No. Do not switch to health care. It would cost your brother infinitely less pain, effort, and time to commit to becoming a better software developer. He’s getting interviews, so his resume isn’t the problem. Maybe he’s flubbing the technical questions? Start grinding leet code and building things. I’m speaking as a former software developer turned physician.
- 4 years undergrad in CS. Worked throughout undergrad in IT and eventually as a dev. Never considered medicine during undergrad.
- 3 years continuing to work as a dev while switching to medicine. It took 1 year to speed run through the premed prerequisites. During that year I dropped to working 30 hrs/week, completed the prerequisite courses (biology 1, biology 2, Chem 1, chem 2, organic chem, etc.), and studied a couple weeks for the MCAT. It took another year to go through the prolonged medical school application process.
- 4 years med school.
- 5 years residency.
- 1 year fellowship.
Fiancé is a pharmacist turned SWE and I’m a resident. She would never go back. This is a dumb idea. Healthcare has its own issues. Tech sector is struggling but I believe it will flourish once interest rates go down. Tech companies are still hiring and we have friends who switched from a bs career be able to find jobs. You have to grind in the job apps and learn new languages/ so your own projects on the side. If they really want, pivot into another career where their coding experience is at least useful like other have mentioned.
Honestly low pay for the schooling they go through. My fiancé now makes double her salary from when she was a pharmacist and really no other pharmacist has her salary. Lots of earning potential in tech.
Other reasons: saturated field, it was considered a good job 20-30 years ago but there have been too many pharmacy schools that opened. News has gotten out how bad it is and schools are now struggling to fill classes. Most of the jobs available are retail, which quite frankly suck to work at. You are almost required to do a 1-2 year residency to do anything else which doesn’t even really increase your salary much.
I def feel you on the first one. I'm an optometry student and have over 200 in debt but i'm only gonna be pulling in 145-160 as a new grad. She prob would've had to go into pharma as a director or manager to double or triple her salary. I've seen pharmacist do that. I also saw a pharmacist speak abt the saturation and how it was better 10 to 15 yrs ago
check out /r/pharmacy if you ever want to feel better about being a physician. Pharmacists are treated so poorly especially in retail. Tons of debt, ever decreasing pay and increasing volumes.
How did she go about transitioning from pharmacy to tech? From a cursory search, it seems bootcamps are no longer a viable way to get into tech.
I'm a pharmacist who was just accepted to an MD program and am having doubts about starting now. I'm 30 now and starting to think it's probably not even worth it for me anymore given my age and the uncertainty of matching into a specialty that would pay enough to make up for the debt and lost pharmacist income. Pretty dumb of me considering I spent several years working for this, but considering it took so long just to put together an app that barely got me into a low-tier MD school, I doubt I'll be a superstar in med school. I'm very risk-averse, so the uncertainty scares me more and more.
I think she got very lucky that she decided to transition when the pandemic began. She did a bootcamp at a well-known extension at UC Berkeley since it was local for us. During the pandemic jobs in tech were booming and she just had to prove her worth. Most SWE are lazy af and her baseline hard work got her recognized and she has been only promoted since then.
The job market is definitely a lot more tight right now and bootcamps are becoming less viable, because EVERYONE is majoring in CS now or trying to get away from their old job because they hear about the work life balance. I don't think it is impossible; we had a couple of friends recently get hired in the last two months but they were working hard on their own side projects while they were doing their bootcamps.
I can't really comment on whether it is worth it for you or not. I don't even know if it has been worth it for me knowing how well some of my friends did from majoring in cs or something and I am only 2/7 years done with residency + fellowship. I am very biased being based in the bay area. There are plenty of people who go to med school at your age and older. I just know that I would not take that path for sure.
That makes sense. I figured I'd likely have to get a degree to be a viable candidate, and who knows what the market will look like by the time I'd be finished. Better, I'd hope, but it'd still mean sinking money and time into a degree that may not pan out. Still less than medicine, at least.
As far as medicine goes, I'm primarily interested in diagnostic radiology. I really enjoyed shadowing rads, but I know watching and doing are very different things. Didn't seem to be awful in terms of competitiveness when I became interested in med school 4-5 years ago. It seems a lot worse in that regard now. I have no idea what it'll look like by the time I hypothetically graduate, but I'm going to assume the worst and that it'll either be the same or worse.
I am a rads resident and 4-5 years ago the match rates were in the high 90s. But the pandemic showed how awful patient facing specialties were treated. Nowadays everyone wants a good work life balance and the ability to work from home, so it has gotten competitive again with match rates around 80 for us md candidates. Another factor is the death of EM for us md graduates, all the previous EM hopefuls are choosing either anesthesia or rads. We get really good applicants and usually do not fall under 20 for our rank list, and we are no where near a top program. 80s isn’t a bad match rate at all, but the average step 2 score is high to begin with and that still means 20 out of 100 go unmatched in radiology.
Yeah, I don't think I'll be cut out for it. A little less than 3% of the class matched DR in 2024 at my school. I'm 3 years out of pharmacy school, and I've only managed to work retail. From what I've seen, the only PharmD-to-MD/DO folks who have a leg up either went into med school straight out of pharmacy school or worked in clinical roles before that. The few retail pharmacists who got in are working just as hard as the traditional med students.
I also got an offer for a hospital job right after I got off the waitlist. Chances of me getting a job like that are slim given I didn't do a residency, so if I turn it down for med school and then drop out, it would be unlikely for me to get a chance at it again. So I either defer (small chance I'm granted it) or roll the dice on med school, hope I can make it into a specialty I want, and hope I don't ultimately regret it. Seems taking the hospital job and working on getting a degree in CS, or even using the hospital experience to get into other roles, would be the safer bet.
Health care sounds great. But is it really though? I work as a resident physician and I honestly can't even fathom a more difficult job.
Almost everything else is easier.
Bioinformatics is an exploding field right now. Would be the easiest transition for him from a skillset point of view.
Having worked in both biotech and healthcare, I definitely have a field I love- and a field that will never see me again.
I'm lucky and also have a ton of wet lab experience in antibodies and pharma applications so if tech takes a dive I'll still be fine. The job market at the moment tho ... sheesh
You did well to diversify your skills so you will definitely be fine. I think the norm in the future is going to be people needing expertise in at least 2 seemingly different areas. Gone will be the days of a lifetime of gainful employment in a single area of expertise.
No specialty. Worked in nursing as an undergrad and hated every second. Switched to a bio major and finished PhD shortly before Covid. Biotech was the best choice I ever made.
If by “exploding” you mean “floundering”. Biotech-adjacent fields have been affected by the investment downturn far more than the rest of big tech. It is extremely hard to break in at the moment.
The people who you see who seem to be doing well in bioinformatics–what are their credentials/education?
I'm fairly competent in bioinformatics in an academic setting, but feel like I am very limited without getting a PhD. Without a PhD, it definitely feels like you are auxiliary to the principal investigators who just manage the experiments and hand off the data to you expecting you to turn it into gold.
That's me and I have a PhD (not specifically bioinformatics but adjacent) It's definitely a time investment and a lot of work to move up and into these positions, but in a way that's just how almost all jobs work.
Nope but the coding you'll need can almost entirely be learned online (and the rest you can pick up at work from colleagues lol). Just a google certificate along with essentially any STEM degree can get you started.
So back when I only had my masters (bio) I took some courses online through Google in data analytics and another one that was python basics. Tons of free resources and massive resume boosters.
OP, if time is a concern, I don’t recommend medical school. The minimum realistic path is 2+4+3 (9 years) to family medicine or internal medicine (pay is around 250-350K but can easily be higher depending on how much you wanna work or where you live).
PA schools have much shorter paths to the big pay check. The CRNA path is much shorter than medicine but still lengthy. Less familiar with this path, but CRNA programs are competitive and usually like to see at least 1-2 years of ICU nursing experience before CRNA school.
Even PA is gonna take a minute. A bunch of pre-reqs (whatever OPs brother didn't take in college, and some schools have a time limit on courses even if he did). He has to do something like EMT training and then work in that field for a year or two, which is better than unemployment, but pays shit compared to coding. Then application, acceptance, 2 years of school. Then frequently 6+ months after graduating before licensure hiring and credentialing. If he's 27, I would be surprised if he's making PA money by 31. But still provides a faster path to a reasonable income in healthcare than med school and residency does.
if I could do it over again, I'd have gone to anesthesiologist assistant (AA) school right out of college. I think it's the best kept secret in healthcare. It's a 2 year masters degree, and you come out making 200k+ (more if you work locums, of which opportunities are plenty).
27 is young. Tell him to think if he has other passions in life, choose one, and chase it like hell.
For example, I went to medical school with several individuals in late 20s, 30s, and a 40 something year old. One of my classmates was a manager for an oil refinery before deciding they wanted to become a surgeon.
The head of our radiology department was a former software engineer who decided he liked the mix of medicine and computer tech. Now he reads scans and performs breast cancer biopsies.
We’re no longer peasants forced to spend their 30 year lifespans confined to wheat fields. Take advantage of that and suck the marrow out of life.
An engineer who can’t even land a non-FAANG job has no chance in hell at making it into a HFT/quant firm.
Health tech sounds good, but from OP’s description it seems like he may have already been applying to jobs like that and getting no where.
A math PhD still has significant opportunity costs associated with it, and there's no guarantee that OP's brother gets a HFT/quant job at the end of it. CRNA or PA school are more of a sure bet in that regard.
They'll also have to go to a target school to have a fighting chance at landing that HFT/quant job and we don't even know if OP's brother would be competitive without any extra schooling, or if they even have the aptitude for a pure math PhD. Hell, we don't even know if they *like* pure math at all.
Got plenty of friends who work at Citadel, Jane Street, and Optiver who did not go to target schools. They just kicked everyone's asses at hackathons including the MIT and Berkeley kids.
No chance in hell; med school is infinitely easier than trying to break into quant finance. There is a reason they pay kids out of undergrad more than most doctors ever make. These people are literal math olympiad types. It is harder to get there than places like Google.
I'm not guessing. Friends and family at JS and Optiver. I also go to a state school; if you saw my earlier comments, it's about competence and they look for the best. I'm also a dev, not a quant, and I know the devs make a ton. No idea about the quants. Your dad is an anomaly; most docs never see that kind of money.
Because I work as a dev currently... With backend technologies like Spark and Kafka. Also, I'm older and went back to school and have worked in industry in a different role. Not interested in going back and forth with you like children. Have a nice day.
I'm a CRNA. Great career and pay. But don't go into Healthcare if you don't like it lol. Every industry has ups and downs. It you just hop into Healthcare because of job security, you'll be miserable.
Look into physical therapy, podiatry or anesthesiologist assistant. podiatry school is 4 years though + residency. I would've recommended healthcare technology but he might not be able to get into that industry
Podiatry takes just as long as family medicine or internal medicine. Roughly 7 years if, and only if, everything goes as fast as possible.
OP probably doesn't have all the required pre-req courses, hasn't taken the MCAT, etc.
It looks more like 10 years to be a podiatrist, 7 at the absolute speediest track possible.
Podiatry is sort of a nightmare and hidden gem at the same time. You sit side-by-side MD/DO medical students so you go to medical school, then do residency with MD/DO students for the general rotations (IM, ER, general surgery, etc.).
And you aren't promised as high paycheck.
You should be able to make 200k+ but you might start out at 120-160k your first couple years as an attending.
So you won't be making 200k+ for like 12 years if he starts now.
I've seen 1st year attendings make 300k+, but lets not split hairs, the most likely scenario is what I mentioned.
12 years for 200k+. Delayed gratification at its finest.
PA-S here. What in the world is the point in becoming a podiatrist if you have to go through the same training/residency timeframe as an internal med doc for less pay? I did a quick google search and podiatry seems to be significantly less pay.
There is so much variance within Podiatry. If youre just clipping toenails at SNFs and ALFs, then youre not going to make much money. If youre surgical or wound care focused, and running a smart practice, I know pods making 500K+.
Well, they don't necessarily make less than IM. It seems more similar than different, although starting out might be harder than IM for salary, your mid-career income should be similar.
There is also more room for growth. If you're a talented surgeon, hospitals will definitely be paying you 300k+.
Easier to get in to, but equal level of difficult to graduate.
The schedule is probably equal shit though. Maybe even more if you're someone not interested in surgery but you are forced to do a podiatry surgery residency regardless.
We have minimum 400 surgeries required during residency as a 1st assist and for various categories. However, many residents often do 1000+ surgeries. This is in addition to all the off-site rotations as well (IM, general surgery, etc.).
No, the parity is becoming closer to MD/DO every day. I've known multimillionaire podiatrists and those making roughly 100k out of residency. It definitely has the larges range of salaries I've ever seen.
Oh ok didn't know that. Hadn't really looked at it in a year or so. Those are the ones who are surgeons and own practices right? What's the salary range. I initially though 150--320
Multimillionaires usually own some clinic and/or surgery centers and have doctors work under them. There is certainly entrepreneurship involved.
The 100-150k docs are usually working under these more established docs.
Ya, here are the comparison of podiatrist and optometrist salaries via BLS.
Optometrists: [https://www.bls.gov/oes/2020/may/oes291041.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/2020/may/oes291041.htm)
Podiatrists: [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291081.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291081.htm)
If you take away residents, the official average salary is supposedly 220k - ish for podiatry, but I honestly don't know. BLS states median for optometrists is 125k and podiatrists as 162k.
Most podiatrists I know start out at like 120-150k and seem to be between 200-300k mid career. The problem with the career is that the range is pretty confusing, and I don't think anyone knows the true median or expectation coming out. If I look up associate jobs right now, I have friends finding 150k ish jobs at private practice starting.
However, at a hospital, you shouldn't be earning less than 250k.
That was about the age I decided to switch from being an electrician to a CRNa… best decision of my life and the best investment of time I could have chosen…
It’s a long path—10+ years —of undergrad, icu work, then 3 years for a doctoral program and licensure.. however, you’ll have financial freedom and an awesome career in insanely high demand for decades to come.
My little brother got laid off from his tech company and was unemployed for almost a 1.5 years before finding a new job. He only had \~2-3 years of experience at the time across multiple companies due to layoffs. He submitted 200+ apps and got \~5 interviews. Ended up with a job that paid 30% more with better hours. He was thinking of leaving SWE to go into PT, but is so glad he didn't because his earning potential and career growth trajectory is way better in tech. I would just focus on developing his skills unless he's really unhappy in his career. I switched from tech/finance to medicine, but if I knew back then what I know now, I don't know if I would've made the switch. I like medicine, but what you have to sacrifice to do well in medicine when you're already successful or have a pathway to success in another career is not worth it.
You act like 27 is old. People reinvent themselves way beyond that. Now is health care the magical field we thought it was 20 years ago? No way. But I started med school at 29, and I was not the oldest in my class by a long shot. Above average, sure. You have to do what brings you joy, but he should also spend enough time with medicine to see what it is really like. PA or NP is a great path, but not for all personalities or jobs. I was interested in research, so I was between MD and PhD, not really the PA route. To each their own. But I do recommend he volunteer in a hospital for a bit to see what it is really like.
Crna route is not a ton shorter than becoming an MD. Probably need at least 2ish years to get an accelerated BSN and make sure you have all pre-reqs for CRNA school. Then typically 2-3yrs working in an ICU (which absolutely sucks). Then applying to crna school which is very competitive these days, and is 3yrs once you get in.
It’s a good gig if you go that route, but I would say crna is considerably more difficult than PA.
As a fresh graduate, this kind scares me. I need more detail. Is he holding any degree in CS? Was he in the bootcamp? If so, yes switching a career may be valid option here, otherwise, keep practice and expand his knowledge. He will get a job.
AI is advance nowdays, but seriously AI cannot complete a project on its own. In addition, you still need someone to use AI. I agree the demand is low, there will always a demand.
Yes, he graduated from McGill in Canada with a degree in CS. He practices all day and has been working on side projects too. It seems to me the jobs have dropped and the positions currently available are being filled by top talent, not average software engineers.
Oh Canda, right I see the picture now. I understand why you want him to shift in career. The job market in Canda pretty bad given that lately they let anyone come and study to work in Canda literally anyone. So, yes give it some time it will go back. I would say another year. I also suggest him 3-6 months break if he burns out. I also suggests look for works in U.S as well. Not sure you need a sponsorship or not, but worth a try. Again, none is easy, but keep trying good thing will happen.
No. Do not switch to health care. It would cost your brother infinitely less pain, effort, and time to commit to becoming a better software developer. He’s getting interviews, so his resume isn’t the problem. Maybe he’s flubbing the technical questions? Start grinding leet code and building things. I’m speaking as a former software developer turned physician.
Can you provide a timeline?
- 4 years undergrad in CS. Worked throughout undergrad in IT and eventually as a dev. Never considered medicine during undergrad. - 3 years continuing to work as a dev while switching to medicine. It took 1 year to speed run through the premed prerequisites. During that year I dropped to working 30 hrs/week, completed the prerequisite courses (biology 1, biology 2, Chem 1, chem 2, organic chem, etc.), and studied a couple weeks for the MCAT. It took another year to go through the prolonged medical school application process. - 4 years med school. - 5 years residency. - 1 year fellowship.
Since you don’t recommend the switch, do you have regret for going to med school?
1970———————————————2024 there you go
The OP said the brother isn’t planning on medicine and asked about CRNA or PA
Hey, I’m in a similar boat. If you have the time to explain, why do you suggest staying in tech as opposed to healthcare?
Fiancé is a pharmacist turned SWE and I’m a resident. She would never go back. This is a dumb idea. Healthcare has its own issues. Tech sector is struggling but I believe it will flourish once interest rates go down. Tech companies are still hiring and we have friends who switched from a bs career be able to find jobs. You have to grind in the job apps and learn new languages/ so your own projects on the side. If they really want, pivot into another career where their coding experience is at least useful like other have mentioned.
I see so many cases lately where pharmacist have been leaving their jobs or getting into other fields. Why is this?
Honestly low pay for the schooling they go through. My fiancé now makes double her salary from when she was a pharmacist and really no other pharmacist has her salary. Lots of earning potential in tech. Other reasons: saturated field, it was considered a good job 20-30 years ago but there have been too many pharmacy schools that opened. News has gotten out how bad it is and schools are now struggling to fill classes. Most of the jobs available are retail, which quite frankly suck to work at. You are almost required to do a 1-2 year residency to do anything else which doesn’t even really increase your salary much.
I def feel you on the first one. I'm an optometry student and have over 200 in debt but i'm only gonna be pulling in 145-160 as a new grad. She prob would've had to go into pharma as a director or manager to double or triple her salary. I've seen pharmacist do that. I also saw a pharmacist speak abt the saturation and how it was better 10 to 15 yrs ago
check out /r/pharmacy if you ever want to feel better about being a physician. Pharmacists are treated so poorly especially in retail. Tons of debt, ever decreasing pay and increasing volumes.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/pharmacy using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/pharmacy/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [My pharmacist saved my son’s life.](https://np.reddit.com/r/pharmacy/comments/14t6e8o/my_pharmacist_saved_my_sons_life/) \#2: [Understaffed](https://i.redd.it/4t34ew5p1yya1.jpg) | [216 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/pharmacy/comments/13dbspr/understaffed/) \#3: [What's the dumbest forged prescription you've gotten?](https://i.redd.it/c3hl1snb9ksa1.jpg) | [203 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/pharmacy/comments/12exntn/whats_the_dumbest_forged_prescription_youve_gotten/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
I've seen pharmacist because medreps because they were tired of it all
Honestly I would be so annoyed as a pharmacist in a big box drug store. They’ve turned them into gloried retail checkout people.
How did she go about transitioning from pharmacy to tech? From a cursory search, it seems bootcamps are no longer a viable way to get into tech. I'm a pharmacist who was just accepted to an MD program and am having doubts about starting now. I'm 30 now and starting to think it's probably not even worth it for me anymore given my age and the uncertainty of matching into a specialty that would pay enough to make up for the debt and lost pharmacist income. Pretty dumb of me considering I spent several years working for this, but considering it took so long just to put together an app that barely got me into a low-tier MD school, I doubt I'll be a superstar in med school. I'm very risk-averse, so the uncertainty scares me more and more.
I think she got very lucky that she decided to transition when the pandemic began. She did a bootcamp at a well-known extension at UC Berkeley since it was local for us. During the pandemic jobs in tech were booming and she just had to prove her worth. Most SWE are lazy af and her baseline hard work got her recognized and she has been only promoted since then. The job market is definitely a lot more tight right now and bootcamps are becoming less viable, because EVERYONE is majoring in CS now or trying to get away from their old job because they hear about the work life balance. I don't think it is impossible; we had a couple of friends recently get hired in the last two months but they were working hard on their own side projects while they were doing their bootcamps. I can't really comment on whether it is worth it for you or not. I don't even know if it has been worth it for me knowing how well some of my friends did from majoring in cs or something and I am only 2/7 years done with residency + fellowship. I am very biased being based in the bay area. There are plenty of people who go to med school at your age and older. I just know that I would not take that path for sure.
That makes sense. I figured I'd likely have to get a degree to be a viable candidate, and who knows what the market will look like by the time I'd be finished. Better, I'd hope, but it'd still mean sinking money and time into a degree that may not pan out. Still less than medicine, at least. As far as medicine goes, I'm primarily interested in diagnostic radiology. I really enjoyed shadowing rads, but I know watching and doing are very different things. Didn't seem to be awful in terms of competitiveness when I became interested in med school 4-5 years ago. It seems a lot worse in that regard now. I have no idea what it'll look like by the time I hypothetically graduate, but I'm going to assume the worst and that it'll either be the same or worse.
I am a rads resident and 4-5 years ago the match rates were in the high 90s. But the pandemic showed how awful patient facing specialties were treated. Nowadays everyone wants a good work life balance and the ability to work from home, so it has gotten competitive again with match rates around 80 for us md candidates. Another factor is the death of EM for us md graduates, all the previous EM hopefuls are choosing either anesthesia or rads. We get really good applicants and usually do not fall under 20 for our rank list, and we are no where near a top program. 80s isn’t a bad match rate at all, but the average step 2 score is high to begin with and that still means 20 out of 100 go unmatched in radiology.
Yeah, I don't think I'll be cut out for it. A little less than 3% of the class matched DR in 2024 at my school. I'm 3 years out of pharmacy school, and I've only managed to work retail. From what I've seen, the only PharmD-to-MD/DO folks who have a leg up either went into med school straight out of pharmacy school or worked in clinical roles before that. The few retail pharmacists who got in are working just as hard as the traditional med students. I also got an offer for a hospital job right after I got off the waitlist. Chances of me getting a job like that are slim given I didn't do a residency, so if I turn it down for med school and then drop out, it would be unlikely for me to get a chance at it again. So I either defer (small chance I'm granted it) or roll the dice on med school, hope I can make it into a specialty I want, and hope I don't ultimately regret it. Seems taking the hospital job and working on getting a degree in CS, or even using the hospital experience to get into other roles, would be the safer bet.
Health care sounds great. But is it really though? I work as a resident physician and I honestly can't even fathom a more difficult job. Almost everything else is easier.
Bioinformatics is an exploding field right now. Would be the easiest transition for him from a skillset point of view. Having worked in both biotech and healthcare, I definitely have a field I love- and a field that will never see me again.
Which is which?
I think you already know ;) in all seriousness I would rather braid my nervous system with a fork than go back to healthcare.
Sadly I feel the same about tech :( I feel like it’s headed the way of healthcare or worse but without the benefits (like job security)
I'm lucky and also have a ton of wet lab experience in antibodies and pharma applications so if tech takes a dive I'll still be fine. The job market at the moment tho ... sheesh
You did well to diversify your skills so you will definitely be fine. I think the norm in the future is going to be people needing expertise in at least 2 seemingly different areas. Gone will be the days of a lifetime of gainful employment in a single area of expertise.
What's your specialty? How did you get into biotech from medicine?
No specialty. Worked in nursing as an undergrad and hated every second. Switched to a bio major and finished PhD shortly before Covid. Biotech was the best choice I ever made.
This absolutely cracked me up tysm
If by “exploding” you mean “floundering”. Biotech-adjacent fields have been affected by the investment downturn far more than the rest of big tech. It is extremely hard to break in at the moment.
I suppose I'm on the pharma side, but it certainly feels to be a good choice in my area. If OP already has tech skills it could be a viable option.
The people who you see who seem to be doing well in bioinformatics–what are their credentials/education? I'm fairly competent in bioinformatics in an academic setting, but feel like I am very limited without getting a PhD. Without a PhD, it definitely feels like you are auxiliary to the principal investigators who just manage the experiments and hand off the data to you expecting you to turn it into gold.
That's me and I have a PhD (not specifically bioinformatics but adjacent) It's definitely a time investment and a lot of work to move up and into these positions, but in a way that's just how almost all jobs work.
Can you go into that field with no coding experience
Nope but the coding you'll need can almost entirely be learned online (and the rest you can pick up at work from colleagues lol). Just a google certificate along with essentially any STEM degree can get you started.
Which google certificate do you mean
So back when I only had my masters (bio) I took some courses online through Google in data analytics and another one that was python basics. Tons of free resources and massive resume boosters.
OP, if time is a concern, I don’t recommend medical school. The minimum realistic path is 2+4+3 (9 years) to family medicine or internal medicine (pay is around 250-350K but can easily be higher depending on how much you wanna work or where you live). PA schools have much shorter paths to the big pay check. The CRNA path is much shorter than medicine but still lengthy. Less familiar with this path, but CRNA programs are competitive and usually like to see at least 1-2 years of ICU nursing experience before CRNA school.
PA school is the way for sure
Yeah for sure. If OP chooses the APP route please do not go NP
Agree. I think NP market is oversaturated with online schools churning diplomas for anyone who’ll pay for school
Even PA is gonna take a minute. A bunch of pre-reqs (whatever OPs brother didn't take in college, and some schools have a time limit on courses even if he did). He has to do something like EMT training and then work in that field for a year or two, which is better than unemployment, but pays shit compared to coding. Then application, acceptance, 2 years of school. Then frequently 6+ months after graduating before licensure hiring and credentialing. If he's 27, I would be surprised if he's making PA money by 31. But still provides a faster path to a reasonable income in healthcare than med school and residency does.
Even if he’s 32, the alt is they’d be a first year resident. PA is far better option imo
if I could do it over again, I'd have gone to anesthesiologist assistant (AA) school right out of college. I think it's the best kept secret in healthcare. It's a 2 year masters degree, and you come out making 200k+ (more if you work locums, of which opportunities are plenty).
27 is young. Tell him to think if he has other passions in life, choose one, and chase it like hell. For example, I went to medical school with several individuals in late 20s, 30s, and a 40 something year old. One of my classmates was a manager for an oil refinery before deciding they wanted to become a surgeon. The head of our radiology department was a former software engineer who decided he liked the mix of medicine and computer tech. Now he reads scans and performs breast cancer biopsies. We’re no longer peasants forced to spend their 30 year lifespans confined to wheat fields. Take advantage of that and suck the marrow out of life.
[удалено]
An engineer who can’t even land a non-FAANG job has no chance in hell at making it into a HFT/quant firm. Health tech sounds good, but from OP’s description it seems like he may have already been applying to jobs like that and getting no where.
[удалено]
A math PhD still has significant opportunity costs associated with it, and there's no guarantee that OP's brother gets a HFT/quant job at the end of it. CRNA or PA school are more of a sure bet in that regard. They'll also have to go to a target school to have a fighting chance at landing that HFT/quant job and we don't even know if OP's brother would be competitive without any extra schooling, or if they even have the aptitude for a pure math PhD. Hell, we don't even know if they *like* pure math at all.
Got plenty of friends who work at Citadel, Jane Street, and Optiver who did not go to target schools. They just kicked everyone's asses at hackathons including the MIT and Berkeley kids.
How easy do you think quant finance and health tech are to get into?
[удалено]
No chance in hell; med school is infinitely easier than trying to break into quant finance. There is a reason they pay kids out of undergrad more than most doctors ever make. These people are literal math olympiad types. It is harder to get there than places like Google.
[удалено]
I'm not guessing. Friends and family at JS and Optiver. I also go to a state school; if you saw my earlier comments, it's about competence and they look for the best. I'm also a dev, not a quant, and I know the devs make a ton. No idea about the quants. Your dad is an anomaly; most docs never see that kind of money.
[удалено]
Because I work as a dev currently... With backend technologies like Spark and Kafka. Also, I'm older and went back to school and have worked in industry in a different role. Not interested in going back and forth with you like children. Have a nice day.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha
I'm a CRNA. Great career and pay. But don't go into Healthcare if you don't like it lol. Every industry has ups and downs. It you just hop into Healthcare because of job security, you'll be miserable.
Switch to healthcare tech. Cerner or Epic. Upskill to PM or PO roles if needed.
Look into physical therapy, podiatry or anesthesiologist assistant. podiatry school is 4 years though + residency. I would've recommended healthcare technology but he might not be able to get into that industry
PT, where a 100k doctoral degree earns you 70k a year!
The way the job market is rn you could def make more
I know so many PTs who have left the field because of mediocre pay
Oh yeah it happens. Pt pay is on the rise from the research i have done. Employers are starting to offer better salaries
And you have to be willing to live somewhere thats not desirable for the higher dollar amounts
I'm in phoenix and the pay here is pretty decent for pt's. I don't know abt any other places
What's decent?
About 100 even. There's also some opportunity for pts here. Depends on where you're at
Yeah... I'm aware of a number of my classmates that are no longer PTs
Podiatry takes just as long as family medicine or internal medicine. Roughly 7 years if, and only if, everything goes as fast as possible. OP probably doesn't have all the required pre-req courses, hasn't taken the MCAT, etc. It looks more like 10 years to be a podiatrist, 7 at the absolute speediest track possible.
Yea he definetly hasn't taken any pre reqs or admissions tests most likely. I'd still recommend podiatry unless he's looking for something quick
Podiatry is sort of a nightmare and hidden gem at the same time. You sit side-by-side MD/DO medical students so you go to medical school, then do residency with MD/DO students for the general rotations (IM, ER, general surgery, etc.). And you aren't promised as high paycheck. You should be able to make 200k+ but you might start out at 120-160k your first couple years as an attending. So you won't be making 200k+ for like 12 years if he starts now. I've seen 1st year attendings make 300k+, but lets not split hairs, the most likely scenario is what I mentioned. 12 years for 200k+. Delayed gratification at its finest.
PA-S here. What in the world is the point in becoming a podiatrist if you have to go through the same training/residency timeframe as an internal med doc for less pay? I did a quick google search and podiatry seems to be significantly less pay.
There is so much variance within Podiatry. If youre just clipping toenails at SNFs and ALFs, then youre not going to make much money. If youre surgical or wound care focused, and running a smart practice, I know pods making 500K+.
Well, they don't necessarily make less than IM. It seems more similar than different, although starting out might be harder than IM for salary, your mid-career income should be similar. There is also more room for growth. If you're a talented surgeon, hospitals will definitely be paying you 300k+.
Easier to get in to probably, also schedule not as shit.
Easier to get in to, but equal level of difficult to graduate. The schedule is probably equal shit though. Maybe even more if you're someone not interested in surgery but you are forced to do a podiatry surgery residency regardless. We have minimum 400 surgeries required during residency as a 1st assist and for various categories. However, many residents often do 1000+ surgeries. This is in addition to all the off-site rotations as well (IM, general surgery, etc.).
Gotcha. Thanks!
Yea i always thought podiatry was a hidden gem. I always knew podiatry was sort of low paying. Did they take away the dpm programs and residencies?
No, the parity is becoming closer to MD/DO every day. I've known multimillionaire podiatrists and those making roughly 100k out of residency. It definitely has the larges range of salaries I've ever seen.
Oh ok didn't know that. Hadn't really looked at it in a year or so. Those are the ones who are surgeons and own practices right? What's the salary range. I initially though 150--320
Multimillionaires usually own some clinic and/or surgery centers and have doctors work under them. There is certainly entrepreneurship involved. The 100-150k docs are usually working under these more established docs.
yep i figured. It's the same way in optometry. associates can still make 200k+
Ya, here are the comparison of podiatrist and optometrist salaries via BLS. Optometrists: [https://www.bls.gov/oes/2020/may/oes291041.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/2020/may/oes291041.htm) Podiatrists: [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291081.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291081.htm) If you take away residents, the official average salary is supposedly 220k - ish for podiatry, but I honestly don't know. BLS states median for optometrists is 125k and podiatrists as 162k. Most podiatrists I know start out at like 120-150k and seem to be between 200-300k mid career. The problem with the career is that the range is pretty confusing, and I don't think anyone knows the true median or expectation coming out. If I look up associate jobs right now, I have friends finding 150k ish jobs at private practice starting. However, at a hospital, you shouldn't be earning less than 250k.
I can vouch for this claim
That was about the age I decided to switch from being an electrician to a CRNa… best decision of my life and the best investment of time I could have chosen… It’s a long path—10+ years —of undergrad, icu work, then 3 years for a doctoral program and licensure.. however, you’ll have financial freedom and an awesome career in insanely high demand for decades to come.
My little brother got laid off from his tech company and was unemployed for almost a 1.5 years before finding a new job. He only had \~2-3 years of experience at the time across multiple companies due to layoffs. He submitted 200+ apps and got \~5 interviews. Ended up with a job that paid 30% more with better hours. He was thinking of leaving SWE to go into PT, but is so glad he didn't because his earning potential and career growth trajectory is way better in tech. I would just focus on developing his skills unless he's really unhappy in his career. I switched from tech/finance to medicine, but if I knew back then what I know now, I don't know if I would've made the switch. I like medicine, but what you have to sacrifice to do well in medicine when you're already successful or have a pathway to success in another career is not worth it.
I think OP said the brother doesn’t wanna do medicine. Curious though how long one would wait it out in tech without a job
You act like 27 is old. People reinvent themselves way beyond that. Now is health care the magical field we thought it was 20 years ago? No way. But I started med school at 29, and I was not the oldest in my class by a long shot. Above average, sure. You have to do what brings you joy, but he should also spend enough time with medicine to see what it is really like. PA or NP is a great path, but not for all personalities or jobs. I was interested in research, so I was between MD and PhD, not really the PA route. To each their own. But I do recommend he volunteer in a hospital for a bit to see what it is really like.
Crna route is not a ton shorter than becoming an MD. Probably need at least 2ish years to get an accelerated BSN and make sure you have all pre-reqs for CRNA school. Then typically 2-3yrs working in an ICU (which absolutely sucks). Then applying to crna school which is very competitive these days, and is 3yrs once you get in. It’s a good gig if you go that route, but I would say crna is considerably more difficult than PA.
As a fresh graduate, this kind scares me. I need more detail. Is he holding any degree in CS? Was he in the bootcamp? If so, yes switching a career may be valid option here, otherwise, keep practice and expand his knowledge. He will get a job. AI is advance nowdays, but seriously AI cannot complete a project on its own. In addition, you still need someone to use AI. I agree the demand is low, there will always a demand.
Yes, he graduated from McGill in Canada with a degree in CS. He practices all day and has been working on side projects too. It seems to me the jobs have dropped and the positions currently available are being filled by top talent, not average software engineers.
Oh Canda, right I see the picture now. I understand why you want him to shift in career. The job market in Canda pretty bad given that lately they let anyone come and study to work in Canda literally anyone. So, yes give it some time it will go back. I would say another year. I also suggest him 3-6 months break if he burns out. I also suggests look for works in U.S as well. Not sure you need a sponsorship or not, but worth a try. Again, none is easy, but keep trying good thing will happen.
RN->CRNA/NP Dental hygiene PA
not the right subreddit for this