30? Neurosurgeons yes, but not the majority.

Post #204,319 by mmoffitt 4/21/05 4:17:12 PM Reply	30? Neurosurgeons yes, but not the majority. I'll give you a year. 19-23 undergraduate school. 23-25 medical school (the last two years of med school are internships - a fancy name for OJT). Then its residency (read: yet more OJT) at typically R.N. pay (~$16-$20/hour). And there are a LOT of residency programs that are only two or three years. Then take a test - at age 27 or 28. Pass it and you've made your 5 million. So, basically, we make millionaires out of non-thesis, non-dissertation graduate students who are virtually guaranteed to earn their so-called "doctorates" in medicine once they are admitted to grad school (which, I'll grant, in this country is not exactly easy, but some 16,000+/year manage it). Notwithstanding the fact that they only go to graduate school for 2 years and never have to come up with an original thought. Feh. A pox upon all of the little prima donnas. And their average salary of $200,000/year IS a problem. bcnu, Mikem Eine Leute. Eine Welt. Ein F\ufffdhrer. God Bless America.
Post #204,332 by broomberg 4/21/05 4:36:32 PM Reply	OH, BS A good Dr is worth far more than that $200K. A bad one should be killed. No middle ground.
Post #204,371 by boxley 4/21/05 7:45:23 PM Reply	lawyers and mechanics, same thing All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett [link\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/] Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 48 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #204,519 by mmoffitt 4/22/05 5:26:36 PM Reply	Right. A real doctor is. Unfortunately, real doctors don't typically get paid that much. Just remember that Real Doctors write Dissertations. bcnu, Mikem Eine Leute. Eine Welt. Ein F\ufffdhrer. God Bless America.
Post #204,527 by broomberg 4/22/05 6:50:38 PM Reply	Hmm You mean that long winded blather that may or may not advance human knowledge. Sorry, let me rephrase that: Medical doctors which are capable on aiding the sick, operating and possibly curing the wounded are worth way more. Those that don't bother to read the charts and ignore historical information before practicing factory medicine should be shot.
Post #204,536 by jake123 4/24/05 1:12:40 PM Reply	I disagree They're not worth way more than 200K per annum. They're worth a relatively large salary in the society they work in. In my society, 200K is not relatively large, it's astronomical, and puts you firmly into the 5 percenter category. I suspect that the same is true in your society as well, as much as many people may want to ignore the half on the bottom. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #204,546 by broomberg 4/24/05 2:18:24 PM Reply	5%er? What exactly does this mean? Does this # mean that are earning more than 94% of the population? So you consider this a BAD thing? An arbitrary number, a peak, that is the ceiling? So 5.00001% is OK, but 5% is not? If so, it also means that if they were making $200K, 94% of the of the population was making $199K, then it is still bad? Seems silly, doesn't it? Or are you referring to some multiple of average salary? Again, though, I disagree. A very small percentage of people have the combination of intelligence, connections, financial support (to go to the right schools), time, and ambition, to learn something far LESS than 1% of the population does, and at the same time apply it in the real world, interacting with diseased people, being exposed to a variety of communicable illnesses as part of their job, make life changing and possibly threatening decisions multiple times a day, under enormous pressure to get it right. Many of these same people, with this level of intelligence, connections, and ambition could become high flying business assholes, MBAs, leveraged buyout specialists, etc. People who make far more money than doctors, yet contribute almost nothing to your personal well being when you need one. They perform an exceptional service. You begrudge them an exceptional salary? You want them all a member of a union, a union that represents bakers, truckers, autoworkers, and whatever other "regular" job is out there, and have the union rep decide through collective bargaining what is a "fair" salary, taking into account the full spectrum of people they are supposed to represent? If so, have fun asking the trucker to remove you appendix when it is about to burst. Or maybe you think those "professions" are to "lowly" to lump together in the way I did. OK. Engineers building a bridge. Architects designing a building. In each case, the ones making the REAL decisions, the final life threating ones, the final designs, those people make more than doctors. The teams of people working at the next level down, implementing those decisions, they are more like operating room nurses. A hell of a lot of responsibility, and decent pay, but not finally accountable for the success or failure. Again, have fun getting that Architect to remove your appendix. There is a personal, timing critical element associated with the medical profession that does not seems to be associated with any other, except police and fire. But police and fire require far less training, far less effort, which mean far more people can go into those careers. And they are pretty much interchangeable. You see dozen cops on the street, you don't interview them to determine which is the best one to break up a fight. You grab the closest one. They are cogs in the machine. Sure, some are better than others, but almost all of them can satisfy the immediate need. Do I really want a heart surgeon operating on my son's ankle? No. They both might be the best in their field, but they are really different fields. So, tell me what a reasonable salary is, and the level of responsibility / productivity deserves it? And whether you feel any factor would allow individuals to exceed that by a wide margin.
Post #204,560 by a6l6e6x 4/24/05 4:22:28 PM Reply	And the mother would be proud. There is a union, though not by name, called the AMA. They make sure there is not an over-supply of doctors. Ask Arkadiy how doctors pay compared to engineers and programmer in the old Soviet Union. Alex The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #204,565 by broomberg 4/24/05 4:35:46 PM Reply	Ahh, the old Soviet Union We pretend to pay you, you pretend to work.
Post #204,571 by jake123 4/24/05 4:59:21 PM Reply	Wow, how spurious Look, the spread between the five percenters and the 95 percenters (ie, top and bottom 5 percentile) is what right now? What has it been historically? What has been the effects historically of huge spreads like the one that holds currently? For life and death decisions, there's not enough room in the top five percentile to put everyone that has to make them. As for your comments about "what's OK", with the 5 vs 5.0001, well, that just make you look like you're trying to split serious hairs because you know the basic position is untenable in the long run. Your point about the "95% of the pop making 199K" is just as dumb; that's not what that means and you know it. Doctors can't make that kind of money because it's not possible for the society that supports them to pay it in the long run. Doctor's up here are very well paid compared to most people, as they should be. However, putting them into the ranks of the extremely wealthy (which is what an average annual income of that magnitude does) only means that most people will never be able to access their services. In the long run, that's untenable for the society, and even for the small group of people that can afford to pay it directly; things like disease don't pay attention to the niceties like the class of the person they infect. Here's another rebuttal: those guys that pick up the garbage and fix the sewers have the lives of far more people in their hands than the average airline pilot, let alone doctor; without those services thousands of people's lives and health are at risk - basically, anyone who lives in a city owes a lot to garbage men and sanitation workers. According to your logic, they should get 200K/ann too. In one paragraph you talk about bakers, autoworkers, and truck drivers, and then immediately flip to engineers and architects. You need to check out your examples better. The fact that you don't might indicate that you've not thought this through properly. You feel very grateful to doctors because your son has medical problems, and they're helping. Fair enough. You might feel differently about them if you made 20K per year, and the doctors were saying "sorry, we can't help you, because you can't pay." There are more than one in ten of your countrymen in that position right now, today, where they will have to listen to that if they or one of their family members has a problem. If you want doctors to be five percenters, that is the INEVEVITABLE result. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #204,587 by broomberg 4/24/05 6:55:02 PM Reply	Convenient misdirections For life and death decisions, there's not enough room in the top five percentile to put everyone that has to make them. Why not? Here's another rebuttal: those guys that pick up the garbage and fix the sewers have the lives of far more people in their hands than the average airline pilot, let alone doctor; without those services thousands of people's lives and health are at risk - basically, anyone who lives in a city owes a lot to garbage men and sanitation workers. According to your logic, they should get 200K/ann too. Nope. You missed years of training and dedication. I can take any random homeless person off the street, give him $10 a day, and have him throw garbage cans at a truck. The driver will get paid more, of course, but again, given a few weeks of training driving a big truck, I've filled the job. So, go back to the SHORT list of people who qualify based on my premise. That is ability, dedication, many years of education combined with an immediate impact on people's lives. Doctors. Airline pilots. Feel free to add the remaining few, and be sure to note their income level. Ok, back to what you would consider reasonable. Give me a $ amount. And note, I call major BS on $200K per year equaling "extreme wealth". In this country, $40K is barely enough to scrape by, raising 2 kids. Some may claim the to be middle class, but only on the flyover areas of the county. Certainly not in the NE US where I live. Here is an article that claims middle class spans $31K-$76K. Of the people in this middle class, 20% have a college degree and 1.5% have a PHD. [link\|http://www.hiringnetwork.com/common/article88.html\|http://www.hiringnet...on/article88.html] Note: These were 2001 dollars so I'd adjust it up a bit for inflation. So at $80K or so we have entry-level well off. Which leaves a large range up to rich people who own profitable companies, to very rich people who live off of trust funds. Again, all based where you live. In NYC, middle class is up to $250K per year. [link\|http://tenant.net/Alerts/Guide/press/nyt/sr051897.html\|http://tenant.net/Al...nyt/sr051897.html] $200K is NOT extremely wealthy. So, back to: What is reasonable? Is $150K reasonable? So the difference is $50K per Doctor. According to this: [link\|http://dbapps.ama-assn.org/aps/amahg.htm\|http://dbapps.ama-assn.org/aps/amahg.htm] there are about 690,000 in the US. 690,000 x 50,000 = 34.5 billion dollars. This is about 1/3 the error rate of Medicare and Medicaid mis-billings. [link\|http://www.health-itworld.com/enews/03-15-2005_545.html\|http://www.health-it...-15-2005_545.html] It obvious does not scratch the surface of the total health care industry cost. Oh, I know, knock off another $50K. That'll fix the problem for sure! You have found a scape goat and you simply won't let go.
Post #204,627 by boxley 4/24/05 10:33:55 PM Reply	you wouldnt trust me to take out your appendix? why not? I have carved out a number of mammals intentionally and dont want to reminisce about humans. Am I the person you want to diagnose your broke appendix? prolly not, thanx, bill All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett [link\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/] Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 48 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #204,631 by jake123 4/24/05 11:14:35 PM Reply	Because more than five percent of the population gets to make those kinds of decisions every day. Air traffic controllers face pressures far in excess of doctors, as do harbourmasters, police, fire, and that's in less than thirty seconds of thought. The amount of training required is irrelevant to the amount of pressure. Try another one. Of course, you yourself probably have no problem affording doctors for your kids. As I said, you probably don't appreciate the position of someone in your society that's not in your shoes. Here's another question. Do you think CEOs deserve tens of thousands of times the income of their average worker? After all, they have tons of training, face a lot of pressure... MBAs are graduate degrees. Surely they deserve it. Personally, I don't give a rat's ass about how badly fucked your healthcare system is, since I don't have to live under it. However, the idea that all doctors (or even necessarily all good doctors) deserve to live in the ranks of the extremely wealthy is simply dumb. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #204,648 by broomberg 4/25/05 12:39:37 AM Reply	I thought of the same people barring harbor masters. And they all failed the education test. Which you conveniently discounted. The amount of training DOES count. It is a matter of how fast you can replace the bad ones. It is a matter of personal investment. It is a matter of personal sacrifice. It is a matter of proving capability. As I pointed out before, no, I don't think the the MBAs "deserve" it, but they've managed to manipulate the system so they get it, such is life. And again, you claim "extremely wealthy" when that number (as I've supported) doesn't begin to scratch the surface. You have an axe to grind.
Post #204,649 by broomberg 4/25/05 12:39:46 AM Reply	I thought of the same people barring harbor masters. And they all failed the education test. Which you conveniently discounted. The amount of training DOES count. It is a matter of how fast you can replace the bad ones. It is a matter of personal investment. It is a matter of personal sacrifice. It is a matter of proving capability. As I pointed out before, no, I don't think the the MBAs "deserve" it, but they've managed to manipulate the system so they get it, such is life. And again, you claim "extremely wealthy" when that number (as I've supported) doesn't begin to scratch the surface. You have an axe to grind.
Post #204,651 by ben_tilly 4/25/05 1:34:59 AM Reply	You've confused medicine and public health Medicine is about taking care of you if you're sick. Public health is about making sure that most people aren't at immediate risk of getting some horrible disease. These two professions are not only different, they are often opposed because they are to some extent economic substitutes for each other. Saying that the poor need to be treated so that they don't infect the rest of us is a public health decision, not a medical one. That said, I personally wish that public health was a better-respected field. Because they do save a lot more lives than doctors. And when confronted with a new disease, public health people are able to mount a successful response long before medicine has any hope of doing so. (Take SARS for instance, that was stopped by public health, not medicine. If we had to wait for a medical response, then right now we'd each know people who died from SARS.) Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #204,611 by tuberculosis 4/24/05 9:32:20 PM Reply	Disagree somewhat Physicians are definitely high value people. No argument. However, the big money, as usual, attracts people who ought not to be physicians. They have the smarts, and the drive, but not the proper motivation. There are quite a number of physicians that suck out there right now. They don't care about patients, they're more concerned with collecting money and playing golf. Many of them work for large HMO networks. I definitely think they are overpaid. So what to do? Drop the salaries and we'll have practitioners who do it because they love it. Those are the people we want in practice. But we may lose a few who seek greener pastures elsewhere. I say let em go. They would have made rotten doctors anyhow. As for your other point - I don't buy that physician is some kind of godlike profession. So my mechanic can't take out my appendix. I don't guess my surgeon is going to do too well with my brakes either. Everybody has specific value. I note that in Europe, where physicians are paid much less, the quality of the care is much higher. Physicians actually come to you and there is competition. They don't make huge money but they do care about what they do. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
Post #204,630 by drewk 4/24/05 11:09:46 PM Reply	Gotta call a big steaming BS on that one So what to do? Drop the salaries and we'll have practitioners who do it because they love it. Those are the people we want in practice. But we may lose a few who seek greener pastures elsewhere. I say let em go. They would have made rotten doctors anyhow. So what to do? Drop the salaries and we'll have programmers who do it because they love it. Those are the people we want in IT. But we may lose a few who seek greener pastures elsewhere. I say let em go. They would have made rotten developers anyhow. So, Todd, how's that salary doing? Sorry if that comes off as harsh, but are you seriously suggesting that paying less is the way to improve a profession? === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #204,636 by tuberculosis 4/25/05 12:00:21 AM Reply	You make my point I'm saying paying more doesn't help and paying too much has hurt. Like paying VB hackers $150k to do ASP didn't do a lot for programming. It just flooded the profession with people who were just in it for the money. You've seen what has happened there. People who ought not to be programmers glutted the field because of the money. People who were good at being programmers have dropped out (pointing at myself here) because there is no satisfaction in the profession. Overall, I'd guess that US software development capability has taken a net drop thanks to the introduction of dumbed down tools (Java) to enable the idiots at the expense of the pros. Beyond this, the few passionate remaining now spend all of their time riding herd on the idiots trying to compensate for their net negative contributions. So can we draw a parallel to what happens when MD is though to mean Mega-Dollars? Same deal. Ranks expand with people motivated by dollars rather than love of profession. The good guys get harder to find. I mean, look, my mom has a couple of medical conditions that requires regular visits to a Gastroenterologist. Kaiser has assigned her to their specialist - a Dr who is semi retired (though in his mid 40's) and only has offices hours one day a week - with a six week waiting list. In a period of 8 months, mom was hospitalized twice - the second time it happened she was still waiting to see Dr TeeTime. When she did get in to see him he hadn't bothered to read up on her other conditions that complicate her treatment and was largely useless at working on coming up with lifestyle changes to reduce likelihood of recurrence. I did better for her with Google. I don't think you can just lower salaries across the board. Top people should still make top money. But somehow, we need to thin the herd and eliminate the "easy money" motivator. No I don't know how to do this. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
Post #204,639 by drewk 4/25/05 12:15:54 AM Reply	And you make mine I don't think you can just lower salaries across the board. Top people should still make top money. But somehow, we need to thin the herd and eliminate the "easy money" motivator. No I don't know how to do this. Figure that one out and lots of people are going to love you for it. Being selfish, I'd prefer you figure it out for IT first. === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #204,661 by tuberculosis 4/25/05 3:32:20 AM Reply	Heh, me too "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
Post #204,531 by Another Scott 4/22/05 7:33:07 PM Reply	Familiarity breeds contempt. There are an awful lot of PhDs out there who are at least as incompetent as some of the physicians you've come across. Don't use such a broad brush. I know, I know, "It's fun." :-) E.g. A student taking their final oral exam before being awarded a PhD in physics: Q: Is the wavelength of light bigger than a breadbox? A: ? True story. :-( It was a theorist, of course. Cheers, Scott.
Post #204,671 by pwhysall 4/25/05 7:32:11 AM Reply	OT: Branch this sort of thing, please. We've got a squillion forums here. Let's use them. The second this particular discussion got onto the financials, it turned into a political or financial question. This isn't the first thread I've seen that's gone seriously OT for the forum it's in, and it's not like the software makes it hard for us to put things into an appropriate forum even halfway through a thread. Just a friendly request, folks. Peter [link\|http://www.ubuntulinux.org\|Ubuntu Linux] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Home] Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
Post #204,740 by mmoffitt 4/25/05 12:02:09 PM Reply	One might argue Krugman belongs in financials to begin with. bcnu, Mikem Eine Leute. Eine Welt. Ein F\ufffdhrer. God Bless America.

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