 The highest paying medical degrees, that's what we're going to be talking about today. But before we get into that, make sure to gently tap the like button in order to defeat the evil YouTube algorithm. On this channel, we talk about personal finance, college degrees, careers, and opportunities that are going to lead you to success. And we also go over some of the common financial traps that so many people end up falling for. Now, if you're new here, and that sounds like something that interests you and you haven't done it already, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and ring the notification bell so that you never miss out. And with that out of the way, let's jump right into it. The highest paying medical degrees, that's why you clicked on this video. So when it comes to medical related careers and degrees, it's very difficult to compare them to other types of degrees. And the reason for that is because there's some careers that take one year of schooling, two years of schooling, three years, four years, five years, six years. Whereas when you look at other types of degrees, generally speaking, you're going to have an associates, which is going to be two years, a bachelor's, which is four years, a master's, which is six years, and a doctorate, which could range anywhere from like six to 12 years. So because of that, when you're comparing medical degrees to other types of degrees, it's kind of like comparing apples to oranges. Then you add on the training, certification, and testing, which is all part of the medical degree process, and that can throw things off even more. For instance, I was able to get a doctorate in pharmacy in around five years and nine months or so of schooling. This was because in undergraduate, as well as graduate school, I took the accelerated route and I was able to save around two to three years of schooling. And this is available with a lot of these different types of degrees. So for instance, you might see a nursing program that takes three years and then the same exact certification that you would get with that program, you can get in around one and a half years in a different program. But for the purposes of this video, I'm going to keep things really simple. I'm going to break this up into several different categories. Associate level degrees, which take around one to three years. Bachelor level degrees, which are going to take around four years. Master's level degrees, which will take around six years. And doctoral level degrees, which will take eight years or more of schooling and training. So first, let's start off with a career where you'd get an associate level degree, which would be sonographer. So sonographers specialize in the use of ultrasonic imaging. So an example of a type of job that a sonographer would do would be showing somebody's baby when it's still inside of them. According to BLS, they make around $68,000 a year. There's 131,000 jobs available. It's growing at 12%, which is much faster than average, meaning over the next 10 years, there's going to be around 15,600 jobs that open up. Now, one thing that I'd like to mention here is that healthcare-related careers are actually growing faster than any other type of career, including technology. Generally speaking, when it comes to a job being stable, future-proof, essential, healthcare-related degrees are some of the best. Now, sonographer is technically a trade career, meaning it can be a little bit hard on the body. It's always a very important thing to keep in mind when it comes to trade careers is that they are going to be tougher on the body. Next one on the list is going to be another trade career, which is radiation therapist. They will be using radiation therapy in order to treat different types of diseases, such as cancer. Becoming a radiation therapist, you would expect to make around $85,000 a year. There's 18,500 jobs available, and it's growing at 7%, which is faster than average, meaning over the next 10 years, there's going to be about 1,300 jobs that open up. So in this career, you're going to be handling the machines that give the actual radiation, and you're going to be specialists when it comes to those types of machines. You'll also be spending a lot of time directly with patients, and so you will be the person that they talk to whenever they have health issues, most likely. Because of this, you'll be the person who is going to listen to their issues and then direct them to the right person. So you might direct them to a nurse or maybe a doctor. Or sometimes it might just involve being somebody's shoulder to cry on or just being someone to listen to their issues. Overall, this one can be a very rewarding career because you are going to be helping a lot of people in a desperate time, and that can be very meaningful. But at the same time, it can also be very difficult because many of the people that you'll be working with are not going to have good outcomes. So next, we're going to be talking about bachelor-level degrees and careers, and these are basically the same thing when it comes to the medical field, just because you get a nursing degree, you're probably going to become a nurse. But these are going to be ones that take around four years of college as well as training. So the first one on this list is going to be a nurse, and specifically they are going to be getting a BSN or Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Nurses are the backbone of healthcare. They're the people who are directly taking care of most of the patients in hospitals. And as a registered nurse, you'd expect to make around $73,000 a year. Three million jobs available. They're going to be growing at 7%, which is faster than average. And that is going to create an amazing 221,000 new jobs over the next 10 years. Now, I will say here that there are some programs where you can get this degree faster than four years. I know, I know there's going to be people down in the comments that type, oh my God, my cousin got this degree in like two and a half years. Why did you say it's four years? I know that. I understand that there are some programs out there that are going to be accelerated, but generally speaking, BSN takes around four years. Now the pay is also going to vary quite a bit depending on a lot of different things. It's going to depend on what specialty you go into. It's going to depend on what state you live in and all kinds of other factors. But generally speaking, nursing is a very flexible degree, meaning if you end up working as a type of nurse that you don't like, it's pretty easy for you to switch over into a different specialty. It's also a very common career, so you can probably become a nurse anywhere in the United States or even in another country. Next one on the list is going to be a dental hygienist and this one takes around three years or so in order to get into. Dental hygienists are going to assist dentists in some of the tasks that the dentists don't necessarily have to do themselves. So they might be helping them clean teeth, whiten teeth, et cetera. Now as a dental hygienist, you're going to make around $76,000 a year. There's 226,000 jobs available and it's growing at 6% which is faster than average, meaning over the next 10 years, there's going to be 13,000 jobs or so that open up. Now I am pretty close friends with someone who's a dental hygienist and I will say that there is something that you do kind of have to keep in mind when it comes to this career. Generally speaking, and I'm not saying whether this is right or wrong, I'm just saying this is the reality of the situation. People who tend to do well as dental hygienists tend to be younger ladies who are very extroverted. Have you ever noticed that when you go to your dentist's office, almost all of the people working there are ladies and they also all tend to be very friendly? Well, that's extremely important when it comes to working in dentistry just because of the fact that so many people are scared of going to the dentist. They want to make it as welcoming as possible and for some reason that means hiring a lot of very extroverted, outgoing, friendly ladies. Just something to keep in mind here, I'm not saying that you can't be a dental hygienist if you're like an older guy who's introverted, maybe you'd make an amazing dental hygienist but generally speaking, this is what I've found in my research. Next, we're going to be talking about master's level degrees so these are gonna be ones that take around six years of schooling and training in order to get into. First one on the list is going to be a physician assistant, one of my favorite careers out there. And a physician assistant is almost like a mini doctor. You're gonna be someone who works under a doctor and in many cases, you will have the ability to diagnose and prescribe medications. However, you have to do it under the supervision of a doctor. So a lot of the time you'll be taking care of some of the more simple cases that don't necessarily need a medical doctor in order to diagnose and prescribe. So as a PA, you'll be making around $112,000 a year. There's 125,000 jobs available. It's growing at a ridiculous 31% and that means over the next 10 years, there's gonna be 39,000 jobs or so that pop up. So this is one of my favorite careers and degrees out there and I think there's a few amazing things about being a PA. One, the pay is pretty dang good. I mean, you're making over $100,000 a year with a degree that only takes around six years to get into. Another thing is that you get to start practicing medicine much, much sooner. If you go down the doctor route, it's gonna be pretty much eight years of schooling and then probably a residency that lasts around three to seven years before you can actually start practicing as a medical doctor that's fully licensed. I've made entire videos about this. Why I think, in my opinion, becoming a medical doctor is overrated for a lot of people and that's one of the biggest reasons is it just takes up so much of your time and most of that time is gonna be spent in the best years of your life, your 20s. And then another really important factor is you're gonna have a much better work-life balance. A lot of the time doctors are gonna be working 60 to 80 hours a week, whereas PAs, generally speaking, are gonna work around 40 hours a week. I think the average person out there can really relate to this. I know that I'm like this. I like to have a good work-life balance. I don't wanna have my whole life revolve around working. And then another thing that's really good about becoming a PA is you get to switch specialties very easily. So if you became a doctor, for instance, it's almost impossible for you to switch specialties because you have to go through that long residency in order to get into that career. So if you become a surgeon, for instance, and then five, 10 years into it, you're like, I hate being a surgeon. I don't wanna do this anymore. You would have to go through an entire another residency in order to switch your specialty. The next one on the list is going to be a nurse practitioner. And this one does take around six years and it's a master's level degree, although I have done some research on this and it is moving towards more of a doctoral level degree, so it might take longer in the next few years. Nurse practitioner is very similar to PA, although they can actually work independently. They don't necessarily need a doctor in order to work under, but they can do all of the same things. They can diagnose and prescribe. Now in this career, you would expect to make around $115,000 a year. There's 263,000 jobs available and it's growing at an absolutely ridiculous 45%, which is much faster than average, meaning over the next 10 years, there's gonna be another 117,000 jobs that open up. Now this one has a lot of the same things that I talked about when it came to being a PA. You don't have to go to school nearly as long. You have a much better chance of having a good work-life balance. You get paid really well for this one, just like with PA. And I'd also like to mention that your happiness doesn't actually increase past a certain amount, which is usually around $75,000 to $80,000 a year. So it's not like you're gonna be four times happier as a doctor just because you're making like three or four times more. In fact, you'll likely be either the same level of happiness or even less happy in many cases. Now, another really good thing about becoming a nurse practitioner is that it's very easy for you to switch specialties. So you could maybe spend five years in dermatology and then you can switch to something else. Let's say you wanna do surgery, spend five years there, then you get bored with that. Well, you can switch to something else. Let's say you wanna do psychiatry. And another small advantage that NP has over PA is the fact that it's recognized internationally. That means if you get tired of living here in the US with all the craziness going on right now, you could potentially move to Canada or Britain or any number of other countries. Next on the list, we're gonna be talking about doctoral level degrees. And these are degrees that are gonna take around eight years or more on average. And the first one we're gonna talk about is dentist. They're going to be a DDS and they're gonna be specialists in treating conditions that have to do with the teeth and the gums. Now dentists make around 159,000 a year. There's 151,000 jobs. It's growing at 3%, which is about average, meaning over the next 10 years, there's gonna be around 4,000 jobs that open up. Now I say this on this channel all the time, but generally speaking, I prefer sticking with either bachelor level degrees or master level degrees. And that's simply because the return on your investment is usually going to be better. I've made other videos about this explaining exactly why that is. But in this case, for instance, dentists on average rack up about $285,000 worth of student loan debt. And you're probably like, oh, that's not a big deal because dentists make over $150,000 a year. But honestly, it actually is. After taxes and other expenses, it'll probably take you around five to 10 years in order to pay that level of debt off. So you'll probably get to a net worth of zero in your mid-30s. And most doctoral level degrees, in my opinion, are a little bit overrated on average in general, just because of the fact that it has so much time and cost. The cost, of course, is associated to the student loans. And then the time, of course, is obvious as well. You're gonna be going to school, doing residency and paying off loans during the best years of your life. And there's a lot of opportunity costs that's associated with that as well. Next on the list is going to be a medical doctor. And this is going to be a degree that's called an MD or a DO. The DO would stand for Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine. I think everybody knows who this is. You got the white coat. They're the physicians. These are the people who are gonna be diagnosing and prescribing things. And they can take on any number of different cases. And they're going to be specialists in their specific field. So physicians, according to BLS, actually make so much money that they break the scale. They make over $208,000 a year, according to BLS. The number of jobs is gonna be 752,000. They're growing at 4%, which is about average, meaning over the next 10 years, there's gonna be 27,300 jobs that open up. I will say that the 208,000 is definitely on the low side. Your average physician is gonna make much, much more than that. According to Medscape, family physicians are gonna make around $237,000 a year. And specialists are gonna make around 341,000. And even that will vary greatly depending on what specialty you go into. So for instance, if you go into orthopedics, you're gonna make around $482,000 a year. And if you go into public health and preventative medicine, you'll make around 209,000. And again, this is another one that I think is a little bit overrated. I even made an entire video about it. Don't get me wrong, for the right person, this can be an incredible career, but I think the average person watching this channel wants to have a good work-life balance. They don't wanna have to go to school for eight years and then do a residency that's like seven years and then work like 60 plus hours a week for the rest of their life. And I know this is a very meaningful degree. I also think it's very important, but in my opinion, there's a ton of other healthcare-related degrees that are very meaningful and they don't require you to sacrifice your entire life for them. I have the utmost respect for doctors. I think they're amazing and they make the world a better place. But I have to say that a lot of people watching this channel, probably, if you think you wanna become a doctor, you really don't. Again, check out my other video if you want a more in-depth explanation why I think that. But it's not just medical doctor. In fact, I'd say medical doctor is one of the better doctoral-related degrees. I just think doctorates in general are a bit overrated, especially when you think about it from a personal finance perspective. If you research ahead and you definitely know exactly what you wanna do, you've made a really good plan and you know exactly the steps you need in order to get there, then a doctoral-level degree will really pay off. But I think for the average person watching this video, who's probably not gonna do an insane amount of research, it's best to just get a bachelor's or a master's-level degree. And then once you get there, maybe you can go for a job or maybe if you feel like it, you can go back to school. I think the big thing here is that you secure the bag with your undergraduate degree. You don't wanna end up in a situation where you get an undergraduate degree where you can't get a job. And then you're basically forced to go back to grad school just to find employment. 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