bamike

Can you tell us why you want to be a pilot, why are you considering it? What is so great about it that you're willing to leave a great career behind?

Posts like this are proof of why there is not and NEVER will be a pilot shortage. A dentist making the kind of money a regional FO can only dream about is willing to drop his excellent career to sit right seat in a CRJ. You're going to go from being your own boss and taking care of patients, sleeping in your own bed every night, to waking up at 5 am in a Holiday Inn in Milwaukee when its -5C outside with ice all over the wing.

GogglesPisano

I'd like to know how someone gets "side-tracked" into being a radiologist.

My advice: Keep your (well-into 6-figure) day job. Keep making your restaurant reservation under "Doctor ___." (If you say "Captain ___" they'll laugh -- trust me.")

And laugh all the way to the bank.

Seriously, I couldn't envision a worse career move at this point in your life -- other than starving artist/musician.

Buy a Bonanza (but not a V-tail.)

pilotdds

Who said anything about giving up my career? I said I wanted to bring on a partner to free up some time to persue aviation .

Also, would not persue the airlines due to schedule.

I don’t want to hijack this thread but thought I would weigh in as another health care professional that has “made it” but still can’t kick the aviation bug.

I wanted to be a pilot my entire life, got my PPL in college and ultimately decided against it Because i finished school in 2006 and the industry was in shambles. I had a biochemistry degree and decided on dentistry. Fast forward 11 years and I have a successful private practice, but can’t picture doing this for the next 30 years. Yes the money is amazing. So is the schedule. 4 days week & 400k year. But bouncing around from room to room, bending over all day, dealing with people who “would rather be anywhere else but here”, jabbing patients with needles.... TAKES A TOLL.

does that help you understand where I’m coming from?

galaxy flyer

You are working a good, if not great, schedule; earning money only a few senior captains make at age 33!. You are not getting up at 3am to commute to a work day that won’t end until 8pm at a Holiday Inn for 10 hours without dinner. Or spend all day try8ng to sleep in a noisy hotel room before a night spent in a dark closet watching the time clock down, stifling yawns.

You are your own boss, not a number for a scheduler to call and, when he or she does call, you have little or no choice on the assignment. You will spend for training what you spent at dental school to earn maybe 15% of your current earnings with no guarantee of anything like your current earnings.

See where we’re coming from?

GF

PotatoChip

You have to bend over all day and move from room to room?! For only $400k??? THE HORROR! And you only get a three-day weekend every single week?? WHAAAT?

I am an airline CAPTAIN. I have 12 years of experience. I will make $66k this year. I have been home five of the last 19 days. I have been forced into overtime. You think people enjoy stepping aboard my RJ?? I hear complaints all day long. But yeah, give that up for all this.
GMAB.

LRSRanger

You guys are insane, I would kill to be in your shoes. At the end of the day a job is a job, and here I am at 32 wishing I had the foresight to go to medical school instead of joining the army. Or gotten out after my first enlistment and gone to med school. I like my job most of the time, but if I could triple or quadruple my pay and spend more time with my family and doing the things I like to do? In a heartbeat.


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ItnStln

I'm just curious, why not a V-tail Bonanza?

I'll be thirty within six months and I'm considering the career change as well. Currently I am an assistant manager for at&t. While I enjoy the job my interest has always been in aviation.

rickair7777

They break off in flight. Actually they should have all been upgraded long ago to prevent that.

In your case aviation is probably a much more clear-cut net-positive move.

GogglesPisano

They used to be called "V-tailed doctor-killers."

deadstick35

Actually “Fork-tailed doctor killers”