How do doctors pay the bills when interning?

They take out loans or have a spouse that works.

I’m not sure but I think they get some salary for an internship and certainly get paid for a residency.

They get a relatively low salary to live on. The student loans for med school don’t kick in for payment until the residency is over. The hospital they are assigned to generally covers their malpractice insurance.

I went to a Pulmonologist one time who told me that during his educational years, he worked as a Phlebotomist to make ends meet. That’s a smart move since he’s using a skill that he began to learn during medical school and he would know of any openings since he’s already part of the local medical system. Although I doubt it was during his time as an intern since those schedules are so brutal.

But he had several years to go after that to earn his specialty.

I would imagine that something like that is not all that uncommon since most (even part-time) jobs in the medical field are semi-skilled they certainly pay a lot better than flipping burgers. A higher hourly pay rate translates into needing to work fewer hours in their already crowded schedules.

My family doctor took a few years off prior to med school to work as a chemist for a large company before he went on to complete his medical education.

This enabled him to have the cushion of a nice little nest egg while going through the rigors of med school, being an intern and the rest of the years for his family practice residency.

Of course the lucky ones are born into families where either one or both parents are doctors. They are usually willing to subsidize their child’s education so that they can concentrate upon their studying without the distractions of financial necessity.

My friend’s ex is not from a rich family. He is living on loans until he starts making money.

By the time his residency is over he’ll be well over a quarter of a million dollars in debt.

A old mod here just finished her residency. She has about 300K in loans. She made around 50K per year during residency but was also paying 2.5K a month in loans.

She had one exam that required her travel to Chicago and then had to pay around 5K to just take a required exam. That was just one of many of similar exams that will have to be done during her entire career.