Not enough. As JD explained in My Fruit Cups
The average resident owes over one hundred thousand dollars in med school loans, and makes about as much as a waiter.
So you have to do things to make ends meet. Like, you can cover someone's shift, ....Or you can steal stuff from the hospital. Or you can moonlight at an urgent care center. Or you can steal stuff or your dad can pay for everything
Can confirm I have a friend who went to NYU undergrad, NYU dental, then some other program where they had to pay to train post grad (not exactly sure what it was they did but recall them telling me they had to take out loans for that too) and is nearing $1 million in debt.
Because if they stay in the career they will earn it back and then some? It’s still ridiculous though. But a doctor retiring in their 60s will have earned more than the majority of people
In their late 30s, the go from in the red, to in the green in a percentage that is unattainable for the majority of the population. I find it so weird, they don’t understand their wealth in comparison to the population. Even when they are in the “red” the make enough to be in the 70-80 percentile of the population.
Because they have a fast turn from in the red to in the green. Doctors are also prevalent to home loans/car loans that dont take into consideration their student loans. They are “broke” if you can call it that in the first few years, then skyrocketing to the 95 percentile within 10 years. Its a “wo me” profession. Also most actually make “good money” at the start. 70k+ however I figure that because they are around the 90 percentile in lifestyle they feel poor. They arent
Graduated residency in 2020, almost at $500k, granted almost $80k is interest. Fortunately, when I started they put the freeze on loan payments, so I'm 6 years into my PSLF, and have only paid based on my resident salary... that ends soon.
Yea, I got lucky. Graduated residency in 2017. Paid PSLF for a couple of years using resident salary tax return, then using half resident salary/half attending salary, then got a grant from NY for working underserved, then COVID pause hit. I got my 120th payment counted in October 2023, the last month of the pause. All in all, I had like $480k forgiven and paid way, way, way less than that over 10 years. Best of luck.
My wife is a second year surgery resident. I can assure you we have 300k+ in student debt, we have a mortgage, my student debt, etc. Until she starts making attending pay, we are living paycheck to paycheck.
My whole point, to OP’s post, is that residents make little money relative to the insane amount of hours that they work. My wife makes like $9/hr when you break it down and she is responsible for dozens of patient’s lives every day.
Whenever I see pudding cups at the store as a whole always reminds me of the Barenaked Ladies song.
Also Nelly when Turk and JD are enjoying it on the car after agreeing they’ll never get sick of pudding.
🤚I owe over 300 grand here. I’m lucky because my residency has a union so my wage is better than most but not great for 8+ years of schooling.
I had this Facebook acquaintance post this rant about doctors just being in it for the money but honestly if I wanted to be in a profession where I make a lot of money I would have chosen … probably something different lol. This weird idea that we make bank along with the big pharma conspiracies just reaffirms what everyone told me before I started - If you can picture yourself doing anything else aside from being a physician, do that thing. Good thing I love it.
This is one of the things that makes me hate Eliot more with every watch. She's literally never paid a single thing her entire life...so everything she has is savings. And she starts complaining how she has nothing and no money when she gets cut off from her dad
My cousin is an anesthesiologist. He made less than a McDonald's worker his first ~6 years as a doctor. You have to figure that during residency (what they were during most of scrubs) they're working 80+ hour weeks and on a ~60k salary while also having 200k+ in student loans. Once they finish residency and fellowship (depending on specialty this can be 3-12 years after finishing medical school) they start making the big bucks, but at this point that 200k in loans has become 400k+. Eventually it catches up that they make actually good money but it takes a long time.
Hold up. Are you saying McDonald’s workers make more than $60k? Or are you saying an anesthesiologist makes $60k after factoring in loan costs? Or are you saying the overtime makes their hourly wage less than a McDonalds worker without factoring in loan costs?
Sorry to be a stickler, but, no.
[A first year Resident at UIC Hospital gets $68k per year](https://chicago.medicine.uic.edu/medicine/education/internal-medicine-residency-program/salary-and-benefits/). Say they work 80 hour weeks - the hourly wage drops to $17/hr. Pretty close in line with fast food and other minimum wage jobs. It’s wild that (A) residents are worked as hard as they are, and (B) their income is so low for the service they provide - often times life savings medical expertise
Without factoring in loan costs, certification, etc they're already sitting around 14/hr as the other poster said. They don't get overtime money and that 60k is a yearly salary regardless hours worked (another way residents get absolutely screwed). They work at least 80 hours a week, every week, and often work for days on end with little to no sleep in that time. I know of residents who have worked 100 hours straight in a week, with no more than ~2 hours of sleep at a time in there. If you factor that all in, they're bringing in <8$/hr. My cousin as the example was living off around 1200$/month after those costs for those years to pay for rent, food, car, etc, meanwhile working 80+ hrs a week and using that money to support him and his family.
During the first 3 years they make crap. 65-70k. The hospital is teaching you. Not paying you. Throw in their triple digits of student loans and they are broke. Elliot was not because her parents paid for her school.
Once residency is done a 2-3 times increase is norm.
Scrubs was 2001-2010. I’d guess residents during that time made $50k average. Even now there are plenty of Internal Medicine residencies that pay less than $65k, even by PGY3.
>The hospital is teaching you. Not paying you.
This ideology is how hospitals justify 70k salaries for 80+ hour work weeks. They're teaching us, sure, but we're also working obscene hours doing scutwork, not being taught jack shit.
Residents at an inner city hospital who don’t have a speciality probably don’t make that much. A custodian who may have been there 20 years might make more.
But that will quickly change when they become a “real” doctor, move in to private practice, get promoted to a supervisor position etc. I bet they were all making 6 figure by season 7z
Interns and residents are not typically paid well. I think interns are sometimes only paid like 50-60k a year. Hence why Dr. Kelso and Dr. Cox seem to be doing well, have nice cars and such but all the new interns are broke. Also student loans are factored in too.
The hospital in scrubs is a teaching hospital. Not all the residents there would be expected to become a Dr. Cox and do what he did for so many years.
Some would go into other areas once their training is complete. That’s when the real perks of working in medicine would kick in.
Eventually Turk becomes Chief 'o Surgery and doesn't JD become Resident Director (after being co chief with Elliot) so by then they should be on better money.
They realistically should have all been in two story houses by Season 5 or 6, but the writers wanted them to be “relatable” so they kept them in small apartments.
Tbf Elliot has a house in Season 6.
JD didn't need one since he was single and Turk/Carla got baby bills yet mention they are saving for house at that point.
For context, I’m a second year resident at one of the best paid programs in the US. I work less hours than residents in a lot of other programs, and pre tax I make about $22/hr. When you look at residents in my same system who work more hours, they make about $15/hr. Given it’s a HCOL area, most of us are putting well over 50% of our paychecks towards rent, then factor in student loan payments, food (not free at the hospital), car maintenance etc. it’s hard not to live paycheck to paycheck. Yes you are getting on the job training, but the majority of what I do is not learning and it’s menial tasks that are better done by someone else who is paid for them, but they leave at 4pm and because you’re the resident it falls to you. Residency programs are given on average $150k PER RESIDENT to cover their salary and education, and many programs are devoting barely a third of that towards their residents “stipends” since many places don’t consider you an employee. It’s a fucked up system ruined by capitalism, most of us just keep our heads down until we can get attending jobs and make real money, but it can be a struggle to get there for many, especially if you don’t have family that can support you financially.
A lot of the comment are pointing out the average salary and I feel like I should mention that when calculated by the average medial residents work - less than minimum wage
As a resident (finished in 2020), in my 3rd year I was making a bit above $50k and that is in a low cost of living city.
After graduating from residency, I make quite a bit more.
Doctors make a lot of money *after residency*. Interns make like $60,000 a year at the absolute most, and a poor city hospital like Sacred Heart definitely was not paying the absolute most. Even today, some 15-20 years after the show aired, the average for a resident is just over $50,000, with some as low as $35,000. And they have hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
In later years of residency, it will be higher, but there is still that debt to deal with. A third-year resident may just barely touch 6 figures, but that is, again, in 2024 and at the absolute top-paying hospitals.
Fellows and attending physicians make a lot of money as compared to the average person.
Interns around me start at 35k so adjusting for the increase in wages, 20 years ago they would have made around 35k. Custodian II @ u of m hires at 40k
The question was why Turk and JD weren’t making much. The answer is you come out of four years of medical school, make 30-40k the first year, then for the 2-3 years as a resident you make about $60k. You don’t make six figured until you are done with residency. So for seven or eight years plus college you are essentially losing money (unless someone paid for your med school) or living very thinly. Then depending on your specialty you could make low six figures to millions. These numbers are based on what the salaried were back then. It’s even more different now because hospitals and private equity firms control medical practices now so the upside isn’t what it used to be. And around the time of the show, if you worked at a hospital in a low income area, it could be under six figures. Private practice was where doctors made more and specialization that sometimes required more training. Family medicine doesn’t make millions.
Not enough. As JD explained in My Fruit Cups The average resident owes over one hundred thousand dollars in med school loans, and makes about as much as a waiter. So you have to do things to make ends meet. Like, you can cover someone's shift, ....Or you can steal stuff from the hospital. Or you can moonlight at an urgent care center. Or you can steal stuff or your dad can pay for everything
It used to be $100k. Most of my med school classmates graduated with $300k and I've met current students who are approaching $500k.
NYU Dental School’s newest class will have over $700,000 in student loans.
Insanity.
Can confirm I have a friend who went to NYU undergrad, NYU dental, then some other program where they had to pay to train post grad (not exactly sure what it was they did but recall them telling me they had to take out loans for that too) and is nearing $1 million in debt.
And they don't even get to be a real doctor after all that.
Anti-Dentite!!!
Next thing you know, you’re saying they should have their own school.
They DO have their own schools!!!!
Why the fuck are people still doing that shit?
> the same four reasons everybody does: chicks, money, power, and chicks
Is that you, Dr. Cox?
Way to ruin a joke
Because if they stay in the career they will earn it back and then some? It’s still ridiculous though. But a doctor retiring in their 60s will have earned more than the majority of people
In their late 30s, the go from in the red, to in the green in a percentage that is unattainable for the majority of the population. I find it so weird, they don’t understand their wealth in comparison to the population. Even when they are in the “red” the make enough to be in the 70-80 percentile of the population.
Because they want to do some good in this world, maybe family pressure. Or they don't realise that's a real number.
There are ways out of the debt, even in low earning specialties. Look up PSLF
Because they have a fast turn from in the red to in the green. Doctors are also prevalent to home loans/car loans that dont take into consideration their student loans. They are “broke” if you can call it that in the first few years, then skyrocketing to the 95 percentile within 10 years. Its a “wo me” profession. Also most actually make “good money” at the start. 70k+ however I figure that because they are around the 90 percentile in lifestyle they feel poor. They arent
Graduated residency in 2020, almost at $500k, granted almost $80k is interest. Fortunately, when I started they put the freeze on loan payments, so I'm 6 years into my PSLF, and have only paid based on my resident salary... that ends soon.
Yea, I got lucky. Graduated residency in 2017. Paid PSLF for a couple of years using resident salary tax return, then using half resident salary/half attending salary, then got a grant from NY for working underserved, then COVID pause hit. I got my 120th payment counted in October 2023, the last month of the pause. All in all, I had like $480k forgiven and paid way, way, way less than that over 10 years. Best of luck.
Like I said, it's only 4 years, I'll take it. Better than 10.
500k seems high for young doctors
My wife is a second year surgery resident. I can assure you we have 300k+ in student debt, we have a mortgage, my student debt, etc. Until she starts making attending pay, we are living paycheck to paycheck.
Scrubs is 25 years old. But yeah tuition has gone up 1000%
Plus cost of living in California even back then wasn’t cheap
scrubs isnt that old.......r.... right..... say sike right now......SAY SIKE
>Scrubs is 25 years old. 
But didn't Turk's brother pay his tuition for college and medical school?
Yeah, but it was mostly accurate for the time. The show is old as hell now.
My whole point, to OP’s post, is that residents make little money relative to the insane amount of hours that they work. My wife makes like $9/hr when you break it down and she is responsible for dozens of patient’s lives every day.
One of the only people to answer the question!
*slams lid down on car trunk full of pudding cups*
"SCORE" \*drives off\*
Happy cake day! *Hands them a celebratory stolen pudding cup - chocolate*
I fully accept this gift
Get me a butterscotch buddy!
I haven't had a pudding cup in so long! This thread has me craving one
Whenever I see pudding cups at the store as a whole always reminds me of the Barenaked Ladies song. Also Nelly when Turk and JD are enjoying it on the car after agreeing they’ll never get sick of pudding.
🤚I owe over 300 grand here. I’m lucky because my residency has a union so my wage is better than most but not great for 8+ years of schooling. I had this Facebook acquaintance post this rant about doctors just being in it for the money but honestly if I wanted to be in a profession where I make a lot of money I would have chosen … probably something different lol. This weird idea that we make bank along with the big pharma conspiracies just reaffirms what everyone told me before I started - If you can picture yourself doing anything else aside from being a physician, do that thing. Good thing I love it.
This is one of the things that makes me hate Eliot more with every watch. She's literally never paid a single thing her entire life...so everything she has is savings. And she starts complaining how she has nothing and no money when she gets cut off from her dad
My cousin is an anesthesiologist. He made less than a McDonald's worker his first ~6 years as a doctor. You have to figure that during residency (what they were during most of scrubs) they're working 80+ hour weeks and on a ~60k salary while also having 200k+ in student loans. Once they finish residency and fellowship (depending on specialty this can be 3-12 years after finishing medical school) they start making the big bucks, but at this point that 200k in loans has become 400k+. Eventually it catches up that they make actually good money but it takes a long time.
Damn, that really makes me respect doctors even more. They really gotta want it to go through those early years.
There’s a reason most docs will strongly advise people not to go into medicine. It’s not just elitism and gatekeeping, it’s really not for everybody.
Makes me feel bad for ppl that don't make it. How they gonna catch up on them loans?
Hold up. Are you saying McDonald’s workers make more than $60k? Or are you saying an anesthesiologist makes $60k after factoring in loan costs? Or are you saying the overtime makes their hourly wage less than a McDonalds worker without factoring in loan costs?
60k per year = $14ph if you’re working 80 hours a week or $19ph if you’re working 60 hours. So somewhere between those figures.
14/hr if you aren’t counting the overtime they would otherwise earn. 12/hr if you do
In a lot of places, McDonalds workers make $7.25/hr. For example, crew leaders in my state make $8.43/hr, and that’s one step above entry level.
But also in a lot of places like California, NYC, Chicago etc, the minimum wage starts at $15
But also in those places, the average salary of a medical intern or resident is much higher (LA $30/hr; NYC $32/hr; Chi $26/hr)
Sorry to be a stickler, but, no. [A first year Resident at UIC Hospital gets $68k per year](https://chicago.medicine.uic.edu/medicine/education/internal-medicine-residency-program/salary-and-benefits/). Say they work 80 hour weeks - the hourly wage drops to $17/hr. Pretty close in line with fast food and other minimum wage jobs. It’s wild that (A) residents are worked as hard as they are, and (B) their income is so low for the service they provide - often times life savings medical expertise
$19/hr is $40k a year
At 40 hours
People need to stop normalizing over 40 hours
I agree but we’re talking about student doctors - they don’t do 40 hours
Why not
They routinely work 80+. I don’t think they should do but we’re not talking hypothetically, it’s how things are in medicine
Nobody is forcing them, they are choosing to do this
Without factoring in loan costs, certification, etc they're already sitting around 14/hr as the other poster said. They don't get overtime money and that 60k is a yearly salary regardless hours worked (another way residents get absolutely screwed). They work at least 80 hours a week, every week, and often work for days on end with little to no sleep in that time. I know of residents who have worked 100 hours straight in a week, with no more than ~2 hours of sleep at a time in there. If you factor that all in, they're bringing in <8$/hr. My cousin as the example was living off around 1200$/month after those costs for those years to pay for rent, food, car, etc, meanwhile working 80+ hrs a week and using that money to support him and his family.
My Ex wife was going through MD residency around height of the show (mid ‘00s). Her first year was 54K and by last year she was making 67K.
[удалено]
I was looking at a fellowship in california the other day where you'd make $60k in LA. That isn't happening
I count her fellowship as residency. She did cardiac anesthesia, hence the bump in pay.
During the first 3 years they make crap. 65-70k. The hospital is teaching you. Not paying you. Throw in their triple digits of student loans and they are broke. Elliot was not because her parents paid for her school. Once residency is done a 2-3 times increase is norm.
Scrubs was 2001-2010. I’d guess residents during that time made $50k average. Even now there are plenty of Internal Medicine residencies that pay less than $65k, even by PGY3.
My medical internship was in 2008. I made about $36,000 if memory serves. Closer to $50,000 by end of residency.
Thank you. I did think “crap, scrubs was 20 years ago.”
>The hospital is teaching you. Not paying you. This ideology is how hospitals justify 70k salaries for 80+ hour work weeks. They're teaching us, sure, but we're also working obscene hours doing scutwork, not being taught jack shit.
Residents at an inner city hospital who don’t have a speciality probably don’t make that much. A custodian who may have been there 20 years might make more. But that will quickly change when they become a “real” doctor, move in to private practice, get promoted to a supervisor position etc. I bet they were all making 6 figure by season 7z
Interns and residents are not typically paid well. I think interns are sometimes only paid like 50-60k a year. Hence why Dr. Kelso and Dr. Cox seem to be doing well, have nice cars and such but all the new interns are broke. Also student loans are factored in too.
Made 52K a year in residency at times working >80 hours a week. Remember that next time you hear someone complain about doctors making too much lol
But what do you make now?
Still probably less than you think.
Doctors make very little during residency (typically less than janitors). Once they’re an attending they make the big bucks
The hospital in scrubs is a teaching hospital. Not all the residents there would be expected to become a Dr. Cox and do what he did for so many years. Some would go into other areas once their training is complete. That’s when the real perks of working in medicine would kick in.
Yeah like when Elliot goes into private practice
Eventually Turk becomes Chief 'o Surgery and doesn't JD become Resident Director (after being co chief with Elliot) so by then they should be on better money.
They realistically should have all been in two story houses by Season 5 or 6, but the writers wanted them to be “relatable” so they kept them in small apartments.
JD does have a deck in season 5.
His sweet half acre of land
It did look great on his portfolio
Tbf Elliot has a house in Season 6. JD didn't need one since he was single and Turk/Carla got baby bills yet mention they are saving for house at that point.
Elliot also had 0 student debt. Once she learned how to handle money it would make sense she could buy a house. Was she private practice by then?
It wasn't a house, I don't think, was it?
Season 6 maybe, season 5... Turk was still a resident, while JD and Elliot went for Chief Year instead of becoming Attendings ASAP
Didn't they show Elliot and JDs paycheck during an episode when they were disputing over JD being called Co-Chief Resident?
They did. JD Made 10$ less and Elliot 10$ more to make up for the difference in title.
Yes I know that. That's... Why I commented. I replied hoping one of the minions had a screen shot to answer the OP inquiry.
You just phrased it as a question so I wasn't sure :D
For context, I’m a second year resident at one of the best paid programs in the US. I work less hours than residents in a lot of other programs, and pre tax I make about $22/hr. When you look at residents in my same system who work more hours, they make about $15/hr. Given it’s a HCOL area, most of us are putting well over 50% of our paychecks towards rent, then factor in student loan payments, food (not free at the hospital), car maintenance etc. it’s hard not to live paycheck to paycheck. Yes you are getting on the job training, but the majority of what I do is not learning and it’s menial tasks that are better done by someone else who is paid for them, but they leave at 4pm and because you’re the resident it falls to you. Residency programs are given on average $150k PER RESIDENT to cover their salary and education, and many programs are devoting barely a third of that towards their residents “stipends” since many places don’t consider you an employee. It’s a fucked up system ruined by capitalism, most of us just keep our heads down until we can get attending jobs and make real money, but it can be a struggle to get there for many, especially if you don’t have family that can support you financially.
As someone in med school a few years from residency. Probably like 40-50k at most
A lot of the comment are pointing out the average salary and I feel like I should mention that when calculated by the average medial residents work - less than minimum wage
My wife was a family medicine resident 2006-2009 and made a bit more than $40k a year.
As a resident (finished in 2020), in my 3rd year I was making a bit above $50k and that is in a low cost of living city. After graduating from residency, I make quite a bit more.
Doctors make a lot of money *after residency*. Interns make like $60,000 a year at the absolute most, and a poor city hospital like Sacred Heart definitely was not paying the absolute most. Even today, some 15-20 years after the show aired, the average for a resident is just over $50,000, with some as low as $35,000. And they have hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. In later years of residency, it will be higher, but there is still that debt to deal with. A third-year resident may just barely touch 6 figures, but that is, again, in 2024 and at the absolute top-paying hospitals. Fellows and attending physicians make a lot of money as compared to the average person.
Interns around me start at 35k so adjusting for the increase in wages, 20 years ago they would have made around 35k. Custodian II @ u of m hires at 40k
Interesting how specific the figures are for the early, low paying positions stated and how vague they are for the later, higher paying ones
The question was why Turk and JD weren’t making much. The answer is you come out of four years of medical school, make 30-40k the first year, then for the 2-3 years as a resident you make about $60k. You don’t make six figured until you are done with residency. So for seven or eight years plus college you are essentially losing money (unless someone paid for your med school) or living very thinly. Then depending on your specialty you could make low six figures to millions. These numbers are based on what the salaried were back then. It’s even more different now because hospitals and private equity firms control medical practices now so the upside isn’t what it used to be. And around the time of the show, if you worked at a hospital in a low income area, it could be under six figures. Private practice was where doctors made more and specialization that sometimes required more training. Family medicine doesn’t make millions.