiring market is terrible. Last week I was chatting with head of career services at a prestigious biz school to give the bad news that our HR isn’t considering MBAs for our grad/entry programmes but will consider MFins for the quant specialist programmes. She has to worry about landing her MBA and MFin students into jobs because this is the KPI of biz schools. Like it or not, you will be competing with this wall of talent that is, no disrespect, willing to outwork you.
