Originally Posted by Unregistered

Noted there has been a lot of debate about working in public/doing residency vs private. I think one thing that many juniors fail to factor in is the opportunity cost.

If you do residency, you give pretty much your youth to the public sector. Pay is mediacore until you become consultant which could be 8-10 years depending on speciality.
To be fair, life does get easier when you become specialist or get fellowship (in the case of family physician) and pay is generally attractive/reasonable.

However what you are missing out is the financial opportunity cost of locuming. (E.g if you locum at community iso facility for past 1-2 years, you can easily hit 25-30k/mth and the amount of money made through investing this money etc.)

Disclaimer: I just completed my mmed in Nov last year after completing fm residency. Also mopex a few years prior to residency. I just started locuming and appreciate the world outside of mohh. To be fair the pay package offered by ops for mmeders is decent compared to a typical chain group (and in the long run there is probably better benefits esp if I do fellowship) but the amt of money I have missed out from locuming for the past 3-4 years is insane (esp considering you can invest the money to grow your capital) and I am Starting to regret my decision to do residency now.