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So why are doctors paid so much, it obviously has not improved service any?

maxerickson 10y ago
Demand outstrips supply. I think has not improved service any is also at least overly simplified. There's all sorts of treatments available now that were unheard of 10 years ago, never mind further into the past than that.
- llamaz 10y ago
  This. In Australia, half of the doctors do a 6 year undergraduate degree in medicine straight out of highschool while half do it as a 4 year postgraduate degree. Those that do the postgraduate degree don't need a PhD level GPA (they just need to do well in a test). Residency is not some sort of hazing ritual. Everyone is much happier, and it fixes the supply vs demand problem.
DanBC 10y ago
You used to die at 50 from cancer or heart disease. Now you die at 80 from cancer or heart disease or medical error. I think that's an improvement.
- kwhitefoot 10y ago
  It is but it doesn't have much to do with the income of the doctors.
- hga 10y ago
  Indeed, one of the things that needs to be kept topmost in mind when reading statistics like this is that people are going to die of something, and as we reduce or all but eliminate other causes, something or things are going to shift to being the new "top causes". ADDED: and because nowadays, no later than the end of WWII, the former somethings have be forestalled by medical interventions, as those increase, the number "killed" by the simple fact that healthcare workers are fallible humans is going to rise. My father survived the immediate post-WWII period when he got a nasty bacterial pneumonia I think it was because civilians were then able to get the earliest form(s) of penicillin. Thanks to that medical intervention, which could have killed him (I've read that penicillin would never get approved by the FDA today because of its allergy potential), and others, now he'll die of Alzheimer's in his mid-'80s or his '90s, if nothing else gets him first.
kwhitefoot 10y ago
Is there a strong correlation in any field between remuneration and quality of service? And even if there is, is there also evidence that changing the remuneration will have a proportional effect on the quality? Where in the s-curve/sigmoid/logistic function are we? It seems plausible to me that simply increasing the supply of doctors and implementing air transport style safety systems would be much more beneficial than anything else we could do.
ZeroGravitas 10y ago
Unions for upper-middle-class professions aren't demonized as much as unions for those with less influence, so they get to control access to their profession.

Demand outstrips supply. I think has not improved service any is also at least overly simplified. There's all sorts of treatments available now that were unheard of 10 years ago, never mind further into the past than that.

llamaz 10y ago
This. In Australia, half of the doctors do a 6 year undergraduate degree in medicine straight out of highschool while half do it as a 4 year postgraduate degree. Those that do the postgraduate degree don't need a PhD level GPA (they just need to do well in a test). Residency is not some sort of hazing ritual. Everyone is much happier, and it fixes the supply vs demand problem.

DanBC 10y ago

You used to die at 50 from cancer or heart disease. Now you die at 80 from cancer or heart disease or medical error. I think that's an improvement.

kwhitefoot 10y ago
It is but it doesn't have much to do with the income of the doctors.
hga 10y ago
Indeed, one of the things that needs to be kept topmost in mind when reading statistics like this is that people are going to die of something, and as we reduce or all but eliminate other causes, something or things are going to shift to being the new "top causes". ADDED: and because nowadays, no later than the end of WWII, the former somethings have be forestalled by medical interventions, as those increase, the number "killed" by the simple fact that healthcare workers are fallible humans is going to rise. My father survived the immediate post-WWII period when he got a nasty bacterial pneumonia I think it was because civilians were then able to get the earliest form(s) of penicillin. Thanks to that medical intervention, which could have killed him (I've read that penicillin would never get approved by the FDA today because of its allergy potential), and others, now he'll die of Alzheimer's in his mid-'80s or his '90s, if nothing else gets him first.

kwhitefoot 10y ago

Is there a strong correlation in any field between remuneration and quality of service? And even if there is, is there also evidence that changing the remuneration will have a proportional effect on the quality? Where in the s-curve/sigmoid/logistic function are we? It seems plausible to me that simply increasing the supply of doctors and implementing air transport style safety systems would be much more beneficial than anything else we could do.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago

Unions for upper-middle-class professions aren't demonized as much as unions for those with less influence, so they get to control access to their profession.