Physician Salaries Elsewhere

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I have been reading a lot about health reform and the need for it in America. I want to support a system to provide healthcare to everyone at a low cost and with good results. But the vast majority of books talk about the system from the outside. I am also surrounded by political speculation all over from both sides.

My question is: how do salaries compare in other countries with those of physicians in America? As an American, I want to a universal system to fix this incredible problem, but as a future physician, I clearly don't want to do this at the expense of myself. And most books on the subject aren't thinking of physician salaries. So can anyone give me input? I am interested in any kind of universal system.

Anyone?

I think the difference in primary care is not so big between the US and other countries. The difference can be found in non-primary care.

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The average income after expenses, in U.S. dollars, for an orthopedic surgeon in the U.S. was $442,450, compared to $208,000 in Canada, $324,000 in the U.K. and $154,000 in France.

Primary-care physicians include family doctors, pediatricians, internal-medicine specialists and obstetrician-gynecologists. Those in the U.S. earned an average after expenses in 2008 of $186,582, versus $125,000 in Canada, $159,000 in Britain and just $92,000 in Australia.

Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/09...erparts-study/

Also:

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wo...her-countries/

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/20...ountries-make/

Originally Posted by FrkyBgStok

As an American, I want to a universal system to fix this incredible problem, but as a future physician, I clearly don't want to do this at the expense of myself. .

Well then you have a problem, a conflict of interest. In my opinion, a large part of the issue with a lack of primary care doctors in the US is driven by physicians' wages and debt of new doctors. Med students drift towards the ROAD specialities that pay more to pay off their debt and neglect the PCP stuff.

It is fascinating to compare this to a socialised medicine system such as the UK where every single medical speciality gets paid the same salary as a consultant (equivalent to an attending). The specialities that are in very high demand in the US (derm, opthalmology, ENT, radiology) are relatively unpopular here in the UK.

Originally Posted by sineapse

The specialities that are in very high demand in the US (derm, opthalmology, ENT, radiology) are relatively unpopular here in the UK.

So that implies they're not as competitive as the residencies in US?

Originally Posted by Domenech

So that implies they're not as competitive as the residencies in US?

I would hesitate to make a statement like that, just because I actually don't know enough about competition ratios to answer that.

A major point to consider is that the Government, through the NHS, controls the numbers of speciality training posts dependant on Service requirements. It is much like the military in that way. For example, anaesthetists here are the most numerous speciality as they are involved in so many areas of inpatient life. General practice/Family Medicine takes around 50% of the entire countries' graduating class.

So specialities that there is not much demand for (i.e. neurosurgery, because it is concentrated in certain large centres across the country) are extremely competitive, just because the number of available posts is quite low, if you get what I mean?

Also, unlike the US where you apply to a residency and if all goes well, you come out as an attending the other end, a lot of specialities in the UK have multiple points in your career where you must apply in open competition for the next 'stage' of training (imagine applying again between R1-R2-R3 for example) If you are unsuccesful, you have to take up essentially a year long locum/research year/ that is not a training year in order to reapply again.

Here is a link from the BMJ that is relatively recent giving some ideas of competition ratios (this is the first 'round'-as in R1->R2) http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advic...ml?id=20002762