Education- Doctor versus a Nurse Practitioner

As a retired doctor, might I make the following suggestion?

I would do a 4-year nursing degree and maintain a 3.4 -grade point average. I had many nurses in my medical class, and I'm sure they're even more now. The reason I would do this is that if you don't make it into medical school, which is quite common, you can always do an online 2-year nurse practitioner degree with this degree.

You will be out in 6 years making $250,000 a year or about 60% of a doctor's salary while doing many of the same things.

The fact is, if I had a do-over, this is exactly what I would do. Getting a medical degree, going to medical school residency, and practice is like a “knife fight in a ditch.” It can be brutal.

A nurse practitioner is not treated in a competitive fashion and is more welcomed by the medical community. Go figure.

You can do the online degree while working the night shift in the unit, in essence doing double duty and shortening your time.

As nurse practitioners are so sought after, you can form your own LLC and work as an independent contractor. By doing this, you can form a solo 401k for which you can contribute up to $57,000 a year. Of course, you would roll that to a Roth IRA every year.

By 39 years of age, you could have 4.5 million tax-free dollars.

Believe it or not, the average physician retires at 68 years of age. Whereas you could tour the country in a nice luxury RV then travel Europe for 30 years, not touching your principal.

Now you can see why I would like a do-over.