patrick.net

Rin says

Simple, doctors are overpaid

No way. You don't understand the effort doctors put in their profession. It is not a easy job. If you put yourself in their shoes then you will understand how difficult their job is.

Just Imagine yourself how difficult it is when you tell the patients family now its time to pack up and remove the oxygen. How much stress a doctor takes.

While Rin's suggestion makes sense it won't reduce prices by much.

1. Two medical years at school, two to three residency years, and two+ years of specialisation are very abusive. The stress is incomparable to one PHD students or Post-Doc scientists experience. (disclosure: my son is in his medical years now after finishing his PhD in biology/medical research)

Physicians will still come out with lots of debt and will need some compensation for these long and very difficult years of their life. I don't think any other country has such an abusive rite of doctors initiation.

2. The culture that promotes frivolous law suits will not go away. The malpractice insurance won't be any lower.

However, Rin's idea may work well, combined with government scholarships provided for an obligation to repay it with certain number of free care hours. In turn the free care recipients should sign up on a waiver of any legal litigations and the government should enforce such waivers.
(That does not mean malpractice will go unpunished, it means patient will not be paid any proceeds of malpractice law suites in such cases. Physicians may still lose their licenses in case of a proven malpractice.)
Second, such scholarships should be provided based solely on the academic success of the applicants not on any social/economic status, like gender, race, income etc. The goal of such a program should be getting as many as possible most talented doctors, not solving any social injustices.

Nobody says

The problem is not the doctor getting a good pay. The overall medical care costs too much in US.

When I got sick in Germany recently, a cost to visit doctor's office was less than $30 without the insurance. The copay for my health insurance was already at $20, so I didn't even bother claiming it. Now, I want to know why it costs so much even to see a doctor here in US. I am assuming the doctors in Germany are getting as much as their counterparts in US. And the quality of care is pretty much the same.

No they don't make as much but they are happy being middle-class to upper middle-class (and getting laid). It is true that due to student loan costs you start out much in the red in the US, but this is due to the generally broken system. That being said, there is a lot of other things to be fixed that may yield better results before taking on the doctors, but it is no secret that doctors in Europe (or almost anywhere else) are equally happy earning significantly less than their US counterparts.

Most Dr's are not overpaid. The biggest chunk of healthcare dollars extracted from the system, which does contribute ANYTHING positive to anyones health, are insurance companies administration fees and overhead. This is why social medicine countries, and our US Veterans Affairs can deliver excellent care at about half the cost. The other problem is simply how health care is administered in this country, which again, is largely influenced by Insurance Companies. Here is a short article from Harvard Review that I believe outlines a related problem in a succinct manner. Namely, spending healthcare dollars where it does the most good. We don't measure enough to even know where to do this because of competing capitalist pressures that funnel dollars not to the most effective procedures/best practices or Drs, etc, but rather to what makes people the most money. http://hbr.org/2011/09/how-to-solve-the-cost-crisis-in-health-care/ar/1

an excerpt;

"the fundamental value problem: how to deliver improved outcomes at a lower total cost.

Fortunately, we can change this state of affairs. And the remedy does not require medical science breakthroughs or top-down governmental regulation. It simply requires a new way to accurately measure costs and compare them with outcomes. Our approach makes patients and their conditions—not departmental units, procedures, or services—the fundamental unit of analysis for measuring costs and outcomes".

"Fortunately, we can change this state of affairs. And the remedy does not require medical science breakthroughs or top-down governmental regulation. It simply requires a new way to accurately measure costs and compare them with outcomes. Our approach makes patients and their conditions—not departmental units, procedures, or services—the fundamental unit of analysis for measuring costs and outcomes"

That makes entirely too much sense. You must be un-American or something.

crazydesi says

ust Imagine yourself how difficult it is when you tell the patients family now its time to pack up and remove the oxygen. How much stress a doctor takes.

I would find that to be pretty easy. Perhaps APOCALYPSEFUCK and I should be doctors?

Rin says

You can earn over $200K, as a doctor, in places like Des Moines Iowa, nevermind the big coastal cities.

This is because no one wants to live there. The less desirable the city the more incentive needed to attract doctors. Some places are as high as $350K.

Doctors work hard for years and incur a lot of debt to get where they're at. They made sacrifices for years to now make a lot of money, while your lazy ass sat on a couch or went to brunch with your friends every Sunday.

Get a clue.

nw888 says

Doctors work hard for years and incur a lot of debt to get where they're at. They made sacrifices for years to now make a lot of money, while your lazy ass sat on a couch or went to brunch with your friends every Sunday.

Get a clue.

That's like saying people that worked two minimum wage jobs for 8 years, deserve 300K a year, just because.

CaptainShuddup says

That's like saying people that worked two minimum wage jobs for 8 years, deserve 300K a year, just because.

No not really. If they developed the skills to save lives during that time, then yes they certainly do.

If the distortions of insurance and subsidy were removed, supply and demand would show who is overpaid and who isn't. I suspect that current distortions result in good doctors being currently underpaid, while butchers and poisoners are overpaid. But currently it's almost impossible even to get a price quote from a doctor, because everything is distorted by insurance.

curious2 says

bob2356 says

how exactly does government inflate demand for medical care?

Where to begin counting the ways? Fee-for-service Medicare and Medicaid are two examples. The tax subsidy for employer-sponsored medical insurance is another. RomneyCare in Massachusetts, soon to become national as ObamneyCare, figures prominently in the Presidential debates. How can you not have noticed any of these things?

You recognize the role of DTC ads on TV in driving excess demand for pills, but you don't seem to acknowledge the role of government cost shifting. If the people who fall for those TV ads weren't subsidized by government-mandated cost shifting, i.e. if their demand weren't artificially inflated by subsidies, their personal budgets and resistance to overpaying would result in fewer people buying that stuff. The purpose of the ads is to create demand, and the subsidies inflate it further.

I love what passes for logic in your world. I honestly can't discern what you are trying to say. So you are saying the medicare/medicaid fee for service model is a giant front for selling more DTC drugs? So is your 1trilllion "subsidy" to "inflate" demand for health care or DTC drugs? WTF are you saying?

Fact, Americans visit doctors the least of any first world country, so the US system has the LOWEST demand. Fact the cost of health care in the rest of the first world is around half of the cost of health care in America despite higher demand in other places. Fact the rest of the first world has public health care at no or nominal cost to the patient so that means 100% cost shifting.

So how does 100% government cost shifting in the rest of the first world result in half the cost? By your logic costs should be much higher than the US. Simple question. Just a simple explanation in your own words please. Want to run econ 101 past me again?

curious2 says

You keep saying "area's." You don't seem to grasp that the plural of area is areas. But that isn't the point. The point is you also don't seem to grasp causation. As I said, supply meets demand. Where people are spending a lot on medical care, they bid up prices, and more doctors arrive, i.e. the supply rises to meet the demand.

No, you just don't know anything about the economics of medical practice. There isn't any more "demand" in any given population. The same percentage of people get sick no matter what. What happens when there are too many doctors in an area is they boost the number of tests, referrals, and visits to keep up income. The missing part of your equation that you don't grasp is the cost of health care and what doctors earn isn't interlocked. Salaries are much lower in area's with lots of doctors even though costs are much higher. Doctors in the upper midwest earn something like 25% more than their counterparts in NY or Florida. Some of the highest paying jobs are in places like Kansas and Wyoming. My wife looked at a job in Eastern Maine that offered almost double what she was earning in Portland Oregon for a lot less hours. Hell, Roseburg Or which is about 2 hours south of Portland was offering almost 50% higher. The catch is you have to live in Eastern Maine or Roseburg. Sorry to confuse your ideology with more facts.

nw888 says

If they developed the skills to save lives during that time

Oh the Doctors are GOD complex I see.
I bet you also are one of those believe it is the malpractice law suits that is solely responsible for high costs, followed by people with their contagious diabetes?

What good are those life saving skills, if they live on a clock and only dance if you can afford to call the tune?

Show up at a doctors office at closing time, and see how far you get, or don't have the money to cover your out of pocket expenses for insurance, let alone having no insurance and see how far you get.

I think you meant to say, "If they developed Skills to fleece people out of money that can afford to pay for their health." You make them sound like goddamn humanitarians. We should replace every Doctor in America with Indians from India that make less money than a teacher.

My wife saw five Doctors in the last two months, and it was the Doctor in the Emergency room that diagnosed her underlying condition that the previous 4 missed. We were paying out of pocket for their services and they did do a damn thing but stick a thermometer in her mouth and charged us for it. Meanwhile there was a mass in her cervix that these bastards strung us along for weeks at a time for appointment, that by the time we went to them, they informed us they weren't willing to perform the procedure the biopsy. Strung us along for two whole freaking months. Finally the doctor in the ER told her she had an infection, which he cured and referred her to a Doctor that performed the Mass removal the very next day. It turned out to be non cancerous thank god. Though we're waiting on the Biopsy results for 100% certainty.
Those other 4 doctors had her terrified and had it been more serious were running out valuable time by running her around for two months with appointments that they never kept.

In the meantime I have insurance that starts on November 1st but we weren't waiting two months for it to kick in.

And to give what I've been saying all along credit with 100% certainty, now I can say it is not a gut feeling. The whole episode was less than two months worth of Insurance premiums that I'll be paying started this pay check.

Once again it is cheaper to pay out of pocket for 90% of your medical needs than it is to be insured.

The funny thing is I remember the Liberals saying how people use the Emergency room as their own personal Primary Doctor, like that's a bad thing.

From my experience if I am ever in a position where my life may be in danger. I will never go to a Doctors office for treatment. I will go to the Emergency room, and follow up with the Doctor on premise they recommend the next day. Doctors in those offices in cheesy out of the way strip malls, are bunch of Ass-clowns that are there only because they feel they deserve to make GOBS of money because they "Sacraficed" for 8 years as you so shamelessly put it.

bob2356 says

No, you just don't know anything about the economics of medical practice. There isn't any more "demand" in any given population. The same percentage of people get sick no matter what. What happens when there are too many doctors in an area is they boost the number of tests, referrals, and visits to keep up income. The missing part of your equation that you don't grasp is the cost of health care and what doctors earn isn't interlocked. Salaries are much lower in area's with lots of doctors even though costs are much higher.

You seem to be getting upset and contradicting yourself, while ignoring what I and others have posted. Obviously costs and net income are not the same thing, insurance distortions being a major reason for that. Equally obviously, demand and the number of doctor visits are also not the same thing, visits are usually counted as an intersection of supply and demand. In one sentence you say there isn't more demand, then in the same paragraph you acknowledge doctors inflate demand by ordering up more tests (which are subsidized by government and insurance, inflating demand). Please, switch to decaf, read a bit about economics, and come back when you can cite some links. You never acknowledge when you're wrong, and when it's proven quite obviously you say you don't want to see any more links. I will not indulge your hunger for ad hominem food fights, nor your thirst for source-free shouting matches, so if those are all you want then you'll have to direct your attention towards someone else. If you want to discuss intelligently then please cite some actual source links, and quote somebody who knows that the plural of area is areas, rather than endlessly embarrassing yourself with your own words. You might be able to make some good points, but it's impossible to know because you slip so frequently into sarcasm and you almost never cite any sources.

"Why shouldn't we have unlimited immigration of engineers and scientists?"

Because all this means is we get flooded with Asian tech workers with fake degrees (I know they're fake because my wife's friend is one and she told us matter of factly that they fake the diploma and work experience. She helped my wife do the same!!!)

Think about that the next time one of them is cutting open you or your loved one in an emergency room...

curious2 says

You seem to be getting upset and contradicting yourself, while ignoring what I and others have posted. Obviously costs and net income are not the same thing, insurance distortions being a major reason for that. In one sentence you say there isn't more demand, then in the same paragraph you acknowledge doctors inflate demand by ordering up more tests (which are subsidized by government and insurance, inflating demand

Patrick is moderator of this thread.).

I'm not the least bit upset. Are you actually a native english speaker? Ok, for the hair splitting amoung us I will rephrase it to say there isn't any more need, does that satisfy you? There isn't any more need, but because there are excess doctors PER CAPITA they create excess work to bill for. The excess supply of available doctors is creating the excess utilization not the other way around. Satisfied with that wording? There is no contradiction, and the article you keep citing says exactly the same thing. Try to remember that your original point was that if there were more doctors the cost of health care would fall yet here you are saying where there are more doctors the cost is higher. So which is it?

So why are costs so much lower in countries with 100% government paid for health care if government paid health care inflates demand? There should be unlimited demand in those countries as per your logic. This is not an ad hominem food fight just a simple question that keeps getting ignored.

curious2 says

You really don't seem to understand economi

Patrick is moderator of this thread.cs. Of course the areas with greatest demand (i.e., highest prices) attract the most supply. The supply is there because the demand is there. If you were a doctor choosing where to live and work, would you choose the place where you can make twice as much $, or half as much?

This is your quote correct? In your own convoluted way I think you are saying that doctors in high "demand" area's aka high health care cost area's aka area's where lots of doctors practice the doctors are making twice as much. Am I reading that correctly? I thought you said obviously "costs" (I am assuming you mean health care costs, it's not very clear) and net income were not the same thing above. I thought it was you who pointed out how much doctors could earn in Des Moines Which is it? Work on your own contradictions. Doctors earn considerably less money in area's with excess doctors than in area's with a shortage of doctors This is not an ad hominem food fight, just a simple statement of fact that contradicts your assertion that a shortage of doctors is driving the cost of health care.

bob2356 says

In your own convoluted way I think you are saying that doctors in high "demand" area's aka high health care cost area's aka area's where lots of doctors practice the doctors are making twice as much. Am I reading that correctly?

No. And you haven't cited any sources, nor learned to spell "areas".

bob2356 says

I thought it was you who pointed out how much doctors could earn in Des Moines Which is it?

That was Rin. A simple text search would have found it for you.

bob2356 says

Doctors earn considerably less money in area's with excess doctors than in area's with a shortage of doctors

If you were to spell "areas" correctly, that statement would be consistent with basic economics.

bob2356 says

your assertion that a shortage of doctors is driving the cost of health care.

I never asserted a shortage of doctors. But, it is also true that the AMA lobbies for licensing restrictions that constrict supply. Other factors also reduce supply, for example the insurance system that drives many doctors to retire early in frustration. That doesn't create a shortage per se but it does reduce supply, increasing prices.

bob2356 says

Are you actually a native english speaker?

Is that sarcasm again or another attempt to fish for ad hominem targets? You are the one who can't spell the plural "areas".

bob2356 says

The excess supply of available doctors is creating the excess utilization not the other way around. Satisfied with that wording?

No. A culture of entrepreneurial doctors taking advantage of artificially inflated demand by selling unnecessary and even harmful drugs and "services", while shielded from the consequences by "tort reform," is creating excess cost.

bob2356 says

So why are costs so much lower in countries with 100% government paid for health care if government paid health care inflates demand?

Finally, amid all of your sarcasm, you manage to ask an intelligent question that might lead to a useful result. If you did some research, you might find your answer. Those countries manage demand instead of merely subsidizing it, and they subsidize the supply of doctors with free education and in some instances lower barriers to entry. They also don't have the costs and distortions of profit-maximizing insurance companies. And they don't have DTC advertising of Rx drugs on TV driving demand. We have a lobby-driven lemon socialist system that maximizes revenues by victimizing patients, subsidizing everything from HFCS to dialysis while taxing vaccines. BTW, costs are even lower in Mexico, where most healthcare is not government paid.

I took a couple of days off for the hurricane and all hell breaks loose. curious2, thanks for the assist. Looks like you've got everything covered.

Ok, since there's already been a lot of upheaval, here's the Des Moines general medicine, GP, salary survey ...

(http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/Physician-Family-Practice-Salary-Details-Des-Moines-IA.aspx?&hdcbxbonuse=on&isshowpiechart=false&isshowjobchart=false&isshowsalarydetailcharts=true&isshownextsteps=true&isshowcompanyfct=true&isshowaboutyou=true)

It's ~$171K/yr, not bad for a town where one can buy their home in a couple of years with that kind of salary. Certainly beats the $1M homes in Silicon Valley where one can work for years w/o being able to pay off the farm.

(http://homes.yahoo.com/Iowa/Des_Moines/1646-beaver-ave:fb53d6d435f93881515dd4b617b3156c)

and you can search around there, houses aren't expensive in the heartland.

Next for those who think that my IQ is low, I got an A- GPA in Applied Chemistry/Chemical Engineering, BS level, and a 34 MCAT score. I've taken quantitative courses in thermodynamics, transport phenomena, and reactor design/kinetics which are generally avoided by premeds trying to pad their GPA with 'soft' courses. I'm a jr partner at a hedge fund, having left pure engineering (then IT), for a monied profession. I'll be applying for medical school, once I've banked my first $2-3M, as I don't see being a money manager, as a meaningful profession, despite the high compensation. Yes, unlike others, I don't see money as the only goal in life. I don't mind working 3 days a week for $100K, which any moonlighting physician can do.

And yes, I'm aware that the MCAT isn't the USMLE and thus, only covers undergrad material in biology, general/organic chem, and gen physics, however, i don't believe that many normal science/engineering individuals, who score well on the MCAT, can't study courses which are based more upon memorization than quantitative problem solving like Anatomy, Physiology, Histology, Biochemistry, Embryology, Neuroanatomy, Pathology, Pharmacology, Microbiology, Immunology, etc, the 1st two years of medical school.

AMA-driven Limits on medical schools and thus medical students:

http://wallstreetpit.com/5769-the-medical-cartel-why-are-md-salaries-so-high/

Limits on residency, blamed on Medicare but also driven by AMA (which opposed the enactment of Medicare, and influences the funding):

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/16/why-your-waiter-has-an-m-d/

Barriers to entry restrict supply and increase prices.

But, there are also larger problems in the medical-industrial complex. Hospital and insurance executives much more overpaid than doctors. Increasingly, doctors find they can no longer practice on their own, and can only work as employees of hospitals and large corporations. The corporations overcharge for their services, but the doctors get only a fraction of that.

EBGuy says

A PBS documentary I saw a couple of years ago showed doctors in Germany on strike. I'm assuming they make less than their US counterparts.

Does that mean they are getting paid less? I don't base my assumption just based on one incident. Oh, and I don't assume the doctors over there are getting paid more, just because they are driving a Porche.

Nobody says

When I got sick in Germany recently, a cost to visit doctor's office was less than $30 without the insurance. The copay for my health insurance was already at $20, so I didn't even bother claiming it. Now, I want to know why it costs so much even to see a doctor here in US.

Much of it is the insurance. In Germany, you went without insurance and paid the actual cost. In America, the insurance companies negotiated with providers (doctors and hospitals) to be "in network" and part of the deal was the provider had to charge triple to everyone "out of network," passing along the actual cost as an "in network" insurance "copay." It got worse from there, as insurers began buying providers (hospitals and large corporate practice groups) outright. It started out like advertising, then became more like the mafia: you pay protection money to your insurance company for the privilege of being protected from the overcharges they put on everyone else. If you pay your insurance premium to the Gambinos, then they won't whack you, but if you suffer an emergency somewhere and John Gotti's crew or some other out-of-network provider gets ahold of you, you still get whacked. The whole thing has become so complicated and secretive that you can't even get an honest price quote from a doctor anymore, and part of that is because 70% of them are now employees of corporations whose pricing is beyond the doctor's control or even knowledge. It took years for the system to get messed up the way it is, but it is the logical result of various factions pursuing their own self-interest and using government to lock everyone into it. If you actually want to understand it, you'd have to spend a very long time reading about it, and it seems you haven't even followed the links on this thread because your question about salaries is answered in charts just one click away from what you're reading now. People don't read widely enough, which is one of the reasons why they become so thoroughly trapped and manipulated.

CaptainShuddup says

My wife saw five Doctors in the last two months, and it was the Doctor in the Emergency room that diagnosed her underlying condition that the previous 4 missed.

I'm sorry to hear that and hope all is okay. There are lazy and incompetent doctors out there that don't care about their jobs at all, and could care less about people. That being said, there are many out there (my wife included), that really care about people and devote their lives to medicine in order to help people.

Rin says

Simple, doctors are overpaid

I met a neurosurgeon from Argentina that made the equivalent of $18,000 per year in US dollars. Does that sound more reasonable to you? minimum wage?

nw888 says

Rin says

Simple, doctors are overpaid

I met a neurosurgeon from Argentina that made the equivalent of $18,000 per year in US dollars. Does that sound more reasonable to you? minimum wage?

Well, a postdoc in biochemistry (post-PhD) earns $42K/yr, a physician's assistant avg is $90K/yr, senior chemical engineer is $110K/yr, pharmacist is $115K/yr, so there are plenty of examples of people, stateside, who're well educated and experienced, earning an array of regular incomes.

nw888 says

Rin says

You can earn over $200K, as a doctor, in places like Des Moines Iowa, nevermind the big coastal cities.

This is because no one wants to live there. The less desirable the city the more incentive needed to attract doctors. Some places are as high as $350K.

Ok, so now try to get an engineering job in Des Moines, at a pay rate, near any coastal city? Exactly, it doesn't exist. At most, one will be employed by Big Corn and probably at 50-60% of an east coast salary.

On the other hand, a new doctor can start off in Des Moines, pay off his loans in a few years, and then high tail it for Boston, afterwards. Wouldn't it be nice if we all had that option with our debts?

And yes, I'd live in Des Moines for a few years, if I had to borrow heavily for medical school.

Ok now it's spelled areas. Are you feeling better now? So can you answer a simple question? You haven't actually answered one yet.

"Of course the areas with greatest demand (i.e., highest prices) attract the most supply. The supply is there because the demand is there. If you were a doctor choosing where to live and work, would you choose the place where you can make twice as much $, or half as much"

So what does this mean? Of course? Twice as much what? Highest prices? Highest prices for what? I already asked if that was the highest cost of medical care per capita, the generally accepted benchmark worldwide for quantifying medical care. You said no that was the wrong reading, without any kind of explanation of the correct reading. Could you explain this convoluted statement in simple English for those of us that don't know how to spell area's. If I could relate your obscure terms to what is generally used by everyone else I could respond better.

curious2 says

bob2356 says

your assertion that a shortage of doctors is driving the cost of health care.

I never asserted a shortage of doctors. But, it is also true that the AMA lobbies for licensing restrictions that constrict supply. Other factors also reduce supply, for example the insurance system that drives many doctors to retire early in frustration. That doesn't create a shortage per se but it does reduce supply, increasing prices.

So you are saying a reduced supply to the point of increasing prices is NOT a shortage. That's not what they taught me in econ 101. Has the curriculum been revised?

PolishKnight says

"Why shouldn't we have unlimited immigration of engineers and scientists?"

Because all this means is we get flooded with Asian tech workers with fake degrees (I know they're fake because my wife's friend is one and she told us matter of factly that they fake the diploma and work experience. She helped my wife do the same!!!)

Think about that the next time one of them is cutting open you or your loved one in an emergency room...

That's what the interview process is for. My old boss used to put up post doc positions and get 200 fake applicants from China. It's pretty easy to spot. Anyone that hires one of them is a moron.

> The culture that promotes frivolous law suits will not go away. The malpractice insurance won't be any lower.

I wonder what percent of medical costs are used in some way because of the frivolous lawsuits. I have heard values anywhere from 4% to 25%.

>"In America, the insurance companies negotiated with providers (doctors and hospitals) to be "in network" and part of the deal was the provider had to charge triple to everyone "out of network," passing along the actual cost as an "in network" insurance "copay." It got worse from there,..."

curious2, you may be on to something.

the medical industry is a complete clusterf*ck and universal health care won't solve a thing. Most of the money that goes towards "health care" is actually paying for an endless trail of paperwork, approvals, referrals and other inefficient nonsense.

I'm not going to get into the payor system per se, since I agree it is messed up. And I'm sorry Capn shuddup had bad experiences. There are varying levels of quality in all professions.

However, OP clearly shows that he doesn't know what he doesn't know with his statement.

First off, physicians are not overpaid. In fact, GP's are grossly UNDERPAID for the amount of work they have to do. Shit, a mid level engineer at Google can make as much an FP in the midwest who sees dozens of patients a day and spends a good amount of time on the phone trying to get a couple bucks per visit from insurance.

OP, as for me, I get paid well and deserve every penny. Every single time I interact with patients, I deal with procedures which have the potential to KILL people. KILL them. Ask any of the parents whose children I've cared for, or patients on the brink of death from a heart attack or brain hemorrhage if I should be making what an engineer makes. This is lost on many laypeople and if you plan on getting into med school, you better get this fact through your typical engineer brain: People aren't Camry's or computer algorithms. Shit WILL happen and you're there to respond as best you can when it does and the responsibility falls on you. It's a level of stress that will be unmitigated throughout your career so don't fucking tell me a bunch of early 20 somethings sitting around bean bag chairs in Menlo park drinking overpriced Philz coffee, eating shitty new age "Asian" fusion food all the while trying how to exploit more of your personal information should be paid on par with physicians.

And don't give me that bullshit about PhDs. They live a charmed life. I dated one for a few months and her day started at about 9 and ended early afternoon. Are they smart? Yes. Brilliant? many are. But none of them are up at 3AM trying to save a 450# lady bleeding to death from a ruptured placenta.

Facebooksux says

But none of them are up at 3AM trying to save a 450# lady bleeding to death from a ruptured placenta.

When you know this is going to happen, that's when you show up to work dressed like this:

I could seriously see you not being a bit sympathetic for someone who ate them,selves to death like that.

It's hard. But even in those worst cases of self-inflicted illness, that's still probably someone's mom, daughter, wife, etc.

Facebooksux, comparing Google engineers or even hedge fund engineers { now re-labelled as quants/traders/money managers } isn't an appropriate comparison. For one, those jobs are geographically constricted and typically, it costs a lot more to live in Silicon Valley, Boston, or NYC over Des Moines Iowa where a nice 2 bedroom apartment is ~$650/month. And at the same time, these high mark up careers have tons of applicants. I believe if you wanted to move to Des Moines Iowa, as a physician, they'd welcome you with open arms. And true, ever since I'd left chemical engineering work, my routine 12+ hour days for pilot trials have gone down to 8-10 hours (IT related work) and now, with this hedge fund activity, it's even less at 8 hours (though I'm busy on weekends doing work for other persons) but at three times my prior engineering salaries. So I understand the expression, money for nothing, which is why I'll be leaving this field for medical school once I'm financially independent because it's not meaningful work, despite the fact that I'll be a millionaire doing it.

And finally, while I concur that emergency medicine/trauma doctors are the most stressed out workers, the avg GP doesn't work in the emergency room, all of the time. They work in regular clinics, where PAs carry out a lot of the patient interviewing, and then the MDs prepare to close out the cases, after a lot of the preliminary work is done. Yes, I have former engineering friends, who'd gone to medical school, and by planning their lives appropriately, they mostly live better lives than they did as engineers, where their hard work got them nowhere since MBAs control the work and compensation scale of science & engineering work. At the same time, just look at R&D cuts in DuPont, Dow, etc, and you'll see that it doesn't have much of a future. Of the engineers who'd made this switch, the only stressed out person was the one who'd gone into surgery. The others ... neurologists, dermatologists, GPs, and anesthesiologists, don't have the same dire conditions you've depicted. They like their jobs and appreciate their level of compensation for work expended.

bob2356 says

Could you explain this convoluted statement in simple English for those of us that don't know how to spell area's. If I could relate your obscure terms to what is generally used by everyone else I could respond better.

Bob, so far your responses (sarcasm, no sources) sound like you're looking for a Jersey Shore GTL sparring match, which you can watch on TV if you want. It isn't my taste, so I'm not going to play researcher to your bombast. In reply to your latest flurry of rhetorical questions, here is a question that might really help: who controls the Medicare billing codes and payment rates? What is the American ratio, in quantity and price, of specialists to primary care? How do the American ratios compare to other countries? If you care enough to take the time to research the answers to those questions, and post links, you might find the results edifying.

Rin says

I understand the expression, money for nothing, which is why I'll be leaving this field for medical school once I'm financially independent because it's not meaningful work, despite the fact that I'll be a millionaire doing it.

I wish you well in that. This thread has produced many interesting comments. I think the comparison to other science grads indicates that science is underpaid, and there doesn't seem to be much correlation between what is paid well (enlarging banks until they become TBTF, running an insurance company) and what is actually needed. Alas you may find the same even more true in medicine. The fee-for-service model, insurance distortions, and other factors tend to reward the most wasteful and even harmful allocations. I hope you will find a way to do good and make a living at the same time.

I am a doctor that was a grad student before medical student at a top university in a quantitive field. Medical school, especially the pre-clinical years kicked my ass. To think that a person with a 30 MCAT could just skip the preclinical years to the clinical rotation is absurd. There is a big difference between medical school, and other types of school. I used to think how easy it would be, but listen everyone in medical school is an A student with 30 on their MCAT's. Passing is the equivalent of getting an A in undergrad or grad school. Also, the cost of medical school is usually $50,000/year, and that cost has to be recouped with the loss of wages while you are in school training for close to a decade. Sometimes, I think if I had my job before med school I was able to put away a considerable amount of money, and would be in a surplus while right now I am still paying off debt.

Also, medicine has taken an incredible toll on my health and life. Not everyone can stay up every 4th night for years trying to save people. One can make more money in tech or other areas and have a more comfortable life. Medicine is not for the faint hearted. If you think you are up for it, then quit your bitching about doctoring, and get to it. I can assure you that your ideas will change after you go through the punishment that we have had to, and this isn't about some hazing process, but the demands of the profession.

There appears to be this notion that folks, who do graduate studies in let's say biomedical, electronics, and chemical engineering fields get to bed by 9PM and live the life. This is mostly false in any good program. On the whole, these former colleagues of mine were up until 11PM to 3AM, working on design problems, homework sets, labs, etc, all of the time. And the PhDs/postdocs, I'd worked with in applied chemistry, were in the facility from 9 AM to 11 PM, as a normal work week, with a break in there for lunch a/o dinner. Thus, I don't know what lazy folks you're talking about and their alleged charmed lives.

And next, in terms of the coursework for the first two years of medical school, did you fellows use a combination of mnemonics & Roman loci, to help memorize the data? Or did you expect that you'd be able to cram 12 textbooks in a year's time w/o any problems when you'd started? In addition, do you practice recall in intervals of 2 days-6 days-30 days, to help reverse the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve)? You see, that's a memory rich curricula and there are ways of being prepared to be able to digest it. On the other foot, you can't cram/memorize for let's say, a Chemical Engineering Control's final, because you need can break the questions into their key components, find the hidden suppositions, develop the design methods, and finally, work out all the math in these steps.

" One can make more money in tech or other areas"

I'll say that one can only make more in finance a/o trading. And yes, a successful Futures Prop Trader is living the life. They typically have homes in the Hamptons and the Bahamas. In science/engineering fields, there's constant downward pressure on wages and the need to replace experienced persons with younger ones. If you haven't run into MBAs, then you don't know this. Today, thousands of DuPont (& Dow, & ATT, ...) engineers are out of a job and in a few years, you can add 4000 from NASA to that list.

As usual, most sound arguments here are being ignored by those too invested in their faulty opinions to listen to anyone else. So here is a simple solution for those who think Drs are overpaid. Don't visit them. Problem solved.

Rin says

And next, in terms of the coursework for the first two years of medical school, did you fellows use a combination of mnemonics & Roman loci, to help memorize the data? Or did you expect that you'd be able to cram 12 textbooks in a year's time w/o any problems when you'd started? In addition, do you practice recall in intervals of 2 days-6 days-30 days, to help reverse the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve). You see, that's a memory rich curricula and there are ways of being prepared to be able to digest it. On the other foot, you can't cram/memorize for let's say, a Chemical Engineering Control's final, because you need can break the questions into their key components, find the hidden suppositions, develop the design methods, and finally, work out all the math in these steps.

Again, you simply have no idea about what you don't know.

I agree that in terms of pure intellectual power, theoretical physics, quantum mechanics or some esoteric field of math that any a few dozen people on earth really understand trump the first two years of medical school. Yes, there is a LOT of memorization involved and while I've forgotten a lot of the basic science material, I still remember all of it in terms of broad areas and principles. This is enough to help with non-emergent problem solving and diagnosis.

Also, you're never going to convince anyone who's done both grad school and med school that the former is anywhere near as taxing as the latter, so drop it. Like vonah said, about a month into med school you're going to STFU about how easy it is and how anyone with a 30 MCAT can do it.