Doctors are among the most richly rewarded professionals in the country. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that of the 15 highest-paid professions in the United States, all but two are in medicine or dentistry.
Why, then, are we proposing to make medical school free?
Huge medical school debts ”” doctors now graduate owing more than $155,000 on average, and 86 percent have some debt ”” are why so many doctors shun primary care in favor of highly paid specialties, where there are incentives to give expensive treatments and order expensive tests, an important driver of rising health care costs.
A novel idea, which I fear won’t fly for a number of reasons. A big part of the cost of medical school is due to so many foolish rules usually impossed on medical education by the government. Medical education in my day was much cheaper and more concentrated. When I finished training my debt level was only $1500 dollars which I easily paid out over two or three years. First year interns in my day did more than is allowed to fourth year residents and some fellowship levels. Because of the high debt load and Obamacare I no longer recommend bright kids getting a MD degree. Nurse Practitioners make about half what family practic docs make, but have little debt, linited liability, an interesting job, and good hours with no call. Techs in physical and occupational therapy, radiology techs, lab techs can have good pay with about half the time other medical jobs require often only being a two year associate degree. Good jobs are to be found in engineering and any of the sciences with a better quality of life. I lived in the golden era, but we did work extremely hard.
What is wrong with hard work? Certainly life style is something everyone should consider in choosing a profession; but some people want a profession that is likely to pay them the most money and they are not as concerned about the work. That profession is medicine. The average doctor makes way more than the average engineer.
Well, I guess it depends on how good the engineer is and how hard he works. I have a lot of engineer friends and some make more that most doctors, some less, especially if they work for the government. As the Russians said, “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work!” Can’t waite to get my Obama check for this new system. Patients will just have to get use to waiting even longer to be seen and to do with less. But since I am a rich doctor, I can just retire and live the good life! You are right, the young guys just don’t have the work ethic of us old codgers, nor do many of them have the same ethics. I predict there will be lots of cash clinics open for those who don’t want to go down to the city hospital and sit all day to see the Chineese nurse practitioner. I gurantee those cash clinic docs will put in the hours until that is outlawed.
Never said you were rich or that all doctors are rich. Every profession has very successful people and unsuccessful people. There are plastic surgeons in Hollywood that make 10 million+ a year, and there are engineers that own international engineering firms that make 10 million+ a year. That is why we have averages, and on the average doctors make a lot more than engineers. Will that change in the future? Maybe, and some argue it should, but if I was forced to bet money, I would bet no.