Article on doctors salaries

[MarissaNicole]

I don't even read them anymore, doctor pay will always get blamed and we all know there is a lot of other BS that drives up costs.

This. I don't see a point in wasting my energy.

[Chrisada]

This. I don't see a point in wasting my energy.

This is how I feel. Some people are also up in arms about a small percentage of teachers apparently "making too much money and getting summers off." No one has any idea what sacrifices someone makes for their career until they've walked a day in their shoes. Meh, whatever.

[diggitydot]

:shudder:

Many teachers are worth their weight in gold. God bless them for putting up with all the rotten little fartknockers.

[v-girl]

Fartknockers. giggle

[MrsPotts]

I can't read this crap... our loan disbursement notice came in the mail again. It's fun when you realize that what is already owed could've bought a house AND we're only half way through med school. Yea, good times.

Yes! My DH just met with financial aid today to discuss loans, etc. and the amount we owe is insane and we are not even close to being done with med school....ugh

[PrincessFiona]

YES, this!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also reimbursement is so unbalanced right now. My husband makes for a heart bipass aproximately what an orthopod makes for an achilles repair. Most of the reimbursement goes to facilities and hospital expenses. Um, excuse me but there is a TEENSY TINY bit MORE risk in a bipass than an elective surgery.

Medicine is such a mess on SO many levels.

And an internist/non-surgical specialist who spends a lot of time reviewing a patients chart, visiting with a patient with multiple co-morbidities, comes up with a treatment plan and then follows up with said pt. makes less with medicare or even private insurance for that than a radiologist gets for reading an x-ray in 3 minutes.....

[Ladybug]

And how much does the insurance company withhold??? What are their reimbursement percentages for procedures??? And how much of that doctor's time is spent freely treating uninsured patients? How does that measure against the overall compensation?

[Thirteen]

This whole thing just pisses me off.
It reaffirms the wide belief that our spouses "make too much money."
Whatever. Come pay our loans, save up for retirement, scrape for a college fund. We are severely behind our peers and friends.

[reciprocity]

I don't even read them anymore, doctor pay will always get blamed and we all know there is a lot of other BS that drives up costs.

exactly

or in other words

[ladymoreta]

Whatever. Come pay our loans, save up for retirement, scrape for a college fund. We are severely behind our peers and friends.

This. In our Bible study, we did a section about budgeting and living within our means, and DH and I just stayed quiet most of the time. We were so frustrated by the time we finished that section!

[PrincessFiona]

Awesome, Eric LOL

[BonBon]

This is simply a class warfare type article disguised as a health care issue. It's no different than, "see those evil Wall Street guys, they make too much money", "look at the kind of money those CEO's bring in, evil bastards", "oh those fancy doctors, they just went into medicine for the money". Nobody is interested in what it takes to become a doctor (or any high paying job for that matter), they only see the bottom line and then scream, "it's not fair".

Exactly. This line kills me:
“We’re willing to pay physicians so much because we value health care so much,” she explained. “But, physicians are making five times the median income. Is that what we really want?”

Farking moron. Considering physicians spend perhaps 5 times as much time, not to mention $$ as the median on post-high school education, high income is not surprising. GAH!! I knew I shouldn't have read the article because now my blood pressure is going up. The world is full of idiots and I'm tired of it!!

[Meenah]

I was picking up a Prescription the other day, and the Pharmacist (who I know well) just looked at me and sighed. He said he had just been screamed at by a patient who had to wait 15 minutes for her Rx, but she had no problem waiting to be paged when her Deli order was ready!!!!!! I just wanted to jackslap the shit out of her on his behalf.

[PrincessFiona]

So here is a question that I have to pose. The commymommy in me just can't let it go.

Don't hate me .... you all know I'm a mostly reformed commymommy...but....

A job in medicine is a choice. At the end of the day, like every other profession, we can say it is a 'calling', but ultimately it is just a profession. It requires more sacrifice and hard work to get there, but it is a choice. It's interesting to me that so many docs and spouses rail against the new 80 hour work week rules and anything else that will make medicine a more palatable path. It's almost as if we are protecting how hard it is to become doctors and don't want to give up that badge of honor. Medicine is practiced well in other European countries where residents are paid a little more, get 6 weeks of vacation a year, and just have extended residencies (IM is 5 years instead of 3). We should be using our energy to fight for free medical education, reduced work hours during training, extending training, and better pay for residents. Why? The pay cuts are already starting and the big salaries are going away.

Part 1.

Here are my thoughts on salaries. Are doctors smart and well educated? Yes. Do they deserve to be paid more than a teacher with a bachelor's degree who works 9 months out of the year? Yes. How would we compare a physician to a PhD Psychologist or a PhD neuroscientist (for example). I know that the PhD professors in Biology, chemistry etc have a starting salary here of $46,000 and they are expected to teach classes, do research and publish a certain number of articles a year. None of them work banker's hours. At some point, they can earn up to $70,000 or slightly more as chair. The Dean earns about as much as a pediatrician. So ... is that 'fair'? They are intelligent (some much more so than many docs I know), go to school for as many years as a doc, and have to do a post-doc. The difference? Their graduate school is free for the most part.

Psychologists also work to help/support people. They don't have an easy job at all. (Just ask mine. LOL!) They have commensurate education and do at least a 1 year residency. Many do fellowships to specialize further in specific issues. They are not making physician salaries.

In other words, there are other professional groups that are as intelligent, work as hard, make sacrifices, and don't have the same earning power even though their societal contribution can be considered as important.

Part 2.

How is the profession of doctor a moral obligation to society? When you choose this path, how is it different than getting an MBA and starting a successful business, or becoming a well-respected/paid IT professional?
Society can live without cars (believe it or not). We can do without computers, Gymboree, fancy furniture or Google. If major league baseball stops tomorrow, it will be a BFD (well, at least for me). What if ... you have cancer? Lupus? RA? Diabetes? A serious accident requiring emergency surgery? What if your child does?

We are lucky ... sometimes we just forget that. If anything happens to our family members or us, we will all have full coverage and easy access to physicians. This is not true for many Americans. When our homeschooling mom of 5 neighbor was dx with ALS right after her husband's job of 14 years as an IT professional was outsourced and he was let go, they had no health insurance. They lost their home, one of their cars and had to move in with his family in another state. He got a job without benefits that could "work into a job with benefits" to pay the bills. He didn't qualify for free healthcare. The suggestion was actually made that he and his wife get a DIVORCE so that she could get on the state insurance. They didn't choose that. She went from having excellent everything to dying after being exposed to caregivers that treated her like she was some sort of indigent, irresponsible loser.

Is medicine a moral obligation? Ask yourself if chemotherapy is the same thing as buying a computer. The difference is LIFE or DEATH. There are many good, hard-working Americans out there who give their all for much less money than a physician earns. It might be out of their own choice, but not everyone has the stuff to get into medical school. We can all agree on that. Are they less valuable than a doctor? If our answer is that "doctors have people's lives in their hands" then ... we know that the profession is more than just a calling or a job ... it is also a moral obligation...and that is exactly why people are up in arms about doctors salaries. They might not have insurance even though they work. They might have crap insurance (because a LOT of people do), they might be retired and on medicare and are watching their benefits shrink and pay to providers go down...and now they can't find a doctor to take them. Sure people are pissed.

I think we need to be looking at this issue much differently.

Kris

[PrincessFiona]

OMG ... the commymommy lives!!!!!!