Grass Isn't Always Greener

[Mad Jack]

Hard to agree more! The UK is so bad they have semi-regular doctor strikes!

I made more as a respiratory therapist than a GP makes in Belgium

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[deleted171991]

I made more as a respiratory therapist than a GP makes in Belgium

You forgot to consider the "benefits", i.e. all the things Belgians get for free in exchange for lower income and higher taxes. Plus I wouldn't be so sure that the difference is as high on an hourly basis. Europeans tend to work less than 35 hours/week and to have 8+ weeks of vacation.

 

[Mad Jack]

You forgot to consider the "benefits", i.e. all the things the Belgians get for free in exchange for lower income and higher taxes. Plus I wouldn't be so sure that the difference is as high on an hourly basis. Europeans tend to work less than 35 hours/week and to have 8+ weeks of vacation.

I had free health care (hospital paid 100% prior to the ACA forcing them to cost share), worked 36 hours a week, got 4 weeks of paid vacation, got a 401k match, a pension (yeah, we still got freakin' pensions), and made a few thousand dollars more than they do, plus a 3% yearly bonus if our department hit its goals.

 

[Blitz2006]

Hard to agree more! The UK is so bad they have semi-regular doctor strikes!

For FM/GP/Primary Care, UK is > USA in my opinion:

GPs' partnerships: now that's what I call a healthy salary

Average GP salary is 100k pounds = 170K USD (Average exchange rate is 1.7 over past 10 years, not post-brexit exchange), 6-8 weeks vacation.

And you can easily make 300k USD in the UK as a GP if you hustle. UK/NHS is very primary care oriented.

But yes, for specialists, UK is not very good. But also remember, unlike Canada (which is 100% universal/public healthcare), UK has a two tier system (public + private). So if you are ortho and inclined to make $, you can do PP on the side and make decent money, like 200K Pounds. But yeah, not as much as US/Canada specialists earn. But remember, medical school in the UK is 3k pounds/year up until 3 years ago (now its 9k/year, but still cheap). And 10 years ago medical school was FREE, including Oxford/cambridge, which is as reputable as Hopkins/Harvard. And you can go straight from highschool into medical school, so you start earning money at age 23...barely any debt. So its not all bad in the UK.

personally think Oz >> Canada, because Australia is two tiered as well. The private sector in Oz is far more developed than UK (which is mainly just Bupa insurance), and thus more 'lucrative' down under for physicians in general.

 

[dhb]

Those are literally the only two countries where docs do okay in a socialized system.

Not true in a two tier system docs do ok. Plenty of private practices in France where you can make 300k+

 

[Mad Jack]

Not true in a two tier system docs do ok. Plenty of private practices in France where you can make 300k+

Not everyone can be private practice. I'm not a fan of selling any number of my colleagues down the river, let alone the majority.

 

[doctalaughs]

Also it's extremely unlikely the US would do remotely well for doctors as a socialized system despite a few other countries possibly doing well. Mainly because we aren't solving the massive educational debt, the massive liability/jackpot system, or the massive obesity/entitlement problems in the US anytime soon. Magically make those issues go away here (or reduce them 10-fold to the level of these other countries), and THEN we can talk about socialized US healthcare that isn't a living hell for doctors.

Why the politicians endorsing single payer cannot understand this is beyond me.


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