When you want to practice family medicine, but you’re worried about debt

With an average debt load of roughly $221,000 at graduation, osteopathic medical students often wonder if family medicine—one of the lower-paying specialties—is a financially sound career path.

However, many DOs have found ways to avoid or lessen their debt load while following the dream of practicing family medicine.

“You’re putting a ton of time and effort into your profession,” says Charmaine Chan, DO, a family medicine instructor at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. “You have to do what you love to do. If you go after money, you’re not going to be satisfied.”

Loan repayment

According to Dr. Chan, students aren’t always aware of the myriad loan repayment and financial relief options available, including:

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• The National Health Service Corps.
• State loan repayment programs for physicians in underserved areas.
• County loan repayment programs.
• Tax breaks for working in underserved areas.
• The U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
• The Indian Health Service.

Additional training, temporary detours

Students can also complete fellowships or get additional training after finishing their family medicine residencies, which can allow them to supplement their income for a period of time or for their entire careers.

Some family physicians take temporary detours from traditional clinic work without extra training. When he finished his residency, Ted Kaspar, DO, accepted a hospitalist position in Ponca City, Oklahoma. While money wasn’t his main motivation for taking the offer, hospitalist jobs do tend to pay more than clinic positions.

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After graduating in 2006 with $200,000 in education debt, Dr. Kaspar considered loan repayment programs in underserved areas, but was single at the time and leery of moving to a rural area where he didn’t know anyone.

Grateful that he chose family medicine for his residency, Dr. Kaspar says he plans to return to a clinic setting in the future.

“One of the drawbacks of working in the hospital is that every patient I see is very sick,” he says. “I miss doing more preventive care.”

Consolidation

Other family physicians pay back their loans without taking a detour or securing loan repayment. Maggie Moore, DO, graduated in 2005 with $180,000 in debt and now works in private practice with a physician group in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Moore says she conducted extensive research during her fourth year of medical school on loan consolidation and was able to lock in an interest rate of just over 2% on all of her debt.

“Usually in your third and fourth year, you get all these mailings that say, ‘Consolidate with us,’ ” she says. “I saved them, and I called every one of them and asked what their rates and terms were.”

Some of the companies offered a lower rate to borrowers who used automatic payment, a perk Dr. Moore took advantage of. She acknowledges that interest rates are now higher than they were when she finished school, but says consolidation is still a viable option for today’s students. She also notes that she would have picked family medicine and private practice even if she’d had more debt and a higher interest rate.