And what is the average salary general practitioners make? surgeons?
And the average number of working hours per week?
In Turkish culture there is an inclination to see a doctor as a specialist, and the graduates prefer to get in a residency spot of any kind. But in recent years Health Ministry changed the system and created a general practitioner step between the patients and the specialists. Now everybody has a gp in his/her neighbourhood and first they see those doctors. If there is a need for more, then they go to a specific specialty, but a lot of work load is taken by those general practitioners. Those gp offices are private, they themselves get together in groups of 5 or 6 gp.s, they own and manage thier own office, pay their secretary and nurses, and they are payed by the health ministry (if not changed) about 3.500TL/gp (near to $2.000).
Specialists are changing from 5.000 to 10.000TL. Depending on a specialist I talked, those are the widespread and realistic numbers (but I didnt make a wide research about it and those data are coming from a couple of MDs). But on the other hand, for the ones that have high demand, there is no upper limit. The numbers may be (regarding professional sources) 50.000TL or 100.000TL.
For surgeons how it is I must check around. I can tell it later, ok?.. and by the way in Istanbul, which is the most expensive city in Turkey, 3.500TL is not bad. If you know when and where to buy what, you live with that much money comfortably. But of course I dont know your alternatives, this is only an option..
Oh, by the way again, I forgot: The working styles are very different, as far as I can see. For instance the primary doctor of my daddy is working in a select hospital here and his working hours is 09:00 to 18:00 and thats all (plus he takes all of the phone calls about his patients when he is out of hospital). He works weekdays and weekends belong to him, but he is a caring doctor, so if he has a patient in mind, he comes to hospital any day,never mind Saturday or Sunday, but regularly he is not working in weekends. The surgeon of my daddy is working in a public hospital from morning to 17:00-18:00, and he goes to his office and from 18:00 to 20:00 he is there. If he has a private patient in another hospital, he pays visit in his own hours after 17:00 and before his office hours. In weekends he leaves public hospital earlier afternoon at about 13:00 or so, and he is off Sundays. Some other private doctors, totally depending on their personal choices, can work until 22:00. I even saw an example of an MD working in his office regularly until 23:30! But its not life, its slavery, man!
And for the GPs, they have regular working hours between about 09:00 to again about 16:00 or 17:00, depending on the patients. Once in a week they spare one afternoon for making a tour of their disabled patients (the ones cant get out of bed and needs to be seen). If not necessary they dont make the tour, they dont have to, they are pretty much free in their program.
