Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for February 01, 2014

Let’s hope, she also attends classes.

Med school continues to be the best career investment that one can make. There’s always a job out there, waiting. Don’t cry for Drew.

And the assistant superintendent asked me if residents of the county had higher degrees would the per capita income go up. Heck, the waitress at Cracker Barrel has a master’s degree.

I wouldn’t encourage anyone to go into the medical or health field at this time. I have been in practice for over 30 years. It has become more and more about filling out forms; and less an less about the patient.

Two days ago Alex wondered why her babies haven’t bonded to her. Today, being married with twins makes her feel like her life hasn’t started. That answers that.

capitalism at its finest. massing debt.

I was in an adult class with a dentist, and he said that business for him is terrible in this area (St. Petersburg, FL). The place is way over-dentisted. Maybe if Drew will seek out a remote town without a physician . . .

i’m a headhunter. i used to think that the safest jobs were the ‘hands on’ jobs, plumber, electrician, etc. AND, medical/dental jobs. i was wrong. when you can go to costa rica (i went to the cavallini clinic) and get better care, more advanced care (they have their own labs in manyof the offices there) and get 8 implants, 24 crowns, all the xrays, ct scans, molds, night guards, gum reshaping, and many more things thrown in…. for under $13,000- why would ANYone still go to our dentists. the biggest benefit of going outside the states is the compassionate, personal care you get. the fact that it’s about 20% of the cost in the states is just icing on the cake.

for whatever reason, medical/dental is now overpriced both in the cost of the education and the cost of services to the clients, in the states. when my dentist here in the states told me with a straight face that i should just take amortgage out on my house to pay his estimated $100K treatment plan, i knew this was the end of our dental system as we knew it.

oh… and i got sick on the plane on the way down to costa rica and had to go to emergency down there. a state of the art hospital, 2 doctors checking me out using every test possible, 2 bags of iv ringers, 1 bag of iv antibiotic, an intern at my side the whole time and all meds, including some to take home with me, and even a blanket to take home- total cost, $368.48. yep. total. no insurance. that’s the retail price of their medical care.

we’d better wake up in the states. single payer is used throughout the civilized world AND third world countries. despite our much higher cost of care, our mortality rates are not as good as theirs. plus, the nonsense stories you hear about waiting months for emergency care are bunk. other countries laugh at us for our primitive delivery of medical care. because i’m proud to be an American doesn’t mean i accept lies as truth because some loudmouth slaps the Flag across it. we’d better start listening and changing!

I had a friend who was in med school, had almost $100,000 in debt when he finished. Three years later, no debt. He has two homes now.

I agree with Eggman61. I think your life has hit high gear when you’re the mom of twins.

If you actually believe that someone with a graduate degree in microrobotics from MIT would be doing anything except work in their field at a fat salary you, like Mr. Trudeau, are completely disconnected from reality. Now someone with a bachelor’s in sociology from Iowa State—that is more realistic.

Ages ago, possibly when Alex announced that she was pregnant, Drew said she had a surprise announcement too, and we were then left hanging – did we ever hear what it was? Was it that she was going to med school?

Just looking at the rules for your student loan repayments, those are steep. Although we have in the UK (wrongly in my view) followed down the path of having lots more students but putting them into debt to pay for it, student loan repayments are at 9% on income over approx $25,000, with interest of inflation + 3%. Any balance gets written off after 30 years.

Med students are amassing the hugest amounts of debt — some between a quarter and a half million dollars. Doctors don’t make that much money — especially when they first graduate. It’s only the hospital systems and the pharmaceutical companies that are rolling in dough — mostly through the agreements they have made with insurance companies.

Trudeau is a little wacko here – Drew and Alex are well on their way to being 5 percenters. (Although we might get better MDs if we didn’t load them with debt the way we do).

He might be too distracted by his TV show to give the time to the strip to make his point about the economy in a logical way.

(And the med school drop out rate is pretty low – about 2% I would think – those who get in have pretty good study habits and I think it is largely a memorization field???!)