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If they cut the pay it would also undoubtedly cut the competition also so I would say if they did indeed both go down I would still try to become a doctor.
Maybe it's just me, but I think the people that work the hardest and contribute the most to society should be compensated proportionately. I think doctors fit in that category. If they weren't compensated proportionately, then I would find a profession that was. I liked the previous poster's idea of becoming a nurse...
RN's average salary is about 60K and the median is about 56K.
RN's average salary is about 60K and the median is about 56K.
RN's average salary is about 60K and the median is about 56K.
...which you make after 2 to 4 years of school instead of the 7 to 8 years a doc goes through. I'd rather have those 3 years or so of 60K income rather than spinning my wheels income wise and making only slightly more coming out.
A nurse who entered nursing school the same time that you entered undergrad is going to be a lot more than 3 years ahead of you.
My friend started nursing school when I started undergrad 4 years ago. He's got an A.S. now (working on B.S.) but has already been working for two years. Meanwhile I have EIGHT more years to go before I actually begin my career. So total it's more like TEN years different between becoming an A.S. degree RN and an attending MD.
...which you make after 2 to 4 years of school instead of the 7 to 8 years a doc goes through. I'd rather have those 3 years or so of 60K income rather than spinning my wheels income wise and making only slightly more coming out.
you'd still make more in the long run as a doctor...
Besides, being a doctor and being a nurse are entirely different things. You couldn't pay me enough to be a nurse.
Yeah in the long run, but if we're saying it takes 5 years out of high school to become a nurse, and 11 years out of high school to become a doctor, then that's an additional 6 years of income. If nurses make $60,000 and doctors make only $15,000 more than that, it would take ~24 years of practice to make up the difference. And that would be with any job that makes $60,000 a year.
With the doctor shortage as it is already, seems like it would only get worse if this were the case.
So the 75k salary means 40 hours/week? Or are we still talking 24+ hour shifts on call blah blah blah?
I'm not saying this statement is true or false, but it seems kind of odd that you're making such an assertion as someone who is not a doctor.I suppose if I could just say one thing it's that I hope we all realize that the most rewarding parts of a physicians work don't come in his/her paycheck every month (and don't say "yeah, it gets direct deposited..." I know you two or three jerks were thinking it, hehe)
I'm not saying this statement is true or false, but it seems kind of odd that you're making such an assertion as someone who is not a doctor.
Consider the following hypothetical scenario:
The AMA (and every other major governing body or organization of influence) decides that there will be a cap placed on the amount that any physician can make, per year, at $75,000... (which would of course be adjusted according to inflation, etc as time went by, but would remain relatively equal to that for the foreseeable future).
To relieve what would become an outrageous amount of debt, the government would completely fund every cent of your medical education.
No chance. I do not suffer from premedicitis. There is absolutely no way I would be willing to work as hard as doctors work if I was not being paid what I was worth for it. No way. That's not to say money is THE most important aspect of medicine to me, it's not. But if you expect me to spend my 20s first in the library, and then as an intern/resident being abused in the wards, pro-bono, forget it. That's bloody insulting.
Drop the salary down to $75k and you lose out on a ton of highly competitive, highly driven, highly ambitious people. At the end of the day, I'd much prefer the brilliant surgeon who went in it for the love of money to the mediocre one who does it because he loves to help. The latter might be a nicer, friendlier, better human being, but that doesn't mean he's better at cutting.