The point is that people on here aren't comparing their futures to "most of the world," because "most of the world" isn't making the sacrifices that doctors make. "Most of the world" isn't going to jump out of bed at 3 AM to go back to the hospital to perform a surgery. "Most of the world" isn't dishing out exceedingly high malpractice insurance premium payments to have covering in the likely event that they get sued. You make the job seem worry free, as if all doctors should have concern about is their patients. That isn't the world we live in.
Most of the world won't, maybe, but there are people who are paid a LOT less than doctors who would (firefighters, EMT's, Coast Guard, etc). It's true that they aren't paying into malpractice, but, once again, there have been thousands and thousands of doctors before us that have been paying into that insurance on less than the numbers we're even talking about right now. It CAN be done.
quadratic said:
Realize that some people's payoffs are different from others. Realize that not everyone is from a wealthy family (not saying you are, just making a point). The demographics have changed. More than ever, people from the lower middle and working classes are coming into the health care fields. Some of these people need this payoff because they have worked hard. When you're parents are hardworking, and your family is just getting by from paycheck to paycheck, and you hear sums of debt that's more than a house mortgage (>200K), it's a HELL of a big deal.
Yes, it's a big deal, but that's why doctors get paid as much as they do. We aren't arguing whether or not doctors should get a dock in pay. I haven't brought that up once. What I am arguing is that doctors DO make enough to live their lives, as evidenced by the 60,000 new doctors a year who have been getting on with their lives after medical school. What we're arguing is whether or not the doctors should have a right to complain that they AREN'T making enough money, which is the question that the OP posted. And because you have only brought up the few doctors you know versus all the information I was able to find just through Google, you have yet to prove that doctors NEED (as in need enough to go on strike) a pay raise rather than being able to take what they've been getting by on for the last few decades.
Quadratic said:
Yeah, shame on people who want to enjoy what they do for a living AND be well compensated for it.
What exactly do people enjoy about medicine if it isn't putting the patient first? If you put the patient ahead of yourself, it generally follows that the money would come second. Yet, the patient certainly would not be in the minds of the doctors who decide to unionize; the DOCTORS would be in the doctor's minds.
So what exactly about medicine are people getting into medicine for if it is not to help the patients? What is there to enjoy? And if there is, doesn't this lead right back up to the patient coming first? And if the patient comes first, shouldn't the act of unionizing just to get more money at the risk of the patients seem somewhat contradicting of the reasons you SAY you're getting into medicine?
quadratic said:
Here. I'll repost.
http://www.allied-physicians.com/salary_surveys/physician-salaries.htm
Dienekes said:
You are falling victim to what Mark Twain was talking about when he said "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics." You are probably looking at the mean which is prone to being skewed by persons with outlying salaries (those who own multi-physician practices, work in high volume areas, etc). This is one reason why if you look at differing sources of information on salaries you can see a significant (>20%) variability in reported salaries.
It's not your fault that you didn't see the shortcomings of your data source; you simply didn't know any better. As I used to tell my students- I can forgive ignorance, but once you have been told better and still refuse to admit when you are wrong, then you are being stupid, which is unforgivable in my book (and the book of many other people as well).
Well, there can't be anything worse than to not be forgiven by a sage, wise teacher such as yourself. Thank you, oh knowledgeable one, for imparting your valuable advice on why facts are bad.
Come on. I've heard this argument WAY too many times. It basically says that, "You can't find any facts to back up your opinion, because all facts out there are lies, so therefore, I must be right." You're going to have to do better than that. All of the other data I was able to find on Google correlates pretty closely with the link. You can look it up yourself.