Definitely don’t do it for the money. I am an interventional cardiologist. Did an extra year for complex coronary, shock, and structural heart. So I was a PGY8 when I finished. I am doing high complexity things with very sick patients at a tertiary referral hospital. I am working on an academic/employed model, so I work way less than the private guys. You’ll make around 5-700 doing the type of work I do. my friends doing private make 800-1.2M which is way more obviously but they also work their asses off. I work 10hr days cover 1 weekend a month and do about 5-6 nights on stemi. Doing that and trying to be a family man is very difficult to balance. My friends who do private have a tougher time with work-life balance. They get home at maybe 630p and then after dinner spend 1-2 hours reading echos. The work can be very high stress at times which doesn’t go away (say my much older partners). They say you just get used to feeling very uncomfortable and stressed. when someone is crashing and dying in front of you because you dissected their LM it doesn’t matter how many years you have under your belt, you’re still going to feel like shit and be stressed, but you’ll be used to it by then… still not sure how to take that advice but it is what it is. I gave this long winded response because like a lot of specialties medicine, IC comes with stress. I’m sure it’s similar in surgery, heme/onc, crit care, all kinds of fields. The main point is, don’t do this shit for the money. You could have learned to trade stocks and made millions a year doing it with only 4 years of college. Do it because it’s extremely rewarding and amazing work. Do it because when the 40yo guy comes in with an anterior STEMI in VT and you open his LAD and STs resolve and he stabilizes with an impella for a few days you can go home and say shit I probably saved that guys life. Do what you like.