[rant] I absolutely can't stand doctors who don't follow their appointment times. In what other profession is it okay to make someone wait 30-60 minutes? Even lawyers don't do this. Now I'm not saying it applies to all doctors, but some definitely think they are doing humanity a favor just cause they spent 8 years and a quarter million dollars on education. [/rant]
The return ratio over 20 years is significantly more than favorable. Studying till 26 then making 40-50k for 3-5 years and then making 250-500k a year for 20+ years is a pretty amazing return on investment. Especially as med school is 4 years, business school (MBA) is 2, Law School is 3 and all are very expensive, yet median income is much, much higher. Ironically my competitive anti-cartel type behavior would allow many more physicians in the marketplace, lower the cost of medical school (as the school's are artificial bottleneck's) and as a result increase healthcare availability, service and bring down prices. The naysayers will say you can't allow foreign medical graduates to operate on people, whereas they already are and have passed the exams but there are not enough residency spots available as those are limited by governing bodies.
From the article: Don't know if any surgery can fix reading comprehension Anyway, it is important to note that the article only talks about the low cost venture arm of the company. My friend's father had successful cardiac surgery in Narayana Hrudalaya Institute of Cardiac Sciences at Bangalore and it had air conditioned rooms (both wards and OT). The hospital is well-known in Asia and a significant portion of patients arrive from outside India.
Have you also noticed that Vets and Dentists will call you on the phone after a procedure to check in on how you / your pet are doing. I've never had a doctor call me, afterwards.
yeah, ya got me, missed that. My point is, though, that most of us would probably not be all right with the corners that are cut in order to make the surgery cost be lower by 98%. Could costs be lower here? Sure. Is it merely greed and inefficiency that makes this surgery in the US cost so much more? No.
You're rationalizing it as if its just some package deal you sign up for out of college. There are built in stressors along the way that complicate this from being just a simple "investment". You first have to complete 4 competitive years of medical school (after jumping the hurdles just to get into the school in the first place). Far more competitive than any other professional school. Why? Because your performance there dictates what sort of specialty you can even think about applying for. For physicians, their specialty does determine how much they could potentially earn in the future, or how much job satisfaction they'll end up actually having... and its all determined by how you do in medical school. Unlike business or law school, where you can get an internship right out of graduation, you really don't have much of a choice on where you then spend your residency... you have to get matched into a specialty and a residency program that could be on the other end of the country. Even if a certain program liked you on the interview trail, its still a total toss-up with the match system. A lot of residents end up quitting or switching specialties... mostly due to family or $$$ issues. It no longer becomes the simple choice of becoming a doctor and doing what you like to do... you're 30+ years old, have no savings, tons of debt, and are getting burned out working 80+ hours/week possibly in a temporary location that you hate. Finally, after uprooting your family (if you've had time to start one) after medical school and working the hardest 4-6 years of your life (residency is the hardest post-professional grind that anybody has to go through)... you then get to either try to get a job, or continue more training in a fellowship for dirt pay to make yourself more marketable. There are multiple built-in "bottlenecks" to becoming a fully licensed board-certified physician... far more than the other professions you mentioned. The best of the best usually do work the hardest, train the longest, and inevitably may get compensated for doing so (like any other profession). I see business graduates and law graduates making far more for less work than what I've seen with most physicians.
Why not cap all professional's salaries. Why just doctors? Do you honestly think the business or energy executive making hundreds of millions of dollars mostly on other's hard work should have a salary cap? Or the lawyers who bill hundreds of thousands of dollars for simple face time? I really don't understand the stance of wanting to cap a certain profession's salary when they end up working just as hard (if not harder) than any other post-professional school graduate.
for 80+ hr weeks? It was actually around 30K just a decade ago, inflation etc is why it is more around 40K now. You can't really call it a pay if you've actually done it or seen someone else do it.
Agreed. MFers who really don't DO THE WORK get the PAY This is becoming typical in American Society Middle men and paper pushers make the money the workers get the droppings Rocket River
Doctors' inflated salaries make healthcare expensive all around. Also, their salaries are capped in many countries and they're doing fine. Are you saying 250 is an unreasonable salary?
That's a ridiculous assumption. Doctors salaries are a microcosm of the expenses tied into the US healthcare industry. If you truly believe that, then I'd be more worried about questioning our education system in this country. When you take into account years of school, training, work-load during training, non-defined hours/weekends, risk, stress... I feel a doctor's salary should be enough so that they rarely second-guess what they're doing, or have thoughts about leaving their job for another profession all-together. Lack of compensation could also breed complacence or laziness with mistakes... something that physciains are not allowed to make (another built-in stress of being a physciain... where mistakes are almost always unnaceptable). As far as the other country argument... practicing medicine in the US is an entirely different ballgame alltogether. Higher standards of care, more oversight, more board certified guidelines, more expectation for excellence (along with increased threat of litigation). I'd venture to say most jobs in other countries don't make as much as their counterpart here in the US. Why would you only hold physicians at a higher standard vs. other professions? I feel people in this country should be compensated for work they do. If you see a lot of doctors sitting around doing nothing all day while getting paid, I'd understand your standpoint. Again, I see far more higher paid professions who do less training/schooling than physicians and are making even more money.
5-7 years for most surgical specialties... and often it gets under-reported since these physicians are training to work in a no-mistake/highest standard of care environment, and they're going to do so regardless of the hours. They could train in another country at a far less rigorous pace... but just like any other profession, the less you work/practice at something, the worse you will be.
What started out as a thread for a man who is trying to do great things for society turned into a thread about whether American doctors are in it for the money. Makes me want to:
I worked 95 hours a week for 2 years making $36k per year, then worked 80 hours per week for the next 5 years making $40-50k per year. I graduated college in 1999 and didn't have my first post-residency job till 2012, well into my mid-30s. Most medical school graduates are $100-$250k in debt b/c of the cost of education. There are a lot of sacrifices physicians make to get through education and training. Having said all that, I actually do think subspecialists are over paid, but as long as there is an insurance industry bilking the system, doctors should never take pay cuts (even though with medicare reimbursement cuts, we are already). Also, for the post earlier about never having a physician call you after a procedure, I call most of my post-procedure patients to check up on them the following day. You haven't had the misfortune of needing my services, but when you do, you'll have a doctor who checks up on you.
I think you're missing the point. The bottlenecks are what support higher prices and wages. It is more competitive than ever to get into medical school and the acceptance rates have fallen substantially. Thats because the AMA and other groups thought there would be a surplus of doctors, so limited foreign graduates, licences for new med schools and residency programs which now has us in a shortage boosting prices and lowering service. Both being bad and bad for consumers and artificially inflating physician income. And boo hoo about not being able to choose your residency location which is a farce as you put your top selections down and if they don't like you, that is your problem. People move for work all the time and spend significant time on the road, travelling for business whereas as a physician you can plant yourself virtually anywhere and have virtually no travel time away from family. That is pretty weak. I have people that work for me that travel five days a week, move from their families for employment when they're older and have kids and are in their 40's, 50's and 60's. Not a 25 year old complaining of working 80 hours a week for above the median income.
General practitioners generally average about $150,000 a year..with about $250,000 in debt. They are a small part of overall healthcare expenses.
