financing medical school<\/a> and your typical undergraduate loans is the magnitude,\u201d she said. \u201cIn keeping with that, your approach can be multifactorial and is very individualized.\u201d<\/p>\nOne of the important parts of paying for medical school is understanding just how steep of a climb it is, Danielson said. With the average medical school debt about four times as high as what undergrad students can expect, Danielson said it was important to get a grasp on the financial situation before starting.<\/p>\n
\u201cMedical school is extremely time consuming, stressful and difficult for most people,\u201d she said. \u201cIn order to make it through, you need to be able to focus primarily on school. That includes having financials arranged so that you aren’t working jobs to pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The challenge of medical school leads to attrition. Some students who fell behind couldn\u2019t keep up their grades. Others withdrew on their own.<\/p>\n
And not all of them are due to being overwhelmed by finances or life, Danielson conceded, but she also said it is a critical component to finding a balance in medical school. The task of medical school is on a magnitude that many students have never faced, she said, which makes it vitally important to devote basically all of your time and energy to the task at hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo make a comparison, a high school final exam is like a midterm exam in college, and a college final exam is like a midterm in medical school,\u201d Danielson said. \u201cA common analogy is that medical school learning is like drinking from a fire hose. You literally just don’t have much time to think about anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond creating a proper headspace to handle school, having a financial plan is also vital to making life work: Both during and after medical school. Danielson has dealt with the temptation of taking out secondary loans to cover for costs such as living expenses, but at the same time knows the best strategy is to find a way to make her primary disbursement work.<\/p>\n
Even when taking out that loan, Danielson said the best strategy is to try and keep your debt at a minimum, regardless of potential future earnings.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are going to want to minimize that amount so you \u2018live like a student\u2019 for at least decade,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I personally started residency, I literally had $300 in my bank account and ate every meal for two months at the hospital using a meal card provided to all residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea of being able to work while in school seems \u201cunlikely\u201d for most, so it puts medical students in a precarious position compared to their peers. Not only are you taking on the financial burden of more school, there is also the opportunity cost. When you take a step back and think about the money you put toward medical school, Danielson said it\u2019s easy to see the \u2018real\u2019 cost as a house, or cars and trips, that you could have had instead.<\/p>\n
Even when you start making money, the burden of financing medical school can cause many new doctors to prolong a frugal, student-style financial plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tough part of this is that while you get paid relatively well, it is little compared to the amount of work you do AND the amount of loans you have,\u201d Danielson said. \u201cMost residents start out making either upper $40,000s to low $50,000s, which means it isn’t feasible to pay the more than $2000 per month it would take to pay off your loans in 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
On top of that, medical students are also unlike their peers in the sense that they do not have the same time and resources in a social setting either. That\u2019s why Danielson said it is important to take your time considering the path toward a medical license, especially when you realize you are living off of loans for between 7-11 years.<\/p>\n
Yet even as she considers what it\u2019s taken to get here, Danielson is also looking forward to the future. Once she finishes her residency in West Virginia, Danielson said she will enter the phase where physicians can see their salary double, quadruple, or even more.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep in mind that apparently there is a light at the end of the tunnel, or so I’ve heard, where you will most likely be in a financially stable situation for the rest of your life,\u201d she said. \u201cIf it is worth the sacrifices made, only time or yourself can tell.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A lot of kids grow up planning on becoming a doctor. It\u2019s one of those professions that falls into the police officer\/firefighter\/astronaut category, but unlike the others, is one that a lot of students stick to throughout their education. Unfortunately, it\u2019s not just as simple as turning a lifelong plan into action: There\u2019s that whole<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3977,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[429,788,430,412],"class_list":{"0":"post-3974","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scholarships","8":"tag-loans","9":"tag-medical","10":"tag-medical-school","11":"tag-professional"},"better_featured_image":{"id":3977,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":1400,"height":500,"file":"s3:\/\/pcom-wp-media\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/10124832\/med-school-BLOG.jpg","sizes":{},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":3974,"source_url":"https:\/\/wp-media.petersons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/10124832\/med-school-BLOG.jpg"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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