Prestigious Careers From The Past Generations Lose Their Allure
Doctors and Lawyers, Make Way For The Hedge Funds and Private Equity Firms
As of 2006, nearly 60% of doctors polled by the American College of Physician Executives said they had considered getting out of medicine because of low morale, and nearly 70% knew someone who already had. Make no mistake, law and medicine (the most elite of the traditional professions) have always been demanding. But they were also unquestionably prestigious. Sure, bankers made big money and professors held impressive degrees. But in the days when a successful career was built on a number of tacitly recognized pillars (outsize pay, long-term security, impressive schooling and authority over grave matters) doctors and lawyers were perched atop them all. Now, those pillars have started to wobble.
“The older professions are great, they’re wonderful,” says author Richard Florida. “But they’ve lost their allure, their status. And it isn’t about money.” The pay is still good and the in-laws aren’t exactly complaining. Still, something is missing, say many doctors, lawyers and career experts: the old sense of purpose, of respect, of living at the center of American society and embodying its definition of “success.”
In a culture that prizes risk and outsize reward (where professional heroes are college dropouts with billion-dollar Web sites) some doctors and lawyers feel they have slipped a notch in social status, drifting toward the safe-and-staid realm of dentists and accountants. It’s not just because the professions have changed, but also because the standards of what makes a prestigious career have changed.
This decline is rooted in a broader shift in definitions of success, essentially, a realignment of the pillars. Especially among young people, professional status is now inextricably linked to ideas of flexibility and creativity, concepts alien to seemingly everyone but art students even a generation ago. Indeed, applications to law schools and medical schools have declined from recent highs. Nationally, the number of law school applicants dropped a 6.7% between 2006 and 2005. 44% of lawyers recently surveyed by the American Bar Association said they would not recommend the profession to a young person.)
Unquestionably, many doctors and lawyers still find the higher calling of their profession — helping people — as well as the prestige and money, worth the hard work. And the stars in either field are still that: commanding the handsome compensation and social cachet. But to others, the daily trudge serves as a constant reminder that the entrepreneur’s autonomy simply can’t be found in law or medicine.
Life for attornies is less like “Ally McBeal” and more like “The Practice,” where lawyers work like dogs in a thoroughly unglamorous setting. Doctors face similar pressure. Complaints about managed care crimping doctors’ income and authority over medical decisions are nothing new, but the problems are only getting worse, several doctors said. Increasing workloads and paperwork might be tolerable if the old feeling of authority were still the same, doctors said. But patients who once might have revered them for their knowledge and skill often arrive at the office armed with a sense of personal expertise, gleaned from a few hours on the internet, doctors said, not to mention a disdain for the medical system in general. And then there’s the money issue. Or rather, money envy. Associates at major New York firms often start at $150,000 to $180,000. Partners at the country’s biggest 100 firms took home an average of $1.2 million in 2006. Hardly small sums, but for many senior investment bankers, bonuses and salaries this year will average $2.25 million to $2.75 million. Doctors rarely approach such heights. While income varies widely, a typical physician might earn $150,00 to $300,000. A surgeon might make $250,000 to $400,000; hot-shot surgeons can earn $750,000 a year, and superstars over a million dollars.
Careers in more entrepreneurial industries like hedge funds and private equity firms follow the ’sky is the limit’ model of the entertainment industry, the Web or professional sports. Kevin J. Delaney, a sociology professor who has studied the culture of hedge funds and private equity firms, said executives there “love the idea of being responsible for their own fate.” They’re going to make a million or lose a million based on the trades they make.
This star-system mentality is particularly attractive to college students, many of whom were reared with the ’80s philosophy that every child was a potential superstar. And they want immediate rewards — not exactly the mentality that will fuel a student through years of medical school, a residency and additional training for a specialty.
