Is a resident a student or an employee?

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The only real way to calculate the price of something you own is to try and sell it. Likewise, the only reasonable way to calculate what you are worth to the hospital is to figure out how much it costs to replace you. That is economics 101. The wild speculation around here about the cost of residency coordinators and other assorted overhead is irrelevant.

Like it or not, the equivalent of a minion-level resident in the work department is a PA with some work experience. Depending on what they are trained in, they write scripts and orders with "supervision", scrub in on cases, etc. If that job sounds familiar to some residents around here it should, because it's what you do at work everyday.

I don't know how much the PAs are paid in your neck of the woods, but around here they drive nice SUVs to work while the residents take the "el". The reasons for this discrepancy are myriad, but you can start with the "match" process that helps squelch competition between residencies.

Dude, much as I complain about salary, the sad truth is that if market forces were allowed to control our pay, I would probably get paid much, much less or nothing at all because I am in a competitive specialty that people would gladly "eat a poop hotdog" to match into. And as long as you have people willing to sell their mothers to get into medical school you will always have a steady supply of people willing to bear any idignity, suffer any deprivation to match.

Am I wrong about this? I would never have gone to medical school if I knew I would have to borrow money for eight years as opposed to four but that's just me.

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