Pull that number out of your ass did you? It's WAY off,

Post #161,638 by mmoffitt 6/25/04 2:52:09 PM Reply	Pull that number out of your ass did you? It's WAY off, even in 2002. [link\|http://www.physicianssearch.com/physician/salary2.html\|http://www.physician...cian/salary2.html] bcnu, Mikem If you can read this, you are not the President.
Post #161,642 by boxley 6/25/04 3:02:37 PM Reply	rather like the IT salary survey, pulled from /dev/ass Anchorage AK: House for sale 3 bed 1 bath 1440 sq feet huge lot near Cheney Lake 175K FSBO 813.273.3518 I wondered what Darwinian moment had to effect itself before we devolved from children flying paper flags in the sky to half formed creatures thundering in a wall of horns down the road to Roncevaux. James Lee Burke questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #161,643 by ben_tilly 6/25/04 3:14:16 PM Reply	Those don't look like the ones that my wife quotes Their [link\|http://www.physicianssearch.com/physician/salary1.html\|first year salary] looks far closer to what she has been quoting at me. In any case, for all that you might despise it, it is not an easy road. She's been on it for 6 years, and has made less than I did in my first year of work. Not to mention the debt load. Furthermore unless something drastic happens to me, she won't get to the quoted "first year" for another 5 or so years. Cheers, Ben To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act - [link\|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20\|Nebraska Supreme Court]
Post #161,645 by drewk 6/25/04 3:36:51 PM Reply	Question, do these numbers sound reasonable? Take the lowest number on there, $90k. Assume 1/2 that for take-home. That would mean a doctor in their first year takes home $45k. Now take what a bookkeeper makes: [link\|http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/salary/sb_naverage.htm\|28,460]. Assume 2/3 for take-home. (Unlikely to do that well, but for the sake of argument.) That means take home of ~$19k. If the first-year doctor self-imposed the same standard of living as the office clerk, they'd have $26k/year left over to service debt. Now I'm not saying doctors don't work hard, or that they don't deserve to be compensated. But whenever I see the staff parking lot at a hospital I see a lot of expensive toys. I suspect the reason many doctors are still paying for so many years is that the school loans are at a lower rate than inflation. I know my school loans were. In that situation it's smart to pay the minimum. Or medical school financing could be completely unlike undergraduate funancing and I don't know WTF I'm talking about. === Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
Post #161,654 by ben_tilly 6/25/04 5:25:01 PM Reply	They are missing something basic When a doctor walks out of medical school, said doctor walks into a residency. Residents make $35-$40K/year. But have to pay servicing on the loans. The loans are typically a mix of different kinds, ranging from government loans like the ones you remember (though these days the interest rate is above inflation) to private loans at a fairly stiff interest rate. Mostly of 5-10 year terms. During residency, paying back really is difficult. This is the period that doctors tend to complain about. The point at which debt comes due but you don't actually make very much. This is where my wife is, with a hiccoup because she didn't get into the residency that she wanted. At about this time, students get many offers to "consolidate" their debts. Consolidation turns a series of 5-10 year loans into a 20 year loan with a corresponding lowering of monthly payments. The consolidated loan comes at a distinct cost - while you pay less per month, long-term you pay a lot more. It isn't worth it if you can avoid it. (We're avoiding it.) Now some more facts to consider. The average doctor makes the equivalent of 2 professional incomes. True. The average doctor also works the equivalent of 2 careers. Doctors also require a longer professional education than any other non-academic career that I know of. Furthermore doctors start making money significantly later in life than other professionals, so they have less time to save for retirement, and less time to take advantage of compound interest. In financial advice books that I've read, doctors tend to get singled out as a group that isn't properly prepared financially. (An additional problem - various kinds of hucksters know that doctors make a lot and are financially naive. Opportunities abound for doctors to blow money...) So, sure. Lots of people at the staff parking lot in a hospital have a lot of toys. Their finances are often not in nearly as good of shape as the toys suggest. Their work hours tend to be insane. And if you know a few, you'd find that they are telling their kids to go into law and business rather than medicine. Is doctor more lucrative than being a bookkeeper? Sure. Of course anyone capable enough to be a doctor has more lucrative alternatives than bookkeeping. Most of the careers on your list were better than bookkeeping, and the non-executive ones didn't include anything requiring a professional degree. Consider as an alternative something like law school (much easier to get into than medical school). It takes 3 years to get the degree, there is no residency training, the hours are better, and after 2 years your [link\|http://www.nvbar.org/News_and_other_information/2002_comp_survey.htm\|average salary] is $70K, with plenty of opportunities for advancement. A few years down the road, who is ahead? Some day, the doctor. But it takes more years than you might think to get there. And the years lost are the years when most of us would like to get a home, have a family, and still have our health. Are doctors overpaid? Depends how you think about it. Sure, their lives are much better than the average person's in the end. But their eventual compensation is in line with what you could expect from other professions with difficult entry requirements. Cheers, Ben To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act - [link\|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20\|Nebraska Supreme Court]
Post #161,659 by boxley 6/25/04 5:44:00 PM Reply	A union Lineman working a doctors hours would equal that doctors salary. Licensed electrician also. Ben would know better than I but rounds at the hospital are 6:30 to 9am, office visits till 5 evening rounds till 7. Just rounds on weekends, the sick dont take a day off. thanx, bill Anchorage AK: House for sale 3 bed 1 bath 1440 sq feet huge lot near Cheney Lake 175K FSBO 813.273.3518 I wondered what Darwinian moment had to effect itself before we devolved from children flying paper flags in the sky to half formed creatures thundering in a wall of horns down the road to Roncevaux. James Lee Burke questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #161,689 by mmoffitt 6/25/04 10:03:43 PM Reply	Depends on the specialty. Radiologists, Opthamologists, Psychiatrists, Dermatologists, etc. have bankers hours and still make > 200K/year. There are a lot of cards a clinician can play, but 'begging poor' sure as fuck ain't one of 'em. bcnu, Mikem If you can read this, you are not the President.
Post #161,646 by deSitter 6/25/04 3:37:34 PM Reply	Re: Those don't look like the ones that my wife quotes A complete shakeup of the medical establishment is inevitable. Too many people have no coverage of any kind for the current system to survive. For example, I have a ticking gene-bomb that will kill me with near 100% certainty some day, and no coverage of any kind. -drl
Post #161,656 by ben_tilly 6/25/04 5:29:16 PM Reply	That I'll agree with The US system is insane, and the incentives make the inevitable path of the system increasingly headed on a collision course with what is plausible. Of course the same is true for many things in our society, ranging from the portion of the GNP consumed by government to university tuition. There is no certainty in life. Except that you'll die someday. Cheers, Ben To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act - [link\|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20\|Nebraska Supreme Court]
Post #161,648 by mmoffitt 6/25/04 3:47:00 PM Reply	Course not, You don't expect an MD to say physicians are ... overpaid, do you? Please. Ooh, ooh, but lookie, lookie, in our first year out of school we only make four times as much as the average private sector employed worker. PLEASE. Even given that, in three years they're making 180K+ and it goes on up from there. So, they don't sleep much for 6 years. Doesn't sound like a lot to ask for getting paid a couple million in their "first ten working years". bcnu, Mikem If you can read this, you are not the President.
Post #161,655 by ben_tilly 6/25/04 5:27:03 PM Reply	An exercise for you Look up what a residency is, and the residency requirements for each of those careers. Then take back your "first year out of school" BS. If you really think that doctors lives are so cushy, why don't you become one? Ben To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act - [link\|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20\|Nebraska Supreme Court]
Post #161,692 by mmoffitt 6/25/04 10:16:41 PM Reply	I worked in hospitals for six years. Seen my share of prima dona pricks (aka Residents). Then for a Health Plan for six more - where I really began to understand the scale of clinician greed. My wife has been an R.N. for twenty years. I know what the fuck a resident is. And I know that as a medical school student you go to 2 years grad school, get 2 years ojt as an intern, then pick a specialty that ranges from two to six years of residency. And they put in a lot of hours as paid residents - and they take call, something the little shits bitch about constantly. Presumeably because they finished medical school and expect to become deities w/out the trouble of completing residency. And at the end of their residencies, they get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I'm too old now to go to medical school. And I probably don't have the rote memorization skills to do it anyway. Also, I'm too fucking inquisitive (like, I wouldn't feel comfortable prescribing whatever the fucking PDR says to give a patient with symptoms x, y and z without knowing exactly how the fucking drug I'm prescribing works - and damned few - if any - clinicians can tell you that). Plus, I'd be excluded anyway on account of my ancestry. You see, my parents were married when I was born and the AMA claims they can't break precedent by allowing some one with my background into medical school. ;-p (No offense to Mrs. Tilly. I have about a half dozen very close friends who are clinicians and their general view of the vast majority of their peers differs only imperceptably from mine). bcnu, Mikem If you can read this, you are not the President.

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