i can certainly see how it could be disheartening to a doc to learn that a nurse is making $200K/yr. i'll tell you something more disheartening: there are CRNA's out there that run CRNA agencies employing numerous other CRNAs which provide nurse anesthetist services to several surgical practices, and these nurses are making >$500K/yr. (but this is because they are savvy business people)
more to consider:
there are nurse practicioners making $100K/yr.
cardiac perfusionists making $90K/yr.
cytotechnologists making $80K/yr.
and so on and so on...
there are plenty of docs out there making less than all of these.
the practice of medicine is changing: nurses are getting script rites, PA's already have them. doctors don't know how to operate the new computer equipment, and the techs read images better (sometimes
). very few areas of medicine are protected from the onslaught of "allied health professionals". surgical fields are probably the most protected. noone is ever going to let someone cut on them without having had the minimum 5 years residency. (although Sx residents do cut, the majority of the public is not
really aware of that fact.)
there could be seriously different
times ahead for many kinds of docs. if a hospital can get 2 PA's or NP's for the price of 1 doc, what is going to stop them. picture the student health clinic at
(insert your university); one doc sitting in the lounge drinking coffee while PA's see all the patients, the doc doing chart reviews once a day? week? month?
this scenario is not unusual, and not terribly dissimilar to the relationship between anesthesiologists and CRNAs.
of course docs will still be needed, but reimbursements have been and will continue to drop. so, i guess what i'm saying is that we definitely need to be going into medicine for a reason other than the money
sorry, this is getting depressing. i'll shut up.
k