Wow, let me first start off by commending you for taking the time to break down my response and quote it line by line.
But from what I've seen, after residency, they're paid far worse than our attendings. Even with large debt, the salary differential as it stands now benefits doctors here.
That's true to some extent, as I mentioned above, from what I know in the UK you can get paid fairly well especially considering you'll most likely be working far fewer hours.
True, but it's a lot better in medicine than most professional fields. More unemployed lawyers than doctors. Some med students fail to match, but from stats I've seen, more law school grads fail the bar. And many med students fail to match into derm, but that's like failing to get the corner office job at Merrill Lynch. I don't think medicine is all that unusual in that sense.
Eh, I agree to some extent. It's not a fair analogy in the sense that you will always have the chance to work your way up to that corner office job. In medicine, if you don't match into Derm (say you wanted to), unless you plan on applying year after year, or trying something else and then getting into it, you really can't practice Derm. You could also say that each field of medicine is completely different, yet it wouldn't be all that hard to jump around between various types of law.
While there are plenty of people who fail the bar, there also are plenty of people who don't make it all the way through the medical training process (you can even start counting that from day 1 of med school if you'd like).
Wouldn't that depend on your type of practice? I can see that being true for say an Emergency Doc, but a private practice family practice person? I'd say word of mouth is pretty critical, no?
I guess some type of performance based pay could depend on your practice, but I also see plenty of downsides to performance based pay as well.
I know several folks who finished up their advanced degrees and went back to similar jobs they had before law or B school. The market was just not very good for decent jobs. I do know one MBA who did an old barrista stint because it gave her free time to interview for jobs.
Granted, none of these folks went to Wharton or Boalt, but not everyone gets to go to the top schools. In medicine, this won't be a major hiccup early in your career. For law and business? it can be. Plenty of studies have shown that an MBA from a non-top school does not pay for itself. I'd imagine similar figures for lower ranked law programs. Not so for lower ranked medical schools.
That's true, to some extent where you go to law/business school matters more than where you go to med school.
I'd say the barriers to entry, as far as creating a law or business school are far less than creating a med school. You could make an argument to compare the Caribbean schools to the lower tiered law/business schools and you'll see the vast majority of people don't even make it through.
You can't. And that math shows it. I was trying to patiently point that out. I could have ignored the point, but I get tired when folks make these ridiculous comparisons to prove that their six figure job is a pittance.
The comparisons aren't made to 'prove that their six figure job is a pittance.' The comparison is made to show how 2 professions on the opposite spectrum as far as education / training required, skill level, intelligence, etc can end up with relatively similar pay. Of course that doesn't hold true for all specialties, but Peds & FP do immediately come to mind.
I really get a bit confused by the tendency to say medicine is such a bad rap by pointing out other careers who have it better. The fact that other careers are arguably more financially lucrative doesn't mean yours is a bad choice.
No one's saying that just because medicine isn't more financially lucrative that it's a bad choice. I'm just pointing on the comparison to show that even professions in the same industry can be compensated fairly similarly, with out nearly as much input.
Yes. I looked at the numbers, thought things over, and decided if medicine was right for me. If it wasn't, I wouldn't go into medicine. I don't begrudge other people their living because it's better than mine.
Again, it's not about begrudging anyone else. I have a few friends that are pharmacists and couldn't be happier for them.
When people start getting dramatic and saying that physicians make less than bartenders or DHL drivers, my woe-is-me meter starts wiggling.
Addressed this just a few lines above.
Compared to the 96-97% of Americans making less than that. I realize it's entirely dependent on your upbringing. If you grow up well off and your parents made that kind of money, I'm sure it seems the norm. For many of us, we didn't know anyone pulling in that kind of cash.
To each their own. At the end of the day, we all went in with our eyes wide open and most of us with many other tempting options. My only hope is that if people complain about how little money they make and how their job is so very, very important, that they do it behind closed doors with their peers (like this forum). Nothing rubs peoples' feathers more than hearing those at the very top of the income heap complaining about how bad they have it.
Medicine is not the money tree folks think it once was (if it ever truly was at all). Medicine is not a life of poverty and sacrifice that we should spend too much time either being bitter or patting ourselves so very hard on the back over. Like most things, it's not as great as some folks think and not as bad as other folks fear. But we can agree to disagree.
Sure you can point out the 96-97% of Americans that make less and that's understandable, but I'd say 98-99% of Americans couldn't even make it through medical school, put in the hours required, have the intelligence, skill level, heart, work ethic, be willing to take on $300k in debt, etc etc.
You bring up a very good point, when you say a lot of it depends on where you come from. I mentioned something similarly above (in regards to where you live), but yes where you come from is probably more important.
For me to some degree it's probably a little different. I grew up in a town on
this list. That will probably make a few jaws drop or eyes pop, and people can make what they want of it. For full disclosure, I'll also say my dad is a psychiatrist. Before you want to say "a ha... see!" let me also mention that he works >80 hrs a week on average (and thats a very conservative estimate and doesn't include any possible call hours).
And yep, to each their own.
Oh, and I'd just like to add that if you think that passively accepting your current salary, does anything but benefit the executives at health insurance companies or their share holders, you've got to be kidding
Executives at health care companies rack in huge salaries at the expense of everyone who works in the industry and the patients we serve. They know that we as physicians tend to be easy to take advantage of, and they'll continue to do so as long as we let them.
They will do anything they can to increase their bottom line, even if its to come up with what they can classify as reasonable grounds not to reimburse.
Think about all those times something is billed for in medicine (including your patient visits). Everything is always charged at $X amount but you most likely only get (and I'm just throwing a number out there), 0.75 * $X back.
Where do you think that money they have saved goes? It's all about their bottom line and the insurance company investors.
They're happy to have healthy or fairly healthy patients pay their premiums and insure them for it, but when they turn out to be more of a liability, those companies will do everything they can to come up with a reasonable excuse to increase their premiums or dismiss their coverage.
I find it highly ironic that here we are in a society that prevents/looks down upon physicians from receiving gifts or having company sponsorship (pharmaceutical for instance), yet is ok and actually promotes insurance companies to try and squeeze everyone for every dollar they can.
My point here isn't for the physicians, but more against the insurance companies.
I don't know about you, but I'd trust that $$ in the hands of a physician over a share holder pandering executive any day. I know plenty of physicians that do what they can to help their patients in extenuating circumstances.
I also completely understand that we live in a capitalistic society, but at times it does feel like we're in a socialistic part of it.
Finally, and to get back on the subject, I'd like to say that I'm hoping whoever is the next candidate can promote changes that would improve health care for everyone.
Even though I'd pay higher taxes, and probably will end up taking a pay cut as a result of it, I think Obama is the only one who would actually even try to do something about it.
Hopefully efforts of more prevention, control of health care costs (imaging, lawsuits, etc), and fixing medicare are a part of either presidential nominees health care plans.
