emergency med doc trying to become a pilot... help!

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protonate

Well-Known Member
I'll spare you guys from the details, but in short I became a doctor because my parents wanted me to but I realized that my true passion is in aviation. I'm 31 years, just finished residency, and want to become an airline pilot! (don't want to live with this big of a regret, realized that I can't do that). Any advice on to how I should go about? how up can I really go if I start from no flight experience (i.e captain at a major? FO at a major?) at my age?

Thanks!
 
protonate said:
I'll spare you guys from the details, but in short I became a doctor because my parents wanted me to but I realized that my true passion is in aviation. I'm 31 years, just finished residency, and want to become an airline pilot! (don't want to live with this big of a regret, realized that I can't do that). Any advice on to how I should go about? how up can I really go if I start from no flight experience (i.e captain at a major? FO at a major?) at my age?

Thanks!
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I'm married to a ER doc, so I know where you are coming from.

Step one: DO NOT stop practicing medicine! You will need that cash flow. You only have a 15 year window before burnout hits anyway.

Step two: Forget everything you think you know about the airline pilot career. Find some pilots and sit down over a cup of coffee and find out about the good, bad, and ugly parts of this job.

Step three: get your private license at the nearest airport. This will take about six months to a year given your schedule. While you do this, you will learn even more about this industry.

Step four: work your way through your ratings, instrument, multi-engine, commercial, CFI. Start building flight time and experiance.


Long term, your best bet is to keep working as an MD, save aggressively for retirement, get all your ratings, teach and/or fly part time for a charter company, retire at 45 and pursue whatever flying job you want.
 
Don't sweat it, you got all the time in the world. With your background people are going to want to hire you.

Heck, I got my first rating at 50 and now have a great Pt. 135 commuter job. Living the dream!

On a more serious note, there's are few things more rewarding than realizing the dreams of your youth at a much later stage in life — it's like being granted another life to live.....
 
protonate said:
I'll spare you guys from the details, but in short I became a doctor because my parents wanted me to but I realized that my true passion is in aviation. I'm 31 years, just finished residency, and want to become an airline pilot! (don't want to live with this big of a regret, realized that I can't do that). Any advice on to how I should go about? how up can I really go if I start from no flight experience (i.e captain at a major? FO at a major?) at my age?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Well, you sir are in luck, (sorry, this is assumptive), you have just joined the best resource in the world to help guide you. Soooo, welcome to JC, we're characters to say the least, we argue about everything from politics and current events to the vast reaches of the industry on this site. good and bad, but I'll be damned if @Derg didn't build the best networking website for pilots on the web.

Soooooo, first, don't ever buy a Beechcraft Bonanza, you'll thank me later. :) seriously

Here's the good,
you joined JC
you have a great career already that you can fall back on.
you probably won't need to borrow money for training
the airlines are hiring like gangbusters, ( the regional airlines that is ) some at the majors, ya know, where the big bucks are /myth
there are great jobs in aviation outside of the airlines ( unless you're gung ho on the airlines )

The bad,
you will probably spend 60k - 80k for training ( well you did go to med school so...)
once you have your ratings, you will probably make 25k - 45k for at least 5 - 6 years ( 2 instructing, 2 - 4 at a regional/charter/cargo)
If you instruct part time plan on it being 6 - 8 years

Pros:
chicks dig pilots, at least until they see your pay stub
we wear uniforms, uhh oh wait, this belongs with the cons
you get to fly airplanes, meh whatever that is j/k

Cons:
you won't make much money
you won't make much money
you won't make much money
you won't make much money, until you get on with a major (which really you're probably thinking about what's known as a Legacy Airline)

welp, there ya go. Seriously, welcome to JC, ask us questions during your training, I'm a Flight Instructor, so hit me up or any of the others on here. I have a feeling you're going to be at least a private pilot soon. You caught the aviation bug, it shows. welp, that's all the Jameson has to say right now

Good luck Doc
 
Thanks for the encouraging posts! you really make me feel welcome to a supportive community! So right now i'm working 3*12 hour shifts a week (36 total) and bringing in about 300k/year (pre-tax) so money isn't really a factor. I was wondering how feasible is it to balance working at a regional airline and working at my job to support myself? And are there accelerated programs that I can do to save time? I wouldn't mind working for a regional airline either
 
So let me get this straight, you make 300k, pretax, pre malpractice insurance and pre med loan repayments and want to quit so you can learn how to fly for 2 or 3 years only to end up making 30k. I can't even pretend to understand this, my only guess is that mom and dad are paying the loans off. I don't think anyone in their right minds would advise you to quit medicine and become a pilot.
 
protonate said:
Thanks for the encouraging posts! you really make me feel welcome to a supportive community! So right now i'm working 3*12 hour shifts a week (36 total) and bringing in about 300k/year (pre-tax) so money isn't really a factor. I was wondering how feasible is it to balance working at a regional airline and working at my job to support myself? And are there accelerated programs that I can do to save time? I wouldn't mind working for a regional airline either
Click to expand...

You can do a PPL in whatever timeframe works for you and your instructor. I did my PPL in 4 weeks. I flew 4 days a week, twice a day for 4 weeks, studied the other days. There wasn't much time in there for anything else, it would have been hard to do more than one or maybe two 12 hour shifts in there per week. Find an instructor and airplane with lots of availability and you can train as much as you want.
 
Soku39 said:
So let me get this straight, you make 300k, pretax, pre malpractice insurance and pre med loan repayments and want to quit so you can learn how to fly for 2 or 3 years only to end up making 30k. I can't even pretend to understand this, my only guess is that mom and dad are paying the loans off. I don't think anyone in their right minds would advise you to quit medicine and become a pilot.
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He works in emergency medicine. That's not exactly a low-stress, calm, flowers & kittens kind of environment.

Not that I'd really recommend jumping ship to an industry where you'll barely afford a one-bedroom apartment, but emergency medicine isn't a cake walk.
 
You could do what many others in your field have done before and buy one of these, and you would be much better off in regards to QOL than most airline pilots. No need to waste your time slaving away for ramen noodle wages.

Beechcraft-35_5.jpg
 
MQAAord said:
He works in emergency medicine. That's not exactly a low-stress, calm, flowers & kittens kind of environment.

Not that I'd really recommend jumping ship to an industry where you'll barely afford a one-bedroom apartment, but emergency medicine isn't a cake walk.
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I get that, however to me it's just a mind blowing proposition, but hey everyone is different, and the grass, it's always greener on the other side.
 
I knew an Anesthesiologist that worked part time and was a full time FO at a regional. He said the flying was what he enjoyed and the MD was to pay the bills. You can balance both careers I am assuming.
 
Be very careful what you wish for doc...you just might get it and realize it isn't what you thought it was and the grass isn't always greener. Unless you or your parents are independently wealthy, I'm pretty sure you've accumulated a "wealth of debt" after med school, Intern and residency by now. You're about to accumulate a lot more debt with absolutely ZERO guarantees of reaching your airline goals after it's all said and done. Did I say, "ZERO" guarantees yet? I will say that you have a great backup plan! You've already spent an enormous amount of time, energy and money just to find out medicine isn't for you.....you really want to do the same thing in aviation?

Aviation is a very fickle beast. You can do everything right, check all the boxes and keep your nose clean. Unfortunately, luck and timing play a huge part of the equation. The economy can tank, mergers happen and airlines go belly up and there is nothing you can do about it. I started flying at 16 and I'm 52 now and grateful for a long career as I've been flying for the airlines (commuters and current employer) for 31 yrs. Looking back though, I've been extremely fortunate beyond even my wildest dreams and sometimes shutter at the pitfalls I've manage to dodge (purely by luck). Having said that, times have changed and I'm looking forward to retirement for a number of reasons. I don't know if I could recommend this career field to anyone. I'm coming to the end of the road you now want to begin. If you have a family, think about the sacrifice you've already put them through and let them know ahead of time that this new adventure you're about to put them through is going to be long, hard and expensive...oh, with no guarantees too.

I know the medical field is in the dumps right now and with Obamacare being a doctor isn't what it use to be, but you're about to jump into the same type of situation in aviation. Think really, really hard before jumping in. Best advice.......keep practicing medicine and slowly make the transition to be sure that's what you want to do....and can do.

Good luck
 
rausda27 said:
I knew an Anesthesiologist that worked part time and was a full time FO at a regional. He said the flying was what he enjoyed and the MD was to pay the bills. You can balance both careers I am assuming.
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Yes, if you can swing a part-time thing, that's the way to go.

I just got granted part time at my job (EMT) and with being part time there now the schedule would easily allow for an airline gig. (No, I'm not going to do it myself, with school-age kids at home, but it could work for someone with a different family situation.)
 
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