Only 54% of doctors would choose a career in medicine again, only 11% feel "rich"

[Liberal_in_LA]

Survey shows best, worst paid doctors -- and many regrets

Increasing numbers of U.S. doctors regret their career choices --- even while taking in salaries average Americans might consider pretty sweet. Those salaries remain much sweeter for some specialists than others, though, according to an annual survey of physician pay from Medscape/WebMD.

Among the highest-paid doctors, according the survey of 24,000 physicians:

Radiologists: $315,000
Orthopedic surgeons: $315,000
Cardiologists: $314,000
Anesthesiologists: $309,000
Urologists: $309,000

Among the lowest paid:

Pediatricians: $156,000
Family medicine doctors: $158,000
Internal medicine doctors: $165,000
Diabeticians/endocrinologists: $168,000
Psychiatrists: $170,000

You'll notice that the doctors most people see most often -- the pediatricians, family doctors and internists who handle regular checkups and most illnesses -- make the least money. But pay for so-called "primary care" doctors is rising a bit, the survey shows, as pay for some big-money specialists declines. Those radiologists and orthopedic surgeons at the top of the pay heap actually made 10% less in the past year; general surgeons made 12% less.

In comments accompanying the survey, many physicians said they feared changes in the health care system would mean lower incomes in years to come, Medscape reports. Maybe that's one reason just 54% said they would choose a career in medicine again, down from 69% percent in 2011.

For now, just 11% say they consider themselves "rich" -- and 45% agree that "my income probably qualifies me as rich, but I have so many debts and expenses that I don't feel rich."

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/healthyperspective/post/2012-04-26/survey-shows-best-worst-paid-doctors----and-many-regrets/681256/1?csp=obinsite

[abelenkpe]

1. A few years ago I broke my arm

When chatting about work the doctor who set it wanted to know how to get into animation!

My last dentist quit her job to go into real estate. (This was during the boom here in so cal.)

My current dentist told me that between himself and his employees they were paying on and owed more than 500,000 in student loans.

I wonder if it would be better for doctors is we had single payer?

Really need to get the cost of higher education down.

[Carolina]

77. Education costs are through

the roof. Four years college, four years med school literally translate into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Add malpractice insurance and other ongoing expenses of practice and the net income is considerably different.

The Association of American Medical Colleges published a white paper 5 years ago (!) on the fact that incomes are not keeping pace with the burgeoning educational debt.

[MrSlayer]

2. That's probably true.

By the time you get done paying loans and insurance and all that other crap that goes along with it, you probably take home way less than the tagged number.

It ends up paying off later but it's a rough road for a long time first.

[coalition_unwilling]

3. Cry me a river. Bunch of privileged prima donnas - n/t

[hfojvt]

4. making $158,000 a year does not sound like a hardship to me

although when they talk about debt I wonder what their student debt is. They could easily have debt because they bought a $400,000 house and a couple new cars and so on.

[mainer]

10. But they didn't start making that money until they were in their 30s

And they work 60 hours a week. Not to mention all the education debts they have.

I left medicine. And I'm glad I did.

[cbayer]

11. Plus, the financial crisis in medicine has made the field a lot less rewarding than it was.

Paperwork, insurance, uninsured, on call, ED's busting at the seams, patients coming in with reams of paper from their internet searches, medical liability, defensive medicine, more demand than supply...

and doctor bashing.

Yep. Lots of fun.

[taught_me_patience]

12. You do realize that 400k doesn't buy much in any coastal city?

Student debt can easily eat away $1k/mo and debt related to starting a practice can eat $3k/mo.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

5. But it's those people who complain who shouldn't be in the profession to begin with.

Want to make money? Go into business. Want to help HEAL? Go into medicine. They should be callings, not moneymakers.

[coalition_unwilling]

6. Exactly! When the AMA comes out for single-payer, then

I'll take doctors' complaints seriously. Until then, they really should STFU.

[hunter]

50. AMA is an institution of dusty old farts supported by the pharmeceutical industry.

They are not the face of modern medicine.

You'd be surprised how many doctors support single-payer.

[coalition_unwilling]

54. Innocent question: who or what institution has responsibiltiy for

making med school entry so difficult? I always thought it was the AMA that limited entry to the profession, thereby keeping prices high by constraining supply.

But maybe I've got a fundamental misunderstanding of who calls the shots on who gets into med school. Is it actually the schools themselves limiting entry???

[hunter]

58. It has a lot to do with how many residency slots are open, and in what specialties...

http://www.nrmp.org/about_nrmp/index.html

In the U.S.A medical schools aim to place their students in those slots. Any slack is taken up by foreign medical school graduates and immigrant physicians.

The U.S.A. could increase the number of primary care physicians by further subsidy of primary care residency programs in combination with grants and loan repayment to medical school graduates.

Ultimately it's state and federal government policy that "limits" entry into the medical profession.

[SharonAnn]

65. The AMA has significant control over "number of slots" and

number of medical schools. They create an artificial limit to the number of U. S. students who can enter medical school.

Since we have the need to bring in so many foreign doctors, we're obviously not training enough U. S. doctors. Do you see a big push to increase the number of medical schools or residency programs? No.

We are allowing the AMA to determine accreditation and thus the limits on these.

[mainer]

91. The AMA has this control? I think not.

Last edited Fri Jun 1, 2012, 07:39 PM - Edit history (1)

The AMA is merely a trade organization. It has nothing to do with approving new medical schools.

The shortage of doctors now has to do with the high cost of establishing medical schools, and the shortage of federal dollars toward that goal. Here in Maine the state AMA branch would LOVE to have another medical school, but it's simply too expensive. Also, the population isn't large enough to support more residency slots.

[Egalitarian Thug]

9. And therein lies the elephant in our social living room.

We have way too many shitty doctors that are doctors because it can pay well and carries a fair amount of social status. They couldn't care less about their patients and are generally deficient in their knowledge of the state of the art in their specialty. Add to that they have a trade union that very successfully chokes off the supply of talent to keep that pay & status and you get this kind of ongoing disaster.

The same can be said about lawyers and a host of other professions.

Health care, justice, and education are essential to society and should not be profit driven. These models we use are bad ideas from the 18th & 19th centuries, its past time to think of and implement new systems.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

15. Agreed.

[cbayer]

16. Four years of college, four years of medical school, 3-5 years of residency training,

$100,000's in debt, unbelievable grueling schedules through this entire period....

yeah, people just go into for the money.

Most specialities and states have requirements for continuing medical education.

What trade union? Physicians are prohibited from unionizing or collective bargaining.

[Egalitarian Thug]

57. The AMA.

State requirements are one thing, cruise ship vacations and South Pacific Island retreats set up to fulfill continuing education requirements are another. Are you a doctor? if you are then you know what I'm talking about..

The "grueling schedules through this entire period" is one of the requirements that serve no purpose but to weed out doctoral candidates and keep the number of practitioners down.

I can list at least a dozen doctors that fit the description just from my client list. I know twice that many that are wonderful.

All of which goes back to the point of the article, the pursuit of profit in both the manufacture and practice of physicians has brought about a crisis which the system only exacerbates.

[Carolina]

80. thank you, cbayer

for your post. Some people in this thread have no idea what becoming a doctor entails. And the AMA does not represent or speak for all MDs

[Initech]

20. Excuse me?????????

Do you know anything about medical school graduates - the amount of studying they do to earn their degree or the massive amounts of debt they have to endure for years after graduation? Or even the medical school interview process? Why don't you research these things and then make that claim again.

[coalition_unwilling]

30. No, excuse yourself. You tell me why my wife and I must either die or go

Last edited Fri Jun 1, 2012, 10:48 AM - Edit history (1)

bankrupt because we can't afford $1,000/month for health insurance.

EVERY OTHER INDUSTRIALLY DEVELOPED COUNTRY HAS UNVIERSAL HEALTH CARE. WE DON'T.

Jesus H. Christ, forgive me if I don't give a shit whether doctors get rich from their practice.

[Initech]

39. I know we don't have universal health care.

But that doesn't excuse such a broad claim like that. My brother just completed medical school and I know a lot of the students he went to class with - they're far from rich.

The fact is that not every doctor makes the $150k - $250k+ salaries after they graduate. That's years after they've completed their residency and passed their boards. Medical school is unbelievably intense and after you're done you're stuck with $300k+ in debt which can take more than a decade to pay off.

Doctors don't get rich overnight just because they've graduated from medical school. After seeing what my brother's gone through to get his degree, they're one of the few professions that's earned their pay if you ask me.

[coalition_unwilling]

41. It does excuse a broad-brush claim against a profession that

cares more about getting paid than seeing to it that sick people are made well.

You should see the parking lot of your average medical building here in LA. Filled with Nazi-mobiles (BMWs and Mercedes), Volvos and Audis. Hardly salt-of-the-earth vehicles. Oh, those aint the patients' cars.

Jeesh.

[Chuuku Davis]

46. Been a doc 32 years

I drive a German car
VW Golf diesel
Eight years old and 208,000 miles.
Still paying on my house
Not rich

[coalition_unwilling]

47. Hello, Mr. 21-post Newbie. Sorry you're not rich. Hope that's

not why you entered the medical profession. Somehow I suspect you did not enter the profession to become wealthy and, if you are telling the truth, might also peg you for a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility or Doctors Without Borders.

N.B. Volkswagen also started during the Nazi years. But I don't call it a Nazi-mobile the way I do the ostentatious 1% status symbols of Mercedes and BMW, both of which companies also contributed mightily to and benefited tremendously from the Nazi war machine

[Rittermeister]

63. Sorry, if you're highly intelligent and willing to go through a decade of education and training

you deserve to be the 1%. I'm all for a meritocracy.

[coalition_unwilling]

64. Gee, does my 6 years of undergrad and 6 years of M.A. and partial work towards a Ph.D.

count? Oh yeah, I forgot, I'm in the 1% too . . . the bottom 1% right now, seeing as how I'm unemployed and my unemployment just got cut off due to politics.

What is it with all these low-post-count reactionaries???

[Hippo_Tron]

83. Most doctors are not in the 1%

[LanternWaste]

42. I imagine we often rationalize to ourselves that "giving a shit" about people is a means to an end

I would imagine then that a subsistence farmer in Rwanda (avg. US dollars = $33/month total) should be also be forgiven for not giving a shit about the plight of the poorest in America.

I imagine we often rationalize to ourselves that "giving a shit" about people is a means to an end rather than an end in and of itself, and that we often justify to ourselves that we indeed have enough information about a person or a profession to make informed conclusions on who and what they are; when in reality, it's often little more than anecdotal guess-work and imaginative make-believe on our parts.

Therefore, we continue reduce ourselves to little more than a post-hoc-ergo-prompter-hoc argument for mere visceral satisfaction.

[coalition_unwilling]

55. You are goddamned right that subsistence farmers in Rwanda should be

forgiven for not giving a shit about the plight of the poorest in America.

I think you're trying to school me, but I'm afraid I''m not getting the lesson maybe. Care to elaborate?

[mainer]

67. Doctors' bills are a very small part of the cost of health insurance

it's the hospital charges that'll kill you.

[Carolina]

82. your anger is misplaced

the coalition of politicians, big pharma and the health insurance industry call the shots, not MDs.

[coalition_unwilling]

84. You know, that may well be. Little story for you, though.

Last time I was unemployed long-term (2004-06), we had no health insurance. My step-daughter (12 at the time) had been diagnosed with early-onset bipolar disorder. AKA: manic-depression.

So we would take her to this child psychiatrist who would yap with us for about 5 minutes, charge us $75 and give us yet another prescription for psych meds (that didn't work, but that's another story).

By my calculation, at $75/5 minutes, this guy was raking in some serious Romney-eque bucks. No politican, no big pharma and no health insurance, just $75/5 minutes.

But I take your point and am re-thinking my position.

[Hippo_Tron]

86. Like any business, there's some people who have extremely lucrative operations

But that's certainly not the norm. I also suspect you got screwed by paying a higher "uninsured rate". In a country with single payer, the health system would never pay him $75 to yap for 5 minutes. However, he would still be free to accept cash only.

[magical thyme]

21. what an ignorant thing to write. unbelievably ignorant.

Medical school is brutally hard, long and expensive. Unless you come from money, the loans you end up needing to take out are larger than most mortgages. Long after your high school peers are well settled into jobs and working their way up the ladder, you are still in school, studying, or working full time in unpaid clinical training.

Setting up a practice is another huge expense. But it's either that or work at a hospital, in which case you pay will be rock bottom and your hours totally at their mercy.

Pressure from insurance companies and hospitals means you spend less and less time with each patient, forced to perform highly complex work in an assembly line environment.

You try pulling 12 hour overnight shifts and then start talking about privileged prima donnas.

Seriously, what a fucking rotten thing to write. For every overpaid, plastic surgeon prima donna, there are dozens and dozens of people who sacrifice huge chunks of their lives because they want to help you, only to be sucked into the vortex of the insurance industry.

It's no wonder to me that more than half end up regretting their career choice. They were scammed and they know it.

[coalition_unwilling]

29. Are you a physician? Are you making in excess of $150,000/year? Just

curious.

Until the AMA comes out for single-payer universal healthcare, all the physicians (except those in Physicians for Social Responsibiltiy) can go fuck themselves, as far as I'm concerned. They couldn't care less if my wife and I die or become bankrupt merely because we cannot afford to pay more than $1000/month for health insurance.

So you'll forgive me if I say, I don't give a shit about those "poor" doctors. Life's tough all over.

[cbayer]

31. Only 15% of US physicians belong to the AMA.

One of the reasons for that is their position on certain big ticket items like this one.

The AMA does not represent or speak for american physicians.

[coalition_unwilling]

33. The AMA certainly acts as if it represents physicians. I'm so sick of this society's fundamental

selfkishness and greed.

EVERY OTHER INDUSTRIALLY DEVELOPED NATION HAS UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. WE DO NOT.

Until that changes, I really couldn't give a shit whether doctors feel rich or not.

Doesn't the AMA have a role in limiting the number of entrants into the profession, thereby constraining supply and keeping prices high? Maybe I've inheritied a false stereotype from economics.

[cbayer]

36. The AMA has some role in the oversight of medical schools, but they don't control the numbers.

If anything, there are less and less applicants and the shortages in certain areas and specialities are getting worse and worse. This is going to be a particular problem when we get universal care (which I am sure is going to happen).

Doctors are an unhappy lot these days and are as overwhelmed with the insanity of the system as is the rest of the population. I don't think they are responsible for this nightmare nor are they in a position to change it.

Scapegoating them is not going to help. They are, in the end, on the sides of their patients and most would welcome radical reform at this point.

[magical thyme]

51. no, I am a medical lab technician

I don't have insurance either. And I just told my sister the other day, if I keel over the hospital will come and get me, not because they give a fuck about me, but because I own my house so they'll just treat me, put a lien against my house or throw me out in the street.

But don't confuse the hospital with the doctors that work their. Hospital administration and doctors are not the same thing. The doctors are just cogs in a wheel there.

I have a doctor I go to when I'm sick. He's against the insurance industry and not affiliated with a hospital, so between a rock and a hard place. But he finds the cheapest place to get lab work done, he works holistically and his patients stay healthy.

Same with my doctor when I lived in Massachusetts. He was western MD and ayurvedic physician, and charged no more than a regular MD, but spent enormous time with each patient giving the best of both worlds.

Don't confuse the doctors with the system they are trapped in. Because like anyone else, there are good ones and there are bad ones. Believe me, I've had my share of bad ones. So you sift through and find the good ones and then stick with them.

I saw a Massachusetts MD in private practice interviewed on tv a few years back. Universal healthcare left her with so many patients she worked 7 days/week. All day, 7 days/week with a full staff handling administration, and was forced to turn crying people away because of the shortage of doctors.

[coalition_unwilling]

53. Look, I drive a beat-up 1993 Nissan Sentra. My earnings in 2010 (last year

I was employed full-time with health insurance) were less than $50,000.

The parking lots of most medical buildings in LA are full of late-model Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Audi, Lexus, Infiniti and other 1% status symbols of conspicuous consumption. I assume it's not the medical lab techs who are driving those vehicles.

[magical thyme]

66. I drive a beat-up 1997 Honda Civic with 215,000 miles on it

My earnings last year were <15,000 with no health insurance, but I was finishing school the 1st half of the year and clinicals is no time to be working part time because you already have a long commute, full time job, homework and exams. This year my income may be higher, but it may not, since they're cutting back at the lab and I appear to be a case of LIFO (there is also one FIFO and one finally got off night shift after 4 years and immediately dumped. On the other hand, she recently made a HUGE mistake in blood bank. Caught it before killing somebody, but wasted 2 units of plasma).

The parking lot at the hospital where I work is filled with cars of all makes, models and years. Yes, the physicians are driving mostly SUVs, with one Hummer. Need to be able to get to work through blizzards. A lot of the lab techs are also driving SUVs, as well as nurses.

It doesn't bother me that they are driving newer vehicles than mine. Mine is paid for, there's probably is not. My little house is paid for, there's probably is not. I chose not to go to medical school or veterinary school decades ago. I've made different choices than they have all along.

I have <$100/month in student loan payments (thanks to income-based repayment plan). I'll be their student loan payments are a *lot* higher than that. I have no mortgage, no car payment, no malpractice to worry about.

I have a certain amount of stress, but it's nothing compared to theirs. When one particular ER doctor comes in yelling at me, it's tough. I know I have no control over somebody else's mistakes causing testing delays, and that I'm the last in the assembly line. But I also *know* how stressful the job is.

I cannot tell you the level of fear in that hospital. You can cut through it with a knife, the atmosphere is so thick. They live with that stress day in and day out. I only feel that fear on occasions, such as when I have a blood bank emergency and know that a single mistake can kill. They have that fear constantly.

I do have complaints about specific doctors, but mostly they are just very overstressed.

And I also know this: those late-model, expensive cars paid somebody else's mortgage. Somebody sold that car, somebody shipped it, somebody assembled it, somebody designed it.

They aren't greedy bastards, stealing and hoarding piles and piles of money. They are incredibly hard-working and caring people who earn every penny they make and yes, invest some and yes, spend some.

If you think they're so overpaid, go to medical school, get your MD, and join them.

[coalition_unwilling]

68. In my fifth year as an undergrad (majoring in English and History), I took

genetics and set the curve, beating out some med and life sciences students in the class.

Not to toot my own horn, but the prof then recruited me to go to med school. I was so far along already in humanities and social sciences that I declined his invitation. Today I wish I had accepted the recruitment, not b/c of greed or desire for financial gain but because I have grown in the years since to really love science and the scientific method (in reading history of science and such-like).

Oh, the roads not taken (to quote Robert Frost). I'm 52. Is it too late for me to go to med school? I'm not sure I would even know where to start at this point. I'm guessing I'd have to take the lfie sciences (biology, organic chem and so on) as pre-reqs.

[magical thyme]

71. I went back at 55...and I regret it

because as much as I loved the general sciences, the clinical sciences were a big, fat bore. Piles and piles and piles of rote memorization. The work I do is also a bore, the environment is a pink ghetto, the pay 25% less than what HR at a nearby hospital told me before I entered the program. And now, after a whole year of work, the local work is disappearing and I can't sell my house to move to the west coast where they are begging for MLTs.

Genetics is comparatively easy, as are micro and anatomy. For MLT, our general sciences were pre-med level. Chemistry would have been fun in the pace hadn't been so breakneck. The math is pretty much algebra II, but it's like playing chess. You're given 2 pieces of data, you've memorized 50 or so formulas. You need to pick the right set of formulas to lead you down a path to the requested piece of data. It's timed, though, so if you go too far down the wrong path, you'll run out of time. There may be 5 or 10 problems like that, plus a pile of multiple choice. At our sister school there is a 50% failure rate in General Chemistry. Our failure rate was lower, but the professor did that by loading us down with graded homework to help out the students who don't test well. I went into most of my final exams with anywhere from 99 - 100+% average, finished about the same (except micro, where I was so burned out I simply didn't study for the final, but still finished with 4.0) and graduated summa cum laude.

At 52, you'd face an uphill battle getting into med school, although no problem getting into pre-med. You'll need to pretty much be 4.0 all the way through, and especially in organic chemistry. Our science coordinator says they want 4.0 in organic because it's a matter of seeing patterns. They'll promise you the world in pre-med to boost enrollment. But the competition to get into med school is fierce and along with your grades, which *must* be 4.0 -- they'll be looking at your age for practical reasons. There is a doctor shortage and they're going to prefer somebody young who has many years of practice ahead of them.

By the time I graduated MLT, there was a 2 year waiting list to get in. Same with nursing. Probably similar with med school. Once you're in, you run yourself into the ground to stay in because if you withdraw for any reason, you'll be back at the end of the line.

[coalition_unwilling]

72. Wow, thanks for that detail. I really wish I hadn't been so brash and full of myself

in my early 20s, b/c I think I probably would have made a pretty good doctor (medical, that is).

I've done various poluitical protests with Physicians for Social Responsibility and Doctors without Borders over the years, so I have met some fine specimens of the human race among the medical profession, don't get me wrong.

I should also have explained that the place where I did my undergrad degrees (Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City) had some kind of hybrid 6-year medical program where I think you earned your undergrad and medical degrees in 6 years. That's what the genetics prof was trying to recruit me into, but it would have meant several years of hard sciences and I was stupid and full of myself then and couldn't see it. (Still am somewhat I'm a bit hazy on how all the details worked b/c I never followed up on it. But I've been told I blew it by not taking advantage of it at the time, fwiw.

[magical thyme]

79. the grass is always greener on the other side, always

You're angry at yourself for not making that choice, and you're angry at the doctors who made that choice and now regret it.

It doesn't matter. No matter which choice you had made, it would have had good things and bad things about it. If you had made the choice to be a doctor, you may have lived to regret it. You don't know, and there is no point beating yourself up about it.

The same is true of the doctors who now regret it. They look at how much of their own lives they sacrificed and wish they'd chosen differently. Many, many patients are waaaay less than endearing and you can begin to wonder why your life is worth less than theirs.

The smart ones know that they're trapped in a system where far too often they are forced to prolong somebody's death instead of extending their life. That's why when they get some dread disease or other, they often choose to forgo "treatment" and spend their remaining time at home with their families.

And you spend a lot less time doing the thing you studied for and anticipated, and way too much time on paperwork and figuring out how to slip needed tests past the insurance deniers.

[coalition_unwilling]

85. Your response would make a brilliant OP of its own (and you

might wish to consider doing so).

Get the discussion away from who's making what $$ and onto what's wrong with the system and how to fix it.

Thanks for this

[magical thyme]

99. thank you and you're welcome

[mainer]

69. I am a physician. So is my husband. We both quit the profession.

The stress and the hours were grueling. Neither of our kids went into medicine.

For such a wonderful profession paying SO MUCH MONEY, as you seem to imply, it sure does make a lot of people unhappy.

Young people who are really looking for money would not become doctors; they would go into finance.

[coalition_unwilling]

74. Yipes, did you bother to read the OP? The lowest paying M.D. on the

list averages over $150,000/year.

So enough with the "you seem to imply" insinuation bullshit. The median income in the U.S. is $50,000. What does 'median' mean, you ask? Simple - 1/2 the people earn more than that and 1/2 the people earn less.

So one thing's for sure, the average MD makes well above the median, right? I don't have to imply shit for that statement to be true.

Just out of curiosity, what did you and your spouse end up doing after you 'quit the profession'?

[mainer]

89. I went into publishing.

which ended up paying even better than medicine, and with far better control over my life. And a job that didn't require jumping out of bed in the middle of the night to drive to the hospital.

Not every doctor earns $150,000. Some earn a lot less, depending on where in the country you live.

You seem to have an innate hatred of doctors. Perhaps you just shouldn't go to one. Really. Just do your own surgery, since you seem to think doctors are overpaid for the piddling work they do.

[coalition_unwilling]

94. He-he. I went into publishing (but never got rich at it) and ended up wishing

I had become a doctor (see my exchange with Magical Thyme elsewhere). Funny how life works out like that.

I don't hate doctors. I hate privilege. Right now, I cannot afford to see a doctor so it really doesn't matter much how I feel about them.

[mainer]

96. Well, that's how life goes. A lot of unknowns involved.

Many people want to be actors, and a few hit it rich. The others wait tables.

In my case, I first went the "secure" route and hated it. So I chose to follow my passion and it worked out well.

[coalition_unwilling]

97. When I was first getting started in political activism oh so long ago, one

of the profound influences on me was my doctor who was in Physicians for Social Responsibility. This was at the time of the Nuclear Freeze Campaign with Dr. Helen Caldicott. Some of the finest activists I have known since then have been medical professionals and PSR is always out there on the front lines doing what is right. Also have to plug Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders). They're my type of doctor!

[dkf]

98. Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper than $1000/mo if you just went in and paid cash?

It's the insurance that makes it so expensive.

[treestar]

40. All true though at least the physician once licensed

Generally will make $$. Are there unemployed physicians? The AMA does a good job of keeping their numbers down.

[magical thyme]

52. my reply was to Coalition Unwilling

who was attacking all physicians as greedy, rich, privileged, whatever. I was defending the medical profession.

[Initech]

56. Yeah so am I.

[coalition_unwilling]

75. Oy, you might want to delete your post and re-post

as a reply to me, as I think you replied to a kindred spirit and not to me.

Whatever floats your boat.

[Carolina]

88. Some in this thread are clueless and wrongly paint with a broad brush

A good plastic surgeon is a doctor and an artist and deserves to be paid.

When I was an intern in the ER over 30 years ago, a woman came in who had been brutally attacked by her boyfriend. With the intent of maiming, rather than killing, her, he had slashed her face repeatedly. I assisted in absolute awe as the plastic surgeon delicately, meticulously and painstakingly put her face back together. Over the ensuing months, we would see her evolving healing in the surgery clinic. He restored her "life" in many ways. Even when I switched fields (OB-GYN to pathology), I would still occasionally seek to work with Dr. H. He was truly a master of the art and science of medicine and he deserved everything he earned putting mangled bodies back together. The few vanity cases he did were equally wonders to behold.

It took innate talent, intelligence, years of school and training, and great expense to produce him and many others like him.

Primary care docs and specialists are all important and all deserved to be paid.

The monster in our health care system is the coalition of political whores, big pharma and the insurance companies that screw patients and doctors alike.

Thank you for your post

[Burma Jones]

23. You see, there will not be physicians here on DU to argue with you, why?

Because they're too busy.

[coalition_unwilling]

34. Too busy with their investments maybe. - n/t

[lumberjack_jeff]

87. too busy... looking for tax shelters.

2 or 3X the median family income seems fair. 6X seems excessive, and certainly not worth sympathy.

[Carolina]

78. you obviously have no idea of the

years of school/training (minimum 11 years after high school), long hours, delayed gratificaton, massive debt and huge responsibility!

[cbayer]

7. The big problem here is that those making the least are the ones who often do the most work.

And most physicians finish their training in their 30's with debt in the 6 figures.

The fact that only 54% would choose it again is really bad news. What is happening is that physicians are retiring as early as they can, their kids are less likely to follow in their footsteps, the smartest and most talented are choosing the highly lucrative specialties and the primary care problem is going to get much worse.

Doctor bashing is cheap sport. I would challenge those that do it to follow a busy physician around for a week or so.

[tallahasseedem]

13. +1

The doctors I work with deserve it all and MORE!

[magical thyme]

22. I would challenge them to spend a semester in med school

or a semester in pre-med.

[OhioChick]

28. Well Said and Agreed n/t

[w8liftinglady]

8. OK. I'm a nurse,and work with a LOT of docs still paying off loans

These docs sacrificed a hell of a lot...a good portion of their young adult life.They don't start making "Good Money" until they hit 40(the specialists).My brain surgeon was in training until he was 32(it was THAT specialized).Screw that noise.I say let them volunteer to serve on the national health plan for every year they have to pay back,salary included.Most won't want to leave.

For the record,I don't begrudge my neurosurgeon one iota of the money he has made.He saved my life-essentially gave me my life back.How much is my life worth?

[riderinthestorm]

14. One of my client's is a cardiac thoracic surgeon. His malpractice insurance is @ $1 million/yr

On top of the school debt (approximately $200k) he accumulated by the time he was able to practice his profession (he was over 30 by the time he actually began practicing). He has an excellent surgical record but malpractice insurance eats into your bottom line in the biggest way. I notice on that list most of those physicians with the biggest salaries are the ones with the biggest malpractice exposure which they pay out of their own pocket so they need that extra money.

Yes, now he's very, very wealthy but the first decade was pretty rocky financially. One of the worst parts of his job is the insurance hassles for his patients. He has to hire staff to just handle his patients' health insurance companies - more $$ out of pocket. He pretty much hates his job now because its gotten harder to simply practice medicine

[jp11]

17. A combination of things here

some people become doctors to be 'rich', never be out of work(people are always going to need doctors), get the 'respect' of being a doctor, when you SHOULD get into to it to help people.

Some people take out those giant loans and becoming a doctor is expensive but you do not need to go to the most expensive schools in the country to become a doctor. The same is true for any profession requiring a college degree, law school, etc. If the school is accredited, real, etc then you can become whatever their programs offer. My opinion is too many think they 'need' to go to expensive 'prestigious' schools to be 'someone' or get taken seriously maybe they just idol worship the stupid schools too much.

Then you have doctors who live beyond their means, lots of americans do this, buying things they need to pay off for years, houses/cars when something smaller or cheaper would 'do'. Part of the problem here is probably surviving on a very small income while attending school, etc then finally getting 'paid' and splurging cause you have money now.

150k a year is 'plenty' to live on, people are living on 20-30k a year and less w/ government assistance. Say for instance at 150k 1/3 goes to taxes, this is not true but lets say it is, so that's 100k left now let's say another 1/3 goes to paying off loans again not true, that leaves 50k to 'live' on. So you might not feel 'rich' on 50k, it is actually much more, did you go into medicine to be rich or to help people cause you love medicine?

I have little sympathy for people who take on bigger debts than they need to get an education. I think it should be free or offered at 0% interest but when you spend 2, 3, 4+ times what someone else did to do the same job so you could brag about the schools you went to I don't sympathize with you. Nor do I feel bad for a doctor pulling in 100k+ not feeling 'rich', plenty of us are happy to make 50k or so cause it covers our expenses and leaves enough to enjoy life. More would offer more opportunities to splurge on more recreation/luxury/etc but there is a point of diminishing returns.

A landmark 2010 Princeton University study showed that money really can buy happiness — up to a very specific point. The researchers (including Nobelist Daniel Kahneman) found that up to about $75,000, annual income closely correlates with emotional well-being. Beyond that threshold, however, more income doesn’t translate into more happiness. On average, an American earning $575,000 isn’t likely to be any happier than one making $75,000.


Well, forget $75,000. A new poll by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion suggests that as little as $50,000 brings genuine happiness. According to the survey, those below $50K weren’t as personally satisfied with their lives as those above that mark in areas such as one’s housing situation, personal relationships and overall direction in life.

http://moneyland.time.com/2012/04/19/why-50000-may-be-the-new-happiness-tipping-point/?xid=rss-topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20time%2Ftopstories%20%28TIME%3A%20Top%20Stories%29&utm_content=Google%20Reader

It turns out, money might buy happiness after all. And, it might not cost as much as you think. According to a new poll, an annual household income of $50,000 is enough to increase the likelihood of people feeling an overall sense of happiness and satisfaction in life.

http://www.mnn.com/money/personal-finance/stories/how-much-money-do-you-need-to-be-happy

[magical thyme]

25. written like somebody who truly does not have a clue what they are writing about

Not everybody goes to the most expensive schools. In medicine, even the "cheap" schools are expensive because 1. it takes so many, many years of training, 2. the education is very very difficult -- working your way through is a way to fail out. 3. US schools have waiting lists and turn students away. The vast majority of students go to whichever school they can get into. Most don't have the luxury of picking and choosing. Hell, I've known 2nd tier students to go to school in the Bahamas or Mexico because they didn't get into any US schools.

School loans even at the cheaper schools add up to a good sized mortgage. But that is only the beginning.

As written above, setting up a practice is very, very expensive.

Malpractice insurance is enormously expensive.

There is a huge amount of paperwork involved, from insurance to government-required record keeping. That takes time which a private practice doctor can't afford, so that means additional staff.

You're looking at the gross annual income with absolutely zero clue as to what their required annual expenses are. Required. Not optional.

We should be looking at Europe, where medical school is free. The doctors there are much happier. They make less money, but their expenses are much less too.

[jp11]

81. Thanks for ignoring what I wrote and making excuses for the things you think I said.

I never said everyone goes to the most expensive schools, next time read slower if you can't see the difference, I also didn't say that schooling wasn't expensive.

I never said the training wasn't difficult.

I never said people had the luxury of picking and choosing. But if the only school(s) you can get into are really expensive maybe you try other options like joining any number of armed services to get your training paid for, national guard, army, navy, airforce. OR maybe you do something else, not everyone follows their 'dreams' or 'goals' because not all of us can, the cost, things in life 'get in the way' etc.

Never said loans at cheap schools weren't a large sum.

Never said being your own boss wasn't another animal all together I didn't even talk about it.

Never said malpractice insurance wasn't expensive but again I did make the ridiculous statement that taxes and paying off your huge loans would amount to 2/3 of your income. Are you telling me that huge figure 2/3 won't cover malpractice insurance, I highly doubt it.

Again private practice this is a business owner/operator isn't it, and you are complaining you need extra staff to own/operate your own business where you are the primary 'service' provider? I never said you didn't need extra people for a private practice cause I never even mentioned it.

I completely agree about Europe which is what my general post was about, there it isn't about greed, it isn't all about greed here but it is a larger and more 'real' factor when people making 2-3x+ what most people make bemoan not feeling rich. This is where *I* talked about people(most anyway) could and were happy with 50k.

The other thing *I* talked about was that *I* don't feel great sympathy for people who take on larger debt than they need to take, again no one forces anyone to be a doctor and go to school for so long, hard/difficult, limited choices, debt, etc. There are other ways than doing it 'on your own' as I just mentioned the armed forces as an option. I also mentioned in my post where I 'truly don't have a clue what I was writing about' that school should be free or offer 0% interest loans but you'd have had to actually read what I wrote beyond just picking the parts that made you feel angry to get that or see I agree with you about Europe.

[sendero]

27. As I tell my kids..

... money won't make you happy, but having no money will damn sure make you sad.

[coalition_unwilling]

48. As logicians might say, Money is necessary but not sufficient for

happiness.

I like the way you put it though

[KansDem]

61. People who say that money doesn't buy happiness don't know where to shop.

nt

[sendero]

62. That's cute..

... right up there with "he who dies with the most toys wins" but the kind of happy money buys is fleeting at best.

[Initech]

18. My brother's school had a strict interview policy.

Where they essentially weeded out any potential candidates who said they were only in medicine for the money and that was like an almost immediate no. I don't know if that's true for all schools or just his but that's mainly his school - but med school students are in tremendous amounts of debt after graduation.

[demosincebirth]

19. I bet the didn't poll my doctor or dentist here in the Bay Area. 1300 bucks for a root canal. He

does about 6 a day. Not bad for a day job.

[Burma Jones]

24. Gee, I don't know, maybe he pays his staff decent wages...the slime......

[demosincebirth]

59. No one working in a dental office can support a family of two. Not even in the

Bay area. Oh yea, there's one, the guy charging you $1300 for a root canal. Also, that's why my city has to have free dental clinics twice a year for those who can't afford dental care and many are fully employed. I wonder how often some have to suffer with an abscess tooth because that dentist takes cash or dental insurance only?

[coalition_unwilling]

32. Don't even get me started on dentistry and so-called 'dental insurance'. God,

I sometimes wonder what in the fuck I am doing on this board, given the defenders of privilege who always show up here.

[Carolina]

90. you think he simply pockets

$1,300 x 6 or $7,800. Wrong! Don't forget: supplies, equipment, staff, insurance....

[RB TexLa]

26. Awww, must be getting harder for them to steal from insurance companies and the government

[coalition_unwilling]

35. 50 million Americans DO NOT HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE and we're

supposed to give a shit about whether doctors feel rich or not?

There is something seriously rotten in the state of Denmark.

[demosincebirth]

60. totally agree.

[mainer]

70. Yes, we should care. Without doctors, there's no healthcare

And your "universal health insurance" would be worthless. Because there'd be no one to take care of you.

But what the hell, take your own appendix out since it's so easy.

[coalition_unwilling]

73. You know, how about I just crawl off and die, since that's

one of the two choices the system currently offers me, that or bankruptcy and probable homelessness.

Whew, let's make all the doctors rich beyond their wildest dreams. Let's let them all drive BMWs and Mercedes. It's a meritocracy and, by God, they've earned it.

[mainer]

92. Doctors aren't the ones who drive up healthcare costs. It's the cost of hospitalization.

I don't know why you hate doctors so much. Again, JUST DON'T GO TO ONE if you think they don't give you value for your money. No one's forcing you to use a medical professional.

[coalition_unwilling]

95. Read the final chapters of Pearl Buck's "The Good Earth". The fate

of the mother and the decision she must make awaits more and more of us and it really doesn't matter who or what is driving up medical costs after a certain point.

I don't hate doctors. I hate privilege. I won't be going to a doctor because I can't afford to.

[BlueCheese]

37. Among all the real and imagined injustices in our society...

... the idea that doctors' pay is too much is way down the list for me.

Doctors spend four years in college, four years in medical school, and 3+ years as a resident, all while paying hundreds of thousands or dollars or making peanuts, and end up in a profession that does a definite and demonstrable good for society. I don't mind if after all of their training, they end up making $200,000 a year. (And while our health care system is broken beyond belief, this is because of insurance companies, not doctors.)

I can think of a lot more professions whose pay is much higher than their contribution to society would dictate. We can start with Wall Street bankers, and move on to certain kinds of law.

[Johonny]

43. the thing is I know a lot a non-medical doctors

that train just as long, work just as bad hours and do good for society and these non-medical doctors don't make salaries anywhere near what is on that list. So for the medical doctors not feeling rich at 100,000 to 200,000 a year. A graduate degree doesn't make you upper middle class-wealthy anymore. Shrug, welcome to the 99 %. The sooner professional get they aren't in the 1 % the sooner they will start voting for themselves.

[mainer]

93. Absolutely. Your carpenter can perform brain surgery perfectly well.

No need to go to someone who's trained for 15 years.

[kskiska]

38. My doctor's med school was completely paid for by the US Air Force

The armed services will pay for medical school (plus a monthly stipend) in exchange for one year's service for each school year. My doctor served 4 years at an Air Force base hospital in Oklahoma before moving back to his home state and setting up his practice.

[Maraya1969]

45. Yes my cousin complains a lot. And she works all the time.

She lives a good life though, takes a lot of vacations so she really doesn't need to be complaining but she does. There might be something about the personality of doctors like her. She is constantly getting new degrees under her belt which makes her under constant stress. Right now she is finishing up her anti-aging specialty. It is like she can never sit still.

[coalition_unwilling]

49. OT, but really enjoyed your description of your cousin, especially your

final-sentence summation and its ironic juxtaposition against the immediately-preceding 'anti-aging specialty.'

Much appreciated.

[surrealAmerican]

76. "Only 54%"?

That's a solid majority. It doesn't sound so low to me. How does this compare to other professions?