What do you think a doctors life entails?

[chokiepie]

What did you learn while volunteering at an hospital or while shadowing a doctor? What do you think a doctors life entails?

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[armybound]

money, women.. money.

fast cars, big houses.

what else is there to life?

 

[chizledfrmstone]

Nip/Tuck... Christian Troy lives the typical life..

 

[rpm]

money, women.. money.

fast cars, big houses.

Yeah, I can't wait to get that Ferrari and drive my supermodel trophy wife around in it and then park it next to my Aston Martin after I graduate from med school.

 

[armybound]

Yeah, I can't wait to get that Ferrari and drive my supermodel trophy wife around in it and then park it next to my Aston Martin after I graduate from med school.

me neither. it's going to be great.

 

[Vvandenn]

me neither. it's going to be great.

word.

 

[PreMD86]

There's a great documentary out there titled "grey's anatomy"
You might have heard of it?

 

[Mayday]

The only doctor I've shadowed so far was a pediatrician. His work life consists of mainly listening to parents talk and assuring them that what their children are going through is completely normal That was probably about 9/10ths of what I saw him do. There were a few times where he had to pretty much pin a child down to look in their ears, and I got to help him and a mom restrain a girl so that he could get a throat culture. Other than that, it was lots and lots of charting.

There's a reason I'm not planning on going into pedes

 

[Chizwheel]

If you want to live that lifestyle, just make sure you match into plastics, derm, dermatopath, IR, GI, or some other high paying field...still almost regardless of what fields you go into, you'll be well off and wont have a lot of financial issues but Aston Martins and sea-side mansions really aren't in the typical doctors income range. And if Hillary takes the big cheese's seat, then we'll all be poor and everyone else can have their "free" healthcare.

 

[luv2sd]

$?

 

[rpm]

If you want to live that lifestyle, just make sure you match into plastics, derm, dermatopath, IR, GI, or some other high paying field...still almost regardless of what fields you go into, you'll be well off and wont have a lot of financial issues but Aston Martins and sea-side mansions really aren't in the typical doctors income range. And if Hillary takes the big cheese's seat, then we'll all be poor and everyone else can have their "free" healthcare.

LOL, looks like residency really does take a toll on people. I was being sarcastic. Although I am scared about HillaryCare (if she wins).

 

[howdy2u]

golfy golf golf...and golf!

 

[Chizwheel]

heh...no worries. I still want a ferrari too

 

[nugget12]

prrety sad that people are worried about universal health care because potential salaries could decrease...i see a rather large philosophical gap between wanting to help sick people for a living but not wanting to ensure everyone has the ability to be cured.

 

[armybound]

prrety sad that people are worried about universal health care because potential salaries could decrease...i see a rather large philosophical gap between wanting to help sick people for a living but not wanting to ensure everyone has the ability to be cured.

there are several reasons to worry about physician salary decreasing. don't think it's all because people are only interested in money.

 

[hyperIris]

prrety sad that people are worried about universal health care because potential salaries could decrease...i see a rather large philosophical gap between wanting to help sick people for a living but not wanting to ensure everyone has the ability to be cured.

Hiilary's universal healthcare will ultimately lead to decrease in healthcare quality. We already have crowded hospitals. immense medico-legal responsibilities and unsatisfied physicians. You have got to keep physicians happy in order to uphold healthcare quality. After 12 years of training, i would like to be happy at least monetarily. I am not asking much.

 

[futuredrcrawfor]

I nanny for a surgeon so I know his life involves- early mornings, a massive house, lots of golf and tennis, an awesome lake house, great wife and kids...

I also know what all was involved in getting there... lots of work, living in an efficiency with cars breaking down, debt, studying while friends partied

I have also shadowed my general and her life involves kids, working out, and work. She seems very stable and devoted to her family. Let me tell you I knew the exact dates she was on maternity leave cuz I tried hard not to get sick during those few weeks! I don't see her that often but if I gotta go to the doctor shes the person I want!

 

[flyingesquino]

What did you learn while volunteering at an hospital or while shadowing a doctor? What do you think a doctors life entails?

In my experience, every hospital is exactly like scubs and this is also the sole reason I am a pre-medical student, so I can act out scrubs in real life.

 

[LikeClockWork]

Chicks, money, power, and chicks?

More like paperwork, divorce, litigation, and paperwork.

Ah, what the hell. I'll take it anyway!

 

[spicedmanna]

Your question is obscenely broad. While we could make generalizations, it wouldn't serve much in terms of edification. Your question begs several more. For example:

1) What level (resident, attending, administrator)?
2) Civillian, or military?
3) Academic physician, or not?
4) Researcher, or clinician, or both?
5) What type of practice, work environment, or clientelle?
6) What specialty/sub-specialty?
7) Married, kids?
8) What location?

Depending on the answers to these and others, the lifestyle could vary. You get the point. Go shadow a few physicians...

 

[BlackSails]

Nip/Tuck... Christian Troy lives the typical life..

I have a friend who has a cousin in med school, and she says that he says that its kind of like that, but with more sex.

 

[GoldShadow]

In my experience, every hospital is exactly like scubs and this is also the sole reason I am a pre-medical student, so I can act out scrubs in real life.

 

[Revenant]

Running through a gauntlet of these people every day, and loving every second of it

 

[GoldShadow]

prrety sad that people are worried about universal health care because potential salaries could decrease...i see a rather large philosophical gap between wanting to help sick people for a living but not wanting to ensure everyone has the ability to be cured.

After going through a lengthy, difficult process to get into medical school, giving up a decade or a decade and a half for training, going 200-250K+ in debt, earning very little while working extremely hard for several years as a resident, and finally doing a job that requires a lot of dedication, where other peoples' health and lives are at stake...

doctors deserve to be extremely well-compensated. It's difficult, from a pragmatic standpoint, to justify putting in that much time and effort to be poorly compensated in the end.

 

[167649]

There's a great documentary out there titled "grey's anatomy"
You might have heard of it?

Actually, as someone already mentioned, I feel the reality show and documentary series "Scrubs" is a more accurate portrayal of what everyday life is like for a physician.

 

[Revenant]

prrety sad that people are worried about universal health care because potential salaries could decrease...i see a rather large philosophical gap between wanting to help sick people for a living but not wanting to ensure everyone has the ability to be cured.

I don't. People like helping people because of the feeling it gives them.

On the other hand, people don't generally like more stuff being taken from them by an all-powerful state.

One involves choice, the other involves force. Silly really, there's no philosophical gap.

 

[NoUse4aName1286]

prrety sad that people are worried about universal health care because potential salaries could decrease...i see a rather large philosophical gap between wanting to help sick people for a living but not wanting to ensure everyone has the ability to be cured.

Are you going to pay for my undergrad, and medical school loans, as well as capitalized interest after roughly 15 years, or more? Quite a lot of school, and consider that since doctors don't get to call their expenses written off as busniess expenses (like someone, who say, owns a construction company and can get the cars, cell phones, home phones, and internet bills written up as deductions), he/she usually doesnt find as many tax loopholes, so a doc really will lose 45+% of income to taxes (one Doc I know loses 51% off the top), then and may have lost as much at 10-20% of GROSS income on loan payments. Perhaps he/she then wants to enjoy a decent level of living considering that most of his/her college grad buddies DO NOT carry 250k worth of loans, and did not live in a hospital of 8-11 years, and are probably not working 60 hour work weeks...


Just saying...

 

[Timmythemic22]

prrety sad that people are worried about universal health care because potential salaries could decrease...i see a rather large philosophical gap between wanting to help sick people for a living but not wanting to ensure everyone has the ability to be cured.

Oh God, another future AMSA member...

 

[Drogba]

Hiilary's universal healthcare will ultimately lead to decrease in healthcare quality. We already have crowded hospitals. immense medico-legal responsibilities and unsatisfied physicians. You have got to keep physicians happy in order to uphold healthcare quality. After 12 years of training, i would like to be happy at least monetarily. I am not asking much.

Hard to decrease the quality of care for those that get none, wouldn't you agree?

 

[NonTradMed]

There's a great documentary out there titled "grey's anatomy"
You might have heard of it?

Yeah, I live by that. I hope to match into Seattle Grace so I too, can live the life like those docs!

 

[Drogba]

Are you going to pay for my undergrad, and medical school loans, as well as capitalized interest after roughly 15 years, or more? Quite a lot of school, and consider that since doctors don't get to call their expenses written off as busniess expenses (like someone, who say, owns a construction company and can get the cars, cell phones, home phones, and internet bills written up as deductions), he/she usually doesnt find as many tax loopholes, so a doc really will lose 45+% of income to taxes (one Doc I know loses 51% off the top), then and may have lost as much at 10-20% of GROSS income on loan payments. Perhaps he/she then wants to enjoy a decent level of living considering that most of his/her college grad buddies DO NOT carry 250k worth of loans, and did not live in a hospital of 8-11 years, and are probably not working 60 hour work weeks...


Just saying...

You sound like you resent choosing the field of medicine before you've even started med school. No one is forcing you to make these sacrifices. I've yet to meet a doctor who hasn't attained a "decent level of living" + more. People will complain about reduced compensation no matter what, whether doctors are making 100k, 200k or 500k.

 

[NoUse4aName1286]

You sound like you resent choosing the field of medicine before you've even started med school. No one is forcing you to make these sacrifices. I've yet to meet a doctor who hasn't attained a "decent level of living" + more. People will complain about reduced compensation no matter what, whether doctors are making 100k, 200k or 500k.

I am very much looking foward to medical school, and becoming a doctor, and am unlikely to enter an extremely lucrative field becuase i would lime to practice family medicine in a small town, like the doctor i shadowed did (and i agree, I have eyt to meet a poor, or even middle class doctor). But I feel that it is unreasonable to criticize people for complaining about the financial aspects of medicine, and people need to recognize that compensation is a real issue, especially when considering government reibursement and the idea of social healthcare: Many doc's are unwilling to accept medicade, medicare, or even certain private insurance companies b/c reimbursement does not come close to matching the actual amount billed, and while I feel socialized healthcare would be a net benefit EVENTUALLY, the immediate issues of decreased income without coresponding decreases in malpractice, taxes, and student loan burdens cannot be disgarded as being strictly greedy.

 

[NoUse4aName1286]

Hard to decrease the quality of care for those that get none, wouldn't you agree?

This, I agree with, btw. Though the argument simnply becomes, is it better to have some get 100% of their needs met, or have all get 70% (or whatever) met? Social healthcare can work, IF people are willing to recognize that the consequences are far reaching, and have not been compeletly addressed by anybody, in part because many do not wish to discuss compensation, and unemployment following the consolidation all the insurance companies.

As i said, I agree with social healthcare, but am unconvinced about the foresight thus-far put into planning it.

 

[paranoid_eyes]

prrety sad that people are worried about universal health care because potential salaries could decrease...i see a rather large philosophical gap between wanting to help sick people for a living but not wanting to ensure everyone has the ability to be cured.

well, that entire observation is moot if the whole point of going into medicine is for the high salaries seriously, leave the philosophy to the philosophers.

 

[hyperIris]

Hard to decrease the quality of care for those that get none, wouldn't you agree?

I agree but I am not convinced that universal healthcare (the one proposed by hillary atleast) is the best way of providing coverage to 45 million americans who have no health insurance as you will comprimise the healthcare that rest of the americans are receiving today. Most of those 45 million americans dont have insurance because they cant afford it. I think there should be a separate health care program for low-income earners. I guess if our govt can spend billions of dollars per month on war..we sure can invest money in our healthcare to run such a program. Again, I dont think there is a one solution to solving all our health problems, we'll need to make a comprimise but universal healthcare is not the comprimise I am willing to make.

 

[Drogba]

I am very much looking foward to medical school, and becoming a doctor, and am unlikely to enter an extremely lucrative field becuase i would lime to practice family medicine in a small town, like the doctor i shadowed did (and i agree, I have eyt to meet a poor, or even middle class doctor). But I feel that it is unreasonable to criticize people for complaining about the financial aspects of medicine, and people need to recognize that compensation is a real issue, especially when considering government reibursement and the idea of social healthcare: Many doc's are unwilling to accept medicade, medicare, or even certain private insurance companies b/c reimbursement does not come close to matching the actual amount billed,

Have you seen any figures suggesting that reimbursement under any national healthcare plan would approach that low? I actually would be interested in seeing what the proposed reimbursements would be, as I've not encountered any estimations (though I haven't looked hard). If they approach medicaid numbers that could certainly be a problem for many considering medicine.

and while I feel socialized healthcare would be a net benefit EVENTUALLY, the immediate issues of decreased income without coresponding decreases in malpractice, taxes, and student loan burdens cannot be disgarded as being strictly greedy.

Agreed.

I agree but I am not convinced that universal healthcare (the one proposed by hillary atleast) is the best way of providing coverage to 45 million americans who have no health insurance as you will comprimise the healthcare that rest of the americans are receiving today. Most of those 45 million americans dont have insurance because they cant afford it. I think there should be a separate health care program for low-income earners. I guess if our govt can spend billions of dollars per month on war..we sure can invest money in our healthcare to run such a program. Again, I dont think there is a one solution to solving all our health problems, we'll need to make a comprimise but universal healthcare is not the comprimise I am willing to make.

If I've understood your post correctly you are willing to make this compromise. You are just skeptical about the implementation, am I right? Universal health care is the only option in my opinion, that is, guaranteeing access to all, though I'm up to any suggestion as how we should go about doing that. I don't think a mixture of public national insurance and private optional insurance would be such a bad idea.

I really need to read more on whats been going on in mass since last year.

Anyone have some good resources, before I start looking for them myself?

 

[rpm]

Yeah, I live by that. I hope to match into Seattle Grace so I too, can live the life like those docs!

I personally hope to get a spot into Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

 

[sawood]

My boyfriend's a fireman, and he was telling me how Michael Moore's (no, I don't agree with him) point of the fact that fire and police services, to name a few, are government run, work just fine, afterall, he's happy and financially secure.

Hmm, but that's only because the union he belongs to is huge and fights like hell to make sure that he gets plenty of benefits, retirement, vacation, excellent overtime pay, etc. Not to mention, he doesn't have to pay any sort of 'insurance' if someone sues the department because of a mistake made, and his fireman training didn't put him into debt. Actually, I don't even know if he had to pay for it at all once he was accepted?

Is there any group that will fight for doctors to make sure they are not totally screwed over?

 

[rpm]

Is there any group that will fight for doctors to make sure they are not totally screwed over?

Only the doctors can group together to fight so they don't get screwed. But I think there are some legal issues with doctor's forming a union.

 

[sawood]

Only the doctors can group together to fight so they don't get screwed. But I think there are some legal issues with doctor's forming a union.

Why can't doctors form a union, but firemen can? If all the firemen decided not to go to work, that would endanger lives also?

Not that I am for or against unionizing, don't know a whole lot about it. But I can't see doctors taking the time out of their day to also band together and fight to ensure appropriate salary and benefits.

 

[spicedmanna]

Why can't doctors form a union, but firemen can? If all the firemen decided not to go to work, that would endanger lives also?

Not that I am for or against unionizing, don't know a whole lot about it. But I can't see doctors taking the time out of their day to also band together and fight to ensure appropriate salary and benefits.

Physicians do have a "union" of sorts. It's a powerful lobby group called the AMA.

 

[sawood]

You're confusing unions with the right to strike. Firemen and cops have a union, through which they negotiate their benefits packages, but they do not have the right to strike.

Doctors don't have unions because they are private contractors with hospital facilities (at least in private practice). They negotiate what patients they will see in those facilities, what procedures they will perform, what their rent will be, etc.

Also, certain groups will often have an interest in screwing their coworkers over by limiting their scope of practice (ie - vascular surgery group trying to limit the role of IR in a facility, GI preventing Gen Surg from doing scopes). Contrast this with the typical American union, which tries to maximize benefits for all their workers and retirees.

So basically what I'm saying is that the whole union thing sounds good to toss out on SDN. But if you have any understanding of the business of medicine, you realize that it doesn't make any sense at all.

I was asking about how doctors could ensure good pay/benefits if health care becomes govt run like fire and police, who do form unions...then doctors would not be private contractors? Where exactly the govt would insert itself?

I'll be the first to admit I don't completely understand the business of medicine, that's why I was asking.

 

[45408]

Oh God, another future AMSA member...

 

[Maxprime]

Mostly full of whiney pre-meds that want to follow them around asking stupid questions about their "lifestyle".

I'd say it entails a lot of patients, even more paperwork, a family that complains about not getting to see you enough, and occasionally a thank you from someone you actually helped.

 

[fakin' the funk]

prrety sad that people are worried about universal health care because potential salaries could decrease...i see a rather large philosophical gap between wanting to help sick people for a living but not wanting to ensure everyone has the ability to be cured.

Aww, that's so cute and naive! You think that medicine cures people!

 

[PilSeungKorea]

45 million americans who have no health insurance quote]

Actually, it is 47 million and plus now. Don't get your numbers wrong during your interviews. It wouldn't look too good

 

[Arc]

LOL, looks like residency really does take a toll on people. I was being sarcastic. Although I am scared about HillaryCare (if she wins).

Vote Obama...

 

[Drogba]

Physicians do have a "union" of sorts. It's a powerful lobby group called the AMA.

Its funny how anyone would think that Physicians have no representation, poor vulnerable doctors. Unfortunately, there are conflicting interests coming from other lobby groups that are also quite strong, and an increasingly negative perception of doctors in the public. Still, Physicians salaries have remained pretty high, the AMA can't be doing that bad at all.

 

[jad2121]

prrety sad that people are worried about universal health care because potential salaries could decrease...i see a rather large philosophical gap between wanting to help sick people for a living but not wanting to ensure everyone has the ability to be cured.

I completely disagree with this. I always here people say "doctors shouldn't be concerned with their salaries, they should be concerned with saving lives." OF COURSE doctors want to save lives, thats why they're doctors. But I think the worst thing that could happen to the medical profession is to lower doctors salaries. Most doctors are smart enough to be businessmen or lawyers, but they choose not to. They want to live the american dream-which is to make alot of money doing something they love. If you take away the money, then some of the smartest most well meaning premeds will not become doctors. I would much rather have a brilliant doctor who wants to do his best and be compensated for it than some mediocre bleeding heart who doesn't care about success.

as for what a doctors life entails, I think it depends on the kind of doctor. I used to work for a dermatologist and he had a pretty chill life-set his own hours, made lots of money and didn't do many procedures. I also worked in an ICU, where the doctors worked 14 hour days and saw all kinds of amazing stuff. Like most other professions, it is what you make of it.

 

[Drogba]

I completely disagree with this. I always here people say "doctors shouldn't be concerned with their salaries, they should be concerned with saving lives." OF COURSE doctors want to save lives, thats why they're doctors. But I think the worst thing that could happen to the medical profession is to lower doctors salaries. Most doctors are smart enough to be businessmen or lawyers, but they choose not to. They want to live the american dream-which is to make alot of money doing something they love. If you take away the money, then some of the smartest most well meaning premeds will not become doctors. I would much rather have a brilliant doctor who wants to do his best and be compensated for it than some mediocre bleeding heart who doesn't care about success.

as for what a doctors life entails, I think it depends on the kind of doctor. I used to work for a dermatologist and he had a pretty chill life-set his own hours, made lots of money and didn't do many procedures. I also worked in an ICU, where the doctors worked 14 hour days and saw all kinds of amazing stuff. Like most other professions, it is what you make of it.

What if you had access to neither, like millions of our fellow citizens? Maybe you'd feel a little differently then. I'm not suggesting doctors need to take a paycut to make healthcare accessible to all, but something has to give. I think doctors' salaries are actually not a huge cause for the inflated cost of care here, though I haven't looked at figures in a while.
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