Med Students - Grow a Spine

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Wow you will never hear a banker, lawyer, plumber, <insert other profession> say they should earn less because people in 3rd world countries are starving. Unfortunately, many in our profession think like this and it is a very flawed line of thinking that I think is prevalent and dangerous to the profession.

To all future doctors...nay...physicians, since everyone is a "doctor" these days, I urge you to stand up for your profession. We signed up to help and heal people and knew that certain sacrifices were required. However, this doesn't mean we are condemned to take abuse, get screwed, and act like cowards that surrender to anyone and everyone at the expense of our own well-being.

Society already has the perception that physicians are rich semi-pro golfers that chill on their fleet of yachts in their downtime. This is bad enough, but let's add lack of lobbying for our interests on top of that. But wait, there's more. Let's add those within the profession that rather than advocate for doctors do the opposite. This is not a good position to be in. Yet, people act surprised when our salaries are targeted for cuts (with no benefit to anyone). People act surprised when nurses begin saying they can do 95% of what we can. When you reach that point, it's already too late.

Unfortunately some people still do not get it. It's time to cut the holier-than-thou "physician's burden" attitude and grow a spine. I'm tired of seeing the constant hacking away at this profession while some just stand idly by and watch, or in some cases actually pitch in with an ax of their own. I urge everyone to stand up for themselves and the profession as a whole because if we don't then nobody else will.

DISCUSS - Also mod please do not lock this...there is no "harassment" going on. I edited the post of any mentioning of other posters or their quotes.

 

[fahimaz7]

I like money. I think primary care fields need a bump in salary and specialties need to be reigned in a bit. Other than that, if we could all make 300k or so it would be a good day.

 

[Guillemot]

Nah if people want to **** us over thats fine with me.

 

[MossPoh]

Ok

 

[auburnO5]

Like.

 

[Dr Love]

The irony is that most of those holier-than-thou med students will try to go into derm or plastics. They think doctors should work for cheap, except for them, because they are just so precious.

 

[MaraCeles]

Agreed. Especially since cutting our (future) pay benefits absolutely no one, not even our patients.

 

[da8s0859q]

We signed up to help and heal people and knew that certain sacrifices were required. However, this doesn't mean we are condemned to take abuse, get screwed, and act like cowards that surrender to anyone and everyone at the expense of our own well-being.

If SDN had a rep system, I would +rep for this.

 

[Gut Shot]

Wow you will never hear a banker, lawyer, plumber, <insert other profession> say they should earn less because people in 3rd world countries are starving. Unfortunately, many in our profession think like this and it is a very flawed line of thinking that I think is prevalent and dangerous to the profession.

To all future doctors...nay...physicians, since everyone is a "doctor" these days, I urge you to stand up for your profession. We signed up to help and heal people and knew that certain sacrifices were required. However, this doesn't mean we are condemned to take abuse, get screwed, and act like cowards that surrender to anyone and everyone at the expense of our own well-being.

Society already has the perception that physicians are rich semi-pro golfers that chill on their fleet of yachts in their downtime. This is bad enough, but let's add lack of lobbying for our interests on top of that. But wait, there's more. Let's add those within the profession that rather than advocate for doctors do the opposite. This is not a good position to be in. Yet, people act surprised when our salaries are targeted for cuts (with no benefit to anyone). People act surprised when nurses begin saying they can do 95% of what we can. When you reach that point, it's already too late.

Unfortunately some people still do not get it. It's time to cut the holier-than-thou "physician's burden" attitude and grow a spine. I'm tired of seeing the constant hacking away at this profession while some just stand idly by and watch, or in some cases actually pitch in with an ax of their own. I urge everyone to stand up for themselves and the profession as a whole because if we don't then nobody else will.

DISCUSS - Also mod please do not lock this...there is no "harassment" going on. I edited the post of any mentioning of other posters or their quotes.

And that was the day it all turned around... for me and medical professionals everywhere.

 

[MKA55]

I completely agree, and fervently wish more med students and physicians would be proactive in pursuing this. It always amazes me that for some reason, people (and many bleeding heart medical students) associate the financial prospering of physicians with evil. As if a doctor who has worked hard, helped lots of patients, and earned a good living along the way is somehow less of a good person than another physician simply because that other physician made less. And such thinking implies that any physician who has made a lot of money has done so by taking advantage of sick people, and this is simply not true. You know what else isn't true? The notion that being paid less for less than you're worth somehow makes you a good person. Utter nonsense. It simply means that you allow yourself to be taken advantage of. In almost every other profession or occupation, doing something for less than its worth doesn't make you noble, it makes you look foolish.

I don't understand the logic employed by those who say physicians should not make a lot of money, and its not just because I would like to make good money (although I won't deny it). I don't understand why people are perfectly ok with an absolute airhead like Kim Kardashian making tens of millions of dollars a year (while helping no one, and appearing in shows that appeal to the foulest natures of human beings, not to mention shows that if I watch make me dumber by the second), and yet people are outraged at the thought of a doctor making too much money (while working much longer hours, and trying to help many people). If you actually think about it, it's kind of a sad commentary on the things we place value on as a society. We've learned to celebrate decadence, hedonism, and rapidly-earned wealth (or wealth not truly EARNED at all), while despising and resenting hard work, sacrifice, and higher education.

Perhaps a better example of this double standard is someone like Jim Skinner, CEO of McDonalds (until tomorrow, at any rate). He vastly increased McDonald's sales (by something like 18-20 billion dollars), and as a result was granted a 5 year compensation package of something like 70 million dollars (including other positions and holdings), and was celebrated for his success in magazines and tv shows, including forbes. Now, why in the world are people perfectly ok paying this man HUNDREDS of times what a physician makes, while he produces and sells a product that arguably only DECREASES the quality of people's lives and makes them sicker, and then those same consumers squawk when the physician they hire to fix the damage done to them by McDonald's makes a couple hundred thousand a year? Forgive the language and the run-on sentence, but that is bat$h!t crazy.

It seems to me, that if people are ok with someone making millions while helping no one but themselves, then it stands to reason that they would be willing to adequately compensate someone who has worked extremely hard, sacrificed a lot, and helps A LOT of people (and by the way, has a knowledge/skill set that people not only desire, but in many cases desperately need.) People these days have no problem whatsoever spending thousands of dollars in pursuit of things that trash their health, like fatty food and television, but god forbid they be asked to shell out any money to actually IMPROVE their health. All the while, the agent that improves their health, namely the doctor, is endlessly criticized for making a living by providing such a measly service as PROLONGING THEIR LIFE.

I am not impressed with those med students who shoot themselves in the foot, claiming to be happy making less, while vilifying anyone who tries to make more. I do not think they are noble OR good-intentioned. Rather, quite the opposite. Am I the only one who finds these people to be preachy, self-aggrandizing, overly-zealous, and tiresome to be around? Who are they to impose their standards of happiness and prosperity upon other students or physicians? If they wish to accept less compensation, that is of course their right...but it is a whole other matter to begin to actively sabotage and undermine the attempts of other physicians to prosper to the best of their ability, and to belittle and criticize their efforts to do so. At that point, the bleeding hearts have become oppressors, imposing their own arbitrary standards of value and happiness upon others, and then vilifying their victims as greedy profiteers for not being as ignorantly happy in poverty as they themselves are. Just because one bleeding heart numbskull is satisfied making only 80 grand a year, does not mean that all doctors will be, and nor does it mean that all doctors SHOULD be. We are all free to define the terms of our own happiness and satisfaction, and to pursue it as such.

Perhaps these self-sabotaging med students are happy living lives as monastic priests do, taking vows of poverty, refusing to find pleasure in material comforts or monetary compensation. That is perfectly, fine, and can even be admirable (although I do not particularly agree, I find it to be a form of self-hatred, a kind of groveling self-abasement). But that is still their right. Certainly, not everyone defines happiness as a big house on a hill, with an expensive european sports car in the driveway. But some of us do, and it is not the responsibility of self-flagellating monk-like med students to tell us that OUR version of happiness is illegitimate. And it is certainly not their job to prevent us from earning it.

The bottom line, doctors work hard, they truly care about the people in their care, and they are in possession of a skill set that is in high demand. They have every right to expect good compensation for their efforts. I'm not even going to begin going into all the other reasons why physicians should be well paid (to attract and foster the abilities of the best possible candidates, the ramifications for patient care, the educational costs, etc.), because to talk about those would turn an already long post into a veritable textbook. Suffice it to say, I think there are far more arguments that could be made in favor of high physician compensation than there are arguments that could be made against it. "Because it makes you feel all gooey inside" may work as justification for some self-hating med students who feel the need to abase themselves, but for the rest of us, we may need something a little more substantial than feelings to pay our med school loans, and get our future kids through college.

 

[DrOwnage]

^ this guy is awesome.

 

[OREdwardsJR]

I completely agree, and fervently wish more med students and physicians would be proactive in pursuing this. It always amazes me that for some reason, people (and many bleeding heart medical students) associate the financial prospering of physicians with evil. As if a doctor who has worked hard, helped lots of patients, and earned a good living along the way is somehow less of a good person than another physician simply because that other physician made less. And such thinking implies that any physician who has made a lot of money has done so by taking advantage of sick people, and this is simply not true. You know what else isn't true? The notion that being paid less for less than you're worth somehow makes you a good person. Utter nonsense. It simply means that you allow yourself to be taken advantage of. In almost every other profession or occupation, doing something for less than its worth doesn't make you noble, it makes you look foolish.

etc..

Good write up, I would really like to see a reply from someone with an opposing stance.

 

[Gut Shot]

Good write up, I would really like to see a reply from someone with an opposing stance.

I'm not sure there is an opposing stance, merely a different way of looking at things. Prior to the inception of Medicare, physicians did not earn a great deal of money. The high stature of the profession in society was built through sacrifice and the fundamental goodness of the mission to heal. The Benjamins came later.

The OP and MKA55 make impassioned arguments, but the only counter I can offer is that they are shortsighted ones. Every time we, as a profession, stand up and demand money it becomes a PR disaster. I was walking through the physician parking lot yesterday and taking note of the cars. BMW 5 series. BMW 7 series. Porsche Carrera. Lexus. Infiniti. Mercedes. Mercedes. It's very tough to see the long term benefit of bleating about money when any casual observer can call us greedy.

In that vein I don't see the rare family doc who lives in a trailer in rural Mississippi and barters for chickens as very problematic. He's making the rest of us look good.


Edit: I would be remiss if I did not mention that right after the second Mercedes was a beat up Isuzu Trooper II. Remember those? I'm guessing it belongs to one of the pediatricians.

 

[Law2Doc]

Yeah, there's really no opposing view to saying doctors shouldn't be so apathetic. The answer though is probably to change the type of folks you admit into the profession. The folks in medicine today are largely the bio/biochem majors who went through college holing up in the library and letting others be the cause advocates and campus radicals. Doctors historically have adjusted to declining reimbursements not by making noise but by simply increasing volume. And god forbid you ask doctors to put up a few grand apiece each year for advocacy -- the professions war chest for lobbying is a joke compared to other professions. So yeah, under the new healthcare system doctors are going to see huge challenges in terms of declining reimbursements, and increased roles of midlevels wearing white coats and calling themselves doctor. The field is going to be expected to cover more people without nearly enough money pumped into the system. And what will doctors do about it? Probably nothing aside from the casual whining about how the older docs had it better.

To fix this we need a few years of med school admissions classes who do not resemble the typical biochem squid who slaves in the library so they can become a cardiologist like their dad. We need the guy who doesn't miss a march on Washington, or the gal who throws blood on the fur wearing fashionista, or the dude who spent a summer chained to a tree or defending whales with Greenpeace. I'm only half joking -- it's the members of this profession that make this profession week. Too many people who sent their lives getting shoved into lockers are letting the government do the exact same thing.

Discuss. :>

 

[DrSnips]

Yeah, there's really no opposing view to saying doctors shouldn't be so apathetic. The answer though is probably to change the type of folks you admit into the profession. The folks in medicine today are largely the bio/biochem majors who went through college holing up in the library and letting others be the cause advocates and campus radicals. Doctors historically have adjusted to declining reimbursements not by making noise but by simply increasing volume. And god forbid you ask doctors to put up a few grand apiece each year for advocacy -- the professions war chest for lobbying is a joke compared to other professions. So yeah, under the new healthcare system doctors are going to see huge challenges in terms of declining reimbursements, and increased roles of midlevels wearing white coats and calling themselves doctor. The field is going to be expected to cover more people without nearly enough money pumped into the system. And what will doctors do about it? Probably nothing aside from the casual whining about how the older docs had it better.

To fix this we need a few years of med school admissions classes who do not resemble the typical biochem squid who slaves in the library so they can become a cardiologist like their dad. We need the guy who doesn't miss a march on Washington, or the gal who throws blood on the fur wearing fashionista, or the dude who spent a summer chained to a tree or defending whales with Greenpeace. I'm only half joking -- it's the members of this profession that make this profession week. Too many people who sent their lives getting shoved into lockers are letting the government do the exact same thing.

Discuss. :>

I disagree for the most part. A lot of those radicals did make it into medicine. Unfortunately, their activism involves changing organizations like the AMA, which should be going to bat for physicians, into engines of political change for the underprivileged. I'm not saying that's not a noble cause, but it's one that many others have already taken up. We need just one lobbyist organization for ourselves as physicians and it is the radicals and activists who have taken it away from us and re-purposed it, not the quiet biochemists...

 

[The Imprisoned]

I completely agree, and fervently wish more med students and physicians would be proactive in pursuing this. It always amazes me that for some reason, people (and many bleeding heart medical students) associate the financial prospering of physicians with evil. As if a doctor who has worked hard, helped lots of patients, and earned a good living along the way is somehow less of a good person than another physician simply because that other physician made less. And such thinking implies that any physician who has made a lot of money has done so by taking advantage of sick people, and this is simply not true. You know what else isn't true? The notion that being paid less for less than you're worth somehow makes you a good person. Utter nonsense. It simply means that you allow yourself to be taken advantage of. In almost every other profession or occupation, doing something for less than its worth doesn't make you noble, it makes you look foolish.

I don't understand the logic employed by those who say physicians should not make a lot of money, and its not just because I would like to make good money (although I won't deny it). I don't understand why people are perfectly ok with an absolute airhead like Kim Kardashian making tens of millions of dollars a year (while helping no one, and appearing in shows that appeal to the foulest natures of human beings, not to mention shows that if I watch make me dumber by the second), and yet people are outraged at the thought of a doctor making too much money (while working much longer hours, and trying to help many people). If you actually think about it, it's kind of a sad commentary on the things we place value on as a society. We've learned to celebrate decadence, hedonism, and rapidly-earned wealth (or wealth not truly EARNED at all), while despising and resenting hard work, sacrifice, and higher education.

Perhaps a better example of this double standard is someone like Jim Skinner, CEO of McDonalds (until tomorrow, at any rate). He vastly increased McDonald's sales (by something like 18-20 billion dollars), and as a result was granted a 5 year compensation package of something like 70 million dollars (including other positions and holdings), and was celebrated for his success in magazines and tv shows, including forbes. Now, why in the world are people perfectly ok paying this man HUNDREDS of times what a physician makes, while he produces and sells a product that arguably only DECREASES the quality of people's lives and makes them sicker, and then those same consumers squawk when the physician they hire to fix the damage done to them by McDonald's makes a couple hundred thousand a year? Forgive the language and the run-on sentence, but that is bat$h!t crazy.

It seems to me, that if people are ok with someone making millions while helping no one but themselves, then it stands to reason that they would be willing to adequately compensate someone who has worked extremely hard, sacrificed a lot, and helps A LOT of people (and by the way, has a knowledge/skill set that people not only desire, but in many cases desperately need.) People these days have no problem whatsoever spending thousands of dollars in pursuit of things that trash their health, like fatty food and television, but god forbid they be asked to shell out any money to actually IMPROVE their health. All the while, the agent that improves their health, namely the doctor, is endlessly criticized for making a living by providing such a measly service as PROLONGING THEIR LIFE.

I am not impressed with those med students who shoot themselves in the foot, claiming to be happy making less, while vilifying anyone who tries to make more. I do not think they are noble OR good-intentioned. Rather, quite the opposite. Am I the only one who finds these people to be preachy, self-aggrandizing, overly-zealous, and tiresome to be around? Who are they to impose their standards of happiness and prosperity upon other students or physicians? If they wish to accept less compensation, that is of course their right...but it is a whole other matter to begin to actively sabotage and undermine the attempts of other physicians to prosper to the best of their ability, and to belittle and criticize their efforts to do so. At that point, the bleeding hearts have become oppressors, imposing their own arbitrary standards of value and happiness upon others, and then vilifying their victims as greedy profiteers for not being as ignorantly happy in poverty as they themselves are. Just because one bleeding heart numbskull is satisfied making only 80 grand a year, does not mean that all doctors will be, and nor does it mean that all doctors SHOULD be. We are all free to define the terms of our own happiness and satisfaction, and to pursue it as such.

Perhaps these self-sabotaging med students are happy living lives as monastic priests do, taking vows of poverty, refusing to find pleasure in material comforts or monetary compensation. That is perfectly, fine, and can even be admirable (although I do not particularly agree, I find it to be a form of self-hatred, a kind of groveling self-abasement). But that is still their right. Certainly, not everyone defines happiness as a big house on a hill, with an expensive european sports car in the driveway. But some of us do, and it is not the responsibility of self-flagellating monk-like med students to tell us that OUR version of happiness is illegitimate. And it is certainly not their job to prevent us from earning it.

The bottom line, doctors work hard, they truly care about the people in their care, and they are in possession of a skill set that is in high demand. They have every right to expect good compensation for their efforts. I'm not even going to begin going into all the other reasons why physicians should be well paid (to attract and foster the abilities of the best possible candidates, the ramifications for patient care, the educational costs, etc.), because to talk about those would turn an already long post into a veritable textbook. Suffice it to say, I think there are far more arguments that could be made in favor of high physician compensation than there are arguments that could be made against it. "Because it makes you feel all gooey inside" may work as justification for some self-hating med students who feel the need to abase themselves, but for the rest of us, we may need something a little more substantial than feelings to pay our med school loans, and get our future kids through college.

You sir, are my hero lol

 

[OREdwardsJR]

I'm not sure there is an opposing stance, merely a different way of looking at things. Prior to the inception of Medicare, physicians did not earn a great deal of money. The high stature of the profession in society was built through sacrifice and the fundamental goodness of the mission to heal. The Benjamins came later.

I guess I should have been more specific. I'd like to hear WHY someone believes that physician compensation should be cut, from someone who believes so. I am not able to give an educated opinion on the matter but I'd like to hear what current physicians think about the situation.

Are doctors currently compensated fairly (taking into consideration all the training and work that they have, and continue to, put in)? Should they be paid more or do they deserve to get their salaries slashed?

 

[Abby_Normal]

1. For the posters implying doctors are the only people "accused" of making too much money: DID YOU SLEEP THROUGH ALL THE CRITICISMS OF WALL ST.??

2. When doctors support lower salaries based upon their ethics and values, that isn't called being cowardly. That's called being principled. It is no difference than supporting higher salaries based upon deeply held values. When determining someone's spine, why the argue a point is often more enlightening than what they are arguing.

3. I could be wrong, but from what I've seen, most physicians that agree that doctors could afford to make less money are directing their comments at the top-earning specialties. They don't seem to be advocating massive pay cuts for primary care providers, rather for the upper end of the pay scale, and usually whatever pay cuts they are advocating are predicated on the basis that that money could better be used elsewhere.

 

[Gut Shot]

I guess I should have been more specific. I'd like to hear WHY someone believes that physician compensation should be cut, from someone who believes so. I am not able to give an educated opinion on the matter but I'd like to hear what current physicians think about the situation.

You will have a very hard time finding a practicing physician who believes that compensation should be cut. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just saying they would be fringe lunatics.

However, I do think it's fairly easy to find physicians for whom monetary compensation is a secondary reward for the work. I can point to some infectious disease experts I have known through the years, who are really into global health. That field is the lowest paid IM subspecialty, and I doubt they make much beyond six figures, but they get to travel the world and have adventures while saving lives.

You'll also find physicians who are simply content with less. I probably fall into this category. If someone else feels they need 400K, or 500K, or 600K to be happy, that's fine. I don't.

And then there are the medical students. Many of them come from households where 100K is a vast salary. Just give them some time. They will all learn sooner or later that walking the line between educational debt, family needs, and getting a late start in retirement savings isn't as easy as it seems.

Are doctors currently compensated fairly (taking into consideration all the training and work that they have, and continue to, put in)? Should they be paid more or do they deserve to get their salaries slashed?

Fairness is really in the eye of the beholder. I feel fairly compensated for my work, but that reflects my own nature and circumstances. From a policy standpoint the country should probably raise reimbursement levels for primary care, and hold or selectively reduce them for procedural specialists. The gross imbalance that exists between these two ends of the spectrum reflects little more than a difference in lobbying power, and it's not sustainable.

 

[Frazier]

I completely agree, and fervently wish more med students and physicians would be proactive in pursuing this. It always amazes me that for some reason, people (and many bleeding heart medical students) associate the financial prospering of physicians with evil. As if a doctor who has worked hard, helped lots of patients, and earned a good living along the way is somehow less of a good person than another physician simply because that other physician made less. And such thinking implies that any physician who has made a lot of money has done so by taking advantage of sick people, and this is simply not true. You know what else isn't true? The notion that being paid less for less than you're worth somehow makes you a good person. Utter nonsense. It simply means that you allow yourself to be taken advantage of. In almost every other profession or occupation, doing something for less than its worth doesn't make you noble, it makes you look foolish.

I don't understand the logic employed by those who say physicians should not make a lot of money, and its not just because I would like to make good money (although I won't deny it). I don't understand why people are perfectly ok with an absolute airhead like Kim Kardashian making tens of millions of dollars a year (while helping no one, and appearing in shows that appeal to the foulest natures of human beings, not to mention shows that if I watch make me dumber by the second), and yet people are outraged at the thought of a doctor making too much money (while working much longer hours, and trying to help many people). If you actually think about it, it's kind of a sad commentary on the things we place value on as a society. We've learned to celebrate decadence, hedonism, and rapidly-earned wealth (or wealth not truly EARNED at all), while despising and resenting hard work, sacrifice, and higher education.

Perhaps a better example of this double standard is someone like Jim Skinner, CEO of McDonalds (until tomorrow, at any rate). He vastly increased McDonald's sales (by something like 18-20 billion dollars), and as a result was granted a 5 year compensation package of something like 70 million dollars (including other positions and holdings), and was celebrated for his success in magazines and tv shows, including forbes. Now, why in the world are people perfectly ok paying this man HUNDREDS of times what a physician makes, while he produces and sells a product that arguably only DECREASES the quality of people's lives and makes them sicker, and then those same consumers squawk when the physician they hire to fix the damage done to them by McDonald's makes a couple hundred thousand a year? Forgive the language and the run-on sentence, but that is bat$h!t crazy.

It seems to me, that if people are ok with someone making millions while helping no one but themselves, then it stands to reason that they would be willing to adequately compensate someone who has worked extremely hard, sacrificed a lot, and helps A LOT of people (and by the way, has a knowledge/skill set that people not only desire, but in many cases desperately need.) People these days have no problem whatsoever spending thousands of dollars in pursuit of things that trash their health, like fatty food and television, but god forbid they be asked to shell out any money to actually IMPROVE their health. All the while, the agent that improves their health, namely the doctor, is endlessly criticized for making a living by providing such a measly service as PROLONGING THEIR LIFE.

I am not impressed with those med students who shoot themselves in the foot, claiming to be happy making less, while vilifying anyone who tries to make more. I do not think they are noble OR good-intentioned. Rather, quite the opposite. Am I the only one who finds these people to be preachy, self-aggrandizing, overly-zealous, and tiresome to be around? Who are they to impose their standards of happiness and prosperity upon other students or physicians? If they wish to accept less compensation, that is of course their right...but it is a whole other matter to begin to actively sabotage and undermine the attempts of other physicians to prosper to the best of their ability, and to belittle and criticize their efforts to do so. At that point, the bleeding hearts have become oppressors, imposing their own arbitrary standards of value and happiness upon others, and then vilifying their victims as greedy profiteers for not being as ignorantly happy in poverty as they themselves are. Just because one bleeding heart numbskull is satisfied making only 80 grand a year, does not mean that all doctors will be, and nor does it mean that all doctors SHOULD be. We are all free to define the terms of our own happiness and satisfaction, and to pursue it as such.

Perhaps these self-sabotaging med students are happy living lives as monastic priests do, taking vows of poverty, refusing to find pleasure in material comforts or monetary compensation. That is perfectly, fine, and can even be admirable (although I do not particularly agree, I find it to be a form of self-hatred, a kind of groveling self-abasement). But that is still their right. Certainly, not everyone defines happiness as a big house on a hill, with an expensive european sports car in the driveway. But some of us do, and it is not the responsibility of self-flagellating monk-like med students to tell us that OUR version of happiness is illegitimate. And it is certainly not their job to prevent us from earning it.

The bottom line, doctors work hard, they truly care about the people in their care, and they are in possession of a skill set that is in high demand. They have every right to expect good compensation for their efforts. I'm not even going to begin going into all the other reasons why physicians should be well paid (to attract and foster the abilities of the best possible candidates, the ramifications for patient care, the educational costs, etc.), because to talk about those would turn an already long post into a veritable textbook. Suffice it to say, I think there are far more arguments that could be made in favor of high physician compensation than there are arguments that could be made against it. "Because it makes you feel all gooey inside" may work as justification for some self-hating med students who feel the need to abase themselves, but for the rest of us, we may need something a little more substantial than feelings to pay our med school loans, and get our future kids through college.

You shall be our leader.

 

[Doodledog]

To fix this we need a few years of med school admissions classes who do not resemble the typical biochem squid who slaves in the library so they can become a cardiologist like their dad. We need the guy who doesn't miss a march on Washington, or the gal who throws blood on the fur wearing fashionista, or the dude who spent a summer chained to a tree or defending whales with Greenpeace.

To clarify what I believe you are saying here, you believe we should change med school admissions guidelines to discourage science majors, to underemphasize GPA and MCAT, to ensure no favoritism for those whose parents were physicians or to even actively bias against those whose parents were physicians AND to increase emphasis on admitting those who were politically active in college. These choices are made recognizing, as you do from your fur and whale examples, that it is likely that many if not most of those who were highly politically active come from a more leftist perspective? Regardless, it would seem impossible to bias for or against any one political view in admissions. You could bias for social activism relative to major/grades/MCAT/parents as doctors, but not for one political viewpoint. I guess you could assume that the leftist would all change their minds but keep their activist perspective, but, what if they decided to become pediatricians?

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the message you wish me to convey to our Dean of Admissions? Or perhaps this is what you meant. I'm curious.

 

[SurfingDoctor]

I'm not sure there is an opposing stance, merely a different way of looking at things. Prior to the inception of Medicare, physicians did not earn a great deal of money. The high stature of the profession in society was built through sacrifice and the fundamental goodness of the mission to heal. The Benjamins came later.

The OP and MKA55 make impassioned arguments, but the only counter I can offer is that they are shortsighted ones. Every time we, as a profession, stand up and demand money it becomes a PR disaster. I was walking through the physician parking lot yesterday and taking note of the cars. BMW 5 series. BMW 7 series. Porsche Carrera. Lexus. Infiniti. Mercedes. Mercedes. It's very tough to see the long term benefit of bleating about money when any casual observer can call us greedy.

In that vein I don't see the rare family doc who lives in a trailer in rural Mississippi and barters for chickens as very problematic. He's making the rest of us look good.


Edit: I would be remiss if I did not mention that right after the second Mercedes was a beat up Isuzu Trooper II. Remember those? I'm guessing it belongs to one of the pediatricians.

I drive a 2004 Lancer. I dont know what the Blue Book value is because they don't list conditions as POS.
.
Overall, I sense a lot of entitlement in a lot of responses. All I can say is prepare to be disappointed

 

[KnuxNole]

Society places more value on Kim Kardash than doctors.

Unless a celeb becomes a doc, or a doc becomes a celeb(Dr. Oz). I know quite a few people that listen to every word he says like the bible.

Also, while I do agree doctors need to be compensated, I don't think we can use "We WORK HARD" as a valid reason alone. As far as the nice cars goes, eh. When the nice car gets stolen multiple times, it kinda gets annoying. 😛

 

[SurfingDoctor]

From a policy standpoint the country should probably raise reimbursement levels for primary care, and hold or selectively reduce them for procedural specialists. The gross imbalance that exists between these two ends of the spectrum reflects little more than a difference in lobbying power, and it's not sustainable.

This is absolutely true. There is vast income inequality among specialists unrelated to training or work hours.

 

[celkon]

How do we make our stand then?

 

[anbuitachi]

I 10000% agree with OP's post. I've had discussions about this with some friends. There are classmates of mine who believes that if you didn't enter the profession solely to help someone, then you shouldn't have applied. Salary shouldn't be an issue if it remains 100k or more since we can survive on that. It's a naive way of thinking in my opinion. I agree doctors should be fairly compensated for our skills, hard work, and dedication to society. Many other professors offer higher paying salaries that benefit our society less than health.

If only we have a strong union like nurses do... sigh

 

[KnuxNole]

How do we make our stand then?

Go on strike! Every M.D. and D.O. physician will be unavailable.
😎

 

[The kitchen sink]

Go on strike! Every M.D. and D.O. physician will be unavailable.
😎

Out of curiosity, has that ever happened before?

 

[FunnyCurrent]

cool story bro...

everyone eventually "grows a spine" be it during 3rd year or residency.

If a student enters medical school starry eyed I am willing to bet they didn't get very much clinical experience as a undergrad.

 

[Frazier]

Out of curiosity, has that ever happened before?

Someone mentioned canada earlier in Another thread(?).

 

[tankgunner]

the famous saskatchewan strike?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatchewan_Doctors'_Strike

more recently in the uk,
Doctors vote to strike again as pension row escalates
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/28/doctors-vote-strike-government-pensions?newsfeed=true

 

[jonmadden]

This thread title says everything, government and corporations will ride everyone or make money till a 700k spines can be transplanted

Anti-trust laws forbid it here, but by paying nurse practioners 100% of a docs fee its clear theres no monopoly and changes things

94% of healthcare costs is unrelated as well as the rise in costs to physician compensation

Every other euro country people quote actually spends more on physicians as a % of healthcare expenditures, they just dont allow large corporate profits and margins to be made off sick people as well as having a much healthier population

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Go on strike! Every M.D. and D.O. physician will be unavailable.
😎

Out of curiosity, has that ever happened before?

Physicians, for the most part, cannot strike. That's because most physicians in private practice are independent contractors -- each works as an independent business. If all of the physicians in a local area agree to stop taking a certain insurance, or stop admitting to a certain hospital -- that's an anti-trust issue and is illegal. This happened awhile ago -- a group of docs in a community felt the major (? only) insurer in the area's reimbursements were being cut too much, so they all agreed to refuse to sign up. If I remember correctly, they got smoked in court for anti-trust market manipulation. Which is kinda funny, since if there is only one insurance program in the area, they can basically set any rate they want and there is nothing you can do about it -- you can refuse to accept that insurance, but you can't organize with your colleagues to do so also.

Physicians employed by a hospital might be able to strike. They can if they are true employees -- this is often true in academics. If they are hired as independent contractors, then same problem as above.

Since all residents are employees (to my knowledge), they can strike. But only as individual programs. Any individual program could strike. All of the residents in California couldn't organize together, for the same reasons.

All that said, I'm not a JD.

 

[FunnyCurrent]

why are nurses allowed to strike?

 

[mTOR]

ITT: elitism, tribalism, and entitlement.


Someone open the floodgates for the midlevels to replace these brats.

 

[Lui Kang]

Wow you will never hear a banker, lawyer, plumber, <insert other profession> say they should earn less because people in 3rd world countries are starving. Unfortunately, many in our profession think like this and it is a very flawed line of thinking that I think is prevalent and dangerous to the profession.

To all future doctors...nay...physicians, since everyone is a "doctor" these days, I urge you to stand up for your profession. We signed up to help and heal people and knew that certain sacrifices were required. However, this doesn't mean we are condemned to take abuse, get screwed, and act like cowards that surrender to anyone and everyone at the expense of our own well-being.

Society already has the perception that physicians are rich semi-pro golfers that chill on their fleet of yachts in their downtime. This is bad enough, but let's add lack of lobbying for our interests on top of that. But wait, there's more. Let's add those within the profession that rather than advocate for doctors do the opposite. This is not a good position to be in. Yet, people act surprised when our salaries are targeted for cuts (with no benefit to anyone). People act surprised when nurses begin saying they can do 95% of what we can. When you reach that point, it's already too late.

Unfortunately some people still do not get it. It's time to cut the holier-than-thou "physician's burden" attitude and grow a spine. I'm tired of seeing the constant hacking away at this profession while some just stand idly by and watch, or in some cases actually pitch in with an ax of their own. I urge everyone to stand up for themselves and the profession as a whole because if we don't then nobody else will.

DISCUSS - Also mod please do not lock this...there is no "harassment" going on. I edited the post of any mentioning of other posters or their quotes.

Please go into Anes and put the nurses back in check. They need people like you.

 

[Jay Gatsby]

Relax, old sport. Plenty of money to go around.

 

[Gut Shot]

I drive a 2004 Lancer. I dont know what the Blue Book value is because they don't list conditions as POS.

Nice.

Overall, I sense a lot of entitlement in a lot of responses. All I can say is prepare to be disappointed

I do find it somewhat odd that people feel the need to get so offended by their classmates on these issues. Actually, my own class was rather large (>150), and I don't recall a single incident where anyone ever vilified anyone else over income potential.

Of course, I might have just been oblivious to such things. I entered medical school a few years older than most of my peers, and I handled it by finding a few good friends, focusing on my studies, and ignoring people I didn't particularly care for. It's an approach I would heartily recommend for several of the posters on this thread.

 

[Medstudent1968]

How do we make our stand then?

I don't know about the other specialties, but primary care needs to get mad.

[youtube]q_qgVn-Op7Q[/youtube]

 

[Frazier]

I don't know about the other specialties, but primary care needs to get mad.

[youtube]q_qgVn-Op7Q[/youtube]

1) Look at abusive, entitled patient.
2) Shout out "I'm mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore!"
3) Get sued. Jury awards patient 3 million dollars.

😛

 

[unrealplayer]

I completely agree, and fervently wish more med students and physicians would be proactive in pursuing this. It always amazes me that for some reason, people (and many bleeding heart medical students) associate the financial prospering of physicians with evil. As if a doctor who has worked hard, helped lots of patients, and earned a good living along the way is somehow less of a good person than another physician simply because that other physician made less. And such thinking implies that any physician who has made a lot of money has done so by taking advantage of sick people, and this is simply not true. You know what else isn't true? The notion that being paid less for less than you're worth somehow makes you a good person. Utter nonsense. It simply means that you allow yourself to be taken advantage of. In almost every other profession or occupation, doing something for less than its worth doesn't make you noble, it makes you look foolish.

I don't understand the logic employed by those who say physicians should not make a lot of money, and its not just because I would like to make good money (although I won't deny it). I don't understand why people are perfectly ok with an absolute airhead like Kim Kardashian making tens of millions of dollars a year (while helping no one, and appearing in shows that appeal to the foulest natures of human beings, not to mention shows that if I watch make me dumber by the second), and yet people are outraged at the thought of a doctor making too much money (while working much longer hours, and trying to help many people). If you actually think about it, it's kind of a sad commentary on the things we place value on as a society. We've learned to celebrate decadence, hedonism, and rapidly-earned wealth (or wealth not truly EARNED at all), while despising and resenting hard work, sacrifice, and higher education.

Perhaps a better example of this double standard is someone like Jim Skinner, CEO of McDonalds (until tomorrow, at any rate). He vastly increased McDonald's sales (by something like 18-20 billion dollars), and as a result was granted a 5 year compensation package of something like 70 million dollars (including other positions and holdings), and was celebrated for his success in magazines and tv shows, including forbes. Now, why in the world are people perfectly ok paying this man HUNDREDS of times what a physician makes, while he produces and sells a product that arguably only DECREASES the quality of people's lives and makes them sicker, and then those same consumers squawk when the physician they hire to fix the damage done to them by McDonald's makes a couple hundred thousand a year? Forgive the language and the run-on sentence, but that is bat$h!t crazy.

It seems to me, that if people are ok with someone making millions while helping no one but themselves, then it stands to reason that they would be willing to adequately compensate someone who has worked extremely hard, sacrificed a lot, and helps A LOT of people (and by the way, has a knowledge/skill set that people not only desire, but in many cases desperately need.) People these days have no problem whatsoever spending thousands of dollars in pursuit of things that trash their health, like fatty food and television, but god forbid they be asked to shell out any money to actually IMPROVE their health. All the while, the agent that improves their health, namely the doctor, is endlessly criticized for making a living by providing such a measly service as PROLONGING THEIR LIFE.

I am not impressed with those med students who shoot themselves in the foot, claiming to be happy making less, while vilifying anyone who tries to make more. I do not think they are noble OR good-intentioned. Rather, quite the opposite. Am I the only one who finds these people to be preachy, self-aggrandizing, overly-zealous, and tiresome to be around? Who are they to impose their standards of happiness and prosperity upon other students or physicians? If they wish to accept less compensation, that is of course their right...but it is a whole other matter to begin to actively sabotage and undermine the attempts of other physicians to prosper to the best of their ability, and to belittle and criticize their efforts to do so. At that point, the bleeding hearts have become oppressors, imposing their own arbitrary standards of value and happiness upon others, and then vilifying their victims as greedy profiteers for not being as ignorantly happy in poverty as they themselves are. Just because one bleeding heart numbskull is satisfied making only 80 grand a year, does not mean that all doctors will be, and nor does it mean that all doctors SHOULD be. We are all free to define the terms of our own happiness and satisfaction, and to pursue it as such.

Perhaps these self-sabotaging med students are happy living lives as monastic priests do, taking vows of poverty, refusing to find pleasure in material comforts or monetary compensation. That is perfectly, fine, and can even be admirable (although I do not particularly agree, I find it to be a form of self-hatred, a kind of groveling self-abasement). But that is still their right. Certainly, not everyone defines happiness as a big house on a hill, with an expensive european sports car in the driveway. But some of us do, and it is not the responsibility of self-flagellating monk-like med students to tell us that OUR version of happiness is illegitimate. And it is certainly not their job to prevent us from earning it.

The bottom line, doctors work hard, they truly care about the people in their care, and they are in possession of a skill set that is in high demand. They have every right to expect good compensation for their efforts. I'm not even going to begin going into all the other reasons why physicians should be well paid (to attract and foster the abilities of the best possible candidates, the ramifications for patient care, the educational costs, etc.), because to talk about those would turn an already long post into a veritable textbook. Suffice it to say, I think there are far more arguments that could be made in favor of high physician compensation than there are arguments that could be made against it. "Because it makes you feel all gooey inside" may work as justification for some self-hating med students who feel the need to abase themselves, but for the rest of us, we may need something a little more substantial than feelings to pay our med school loans, and get our future kids through college.

Awesome post, I completely agree. Why should doctors be criticized for rightful compensation when we see athletes (many of which do not even have college degrees and get paid to do a hobby for a living) get paid absurd amounts of money? Why shouldn't a doctor with 10+ years of advanced schooling and training, incredible responsibility, and long work hours get paid well? I'm pretty sure a doctor has a bigger impact on society than a person like LeBron James does (James signed a 6 yr contract worth $110.1 million). I've always heard you can't put a price on a life. So why not award those who save them?

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

why are nurses allowed to strike?

Because they're almost always EMPLOYEES working for someone else. That's the key concept here and aProgDirector already touched on it. Physicians (until relatively recently) have almost always been small business owners (practices) or independent contractors with a hospital. We're seeing more physicians shift towards being employees of hospitals directly now but the catch is that only employees of a certain business can strike. That's the other reason why its been so easy for nurses to form unions while physicians typically haven't been able to due to anti-trust laws.

 

[Siggy]

Because they're almost always EMPLOYEES working for someone else. That's the key concept here and aProgDirector already touched on it. Physicians (until relatively recently) have almost always been small business owners (practices) or independent contractors with a hospital. We're seeing more physicians shift towards being employees of hospitals directly now but the catch is that only employees of a certain business can strike. That's the other reason why its been so easy for nurses to form unions while physicians typically haven't been able to due to anti-trust laws.

To add to this, in California physicians can't really be "employees" of hospitals since the California Medical Boards interpretation of various California Codes has determined that the "corporate practice of medicine" is illegal. Even places like Kaiser doesn't "hire" individual physicians, but contracts with a specific physician practice group (Permanente Medical Group of Northern/Sourthern California).

 

[mTOR]

Awesome post, I completely agree. Why should doctors be criticized for rightful compensation when we see athletes (many of which do not even have college degrees and get paid to do a hobby for a living) get paid absurd amounts of money? Why shouldn't a doctor with 10+ years of advanced schooling and training, incredible responsibility, and long work hours get paid well? I'm pretty sure a doctor has a bigger impact on society than a person like LeBron James does (James signed a 6 yr contract worth $110.1 million). I've always heard you can't put a price on a life. So why not award those who save them?

If money was such a centrally driving concern in your passion to become a physician, then surely, you voiced these thoughts in your personal statement?


(I'm willing to wager that had you did, it probably would have saved everyone the headache of having to hear you whine about not getting paid like a baller 🙄)

 

[jonmadden]

Because they're almost always EMPLOYEES working for someone else. That's the key concept here and aProgDirector already touched on it. Physicians (until relatively recently) have almost always been small business owners (practices) or independent contractors with a hospital. We're seeing more physicians shift towards being employees of hospitals directly now but the catch is that only employees of a certain business can strike. That's the other reason why its been so easy for nurses to form unions while physicians typically haven't been able to due to anti-trust laws.

Its not, I'll look it up the law, but physicians have been employed by hospitals for alot longer than "recently" its more like since the time after witch doctors

I seriously cant believe some of you guys are blabbing about athletes. Search posts from 10 years ago and you can read your entire conversation and next thought probably

Look at every healthcare related company that has a stock symbol, thats where your lebron james salary went.

And no its necessary or normal as no other developed country allows pharma, long term care facilities, and other conglomerates to make the same profit margin off the sick and dying they do in this country

Physicians and all healthcare workers 10%, them 90% and they were the part of the 2.5 trillion a year that drives costs up

You both deserve to be penniless

 

[ucladoc2b]

Awesome post, I completely agree. Why should doctors be criticized for rightful compensation when we see athletes (many of which do not even have college degrees and get paid to do a hobby for a living) get paid absurd amounts of money? Why shouldn't a doctor with 10+ years of advanced schooling and training, incredible responsibility, and long work hours get paid well? I'm pretty sure a doctor has a bigger impact on society than a person like LeBron James does (James signed a 6 yr contract worth $110.1 million). I've always heard you can't put a price on a life. So why not award those who save them?

The collective earnings of all physicians likely dwarfs the combined salaries of all the F500 CEOs, sports stars, the Kardashians, etc. (Likely, physician earnings are probalby over $200BB, if not more). Fifteen percent of GDP is spent on healthcare, so I think society values what we do plenty.

Comparing LeBron James and the CEO of McDonalds to physician earnings is comparing apples and oranges. There are very few people with these types of earnings. Basically, it's all economics of scale. NBA has TV contracs. MCD is a huge company with thousands of outlets (and thousands of employees). That's why they earn so much money. If you want more money, you will have to do the same thing. Think Dr. Oz, the Frist family, or Palmaz and Schatz. If you can deliver something that people want on a huge scale, you will make as much as they do.


Most doctors are in private practice with a few other doctors. There is only so much time in the day and so much you can do in a day. Economics of scale just really doesn't work as well in a labor-intensive industry.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

Its not, I'll look it up the law, but physicians have been employed by hospitals for alot longer than "recently" its more like since the time after witch doctors

I seriously cant believe some of you guys are blabbing about athletes. Search posts from 10 years ago and you can read your entire conversation and next thought probably

Look at every healthcare related company that has a stock symbol, thats where your lebron james salary went.

And no its necessary or normal as no other developed country allows pharma, long term care facilities, and other conglomerates to make the same profit margin off the sick and dying they do in this country

Physicians and all healthcare workers 10%, them 90% and they were the part of the 2.5 trillion a year that drives costs up

You both deserve to be penniless

I have a hard time even reading your posts they're so broken up and random. Anyway, no it's not like "since the time after witch doctors". As I said before, the majority of physicians working at a hospital were never directly employed by hospitals they have been "independent contractors" in a practice that is contracting out with a hospital. If a group of contractors tries to get together and demand a minimum price it's called price-fixing. Even if what you said was true, there has to be a critical mass of employees as compared to contractors to make a strike/union have any effect which is why every union tries to automatically sign up its employees as soon as they start working somewhere.

I never even mentioned anything included in the rest of your post. Seriously though bud you need to start thinking in complete paragraphs.

 

[unrealplayer]

If money was such a centrally driving concern in your passion to become a physician, then surely, you voiced these thoughts in your personal statement?


(I'm willing to wager that had you did, it probably would have saved everyone the headache of having to hear you whine about not getting paid like a baller 🙄)

Absolutely, in fact it was my attention grabber in my personal statement. 😀 I'm not here to whine, just speaking from what I've heard (4 family members are PCPs). If money was my top priority, I would have gone to the NBA to dethrone King James.

 

[Mass Effect]

We need the guy who doesn't miss a march on Washington, or the gal who throws blood on the fur wearing fashionista, or the dude who spent a summer chained to a tree or defending whales with Greenpeace. I'm only half joking -- it's the members of this profession that make this profession week. Too many people who sent their lives getting shoved into lockers are letting the government do the exact same thing.

Discuss. :>

You say all that now, but I've read posts from you in the past that have basically advocated med students and residents to essentially shut up and do what they're told by their attending, no matter what it is. You realize that the type of people you're advocating here won't be the type to do that, right? They'll take a stand against ethical breaches, work-hour issues, etc. Frankly, I'm all for it, but I was just surprised to hear you are too.

 

[da8s0859q]

If money was such a centrally driving concern in your passion to become a physician, then surely, you voiced these thoughts in your personal statement?

I'm not sure why you're hanging around to take potshots at people in this thread. If physicians were paid a small fraction of what they're currently paid as compensation for everything involved in physicianhood, would you have still been willing to become one?