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It's because being a doctor is uniquely stressful and the training and work takes an emotional toll to a degree that is hard to explain. I think the reasoning b

It's because being a doctor is uniquely stressful and the training and work takes an emotional toll to a degree that is hard to explain. I think the reasoning behind their pay is that you want those people to have essentially no other stressors in their lives in order to facilitate the quality of their work. In our society material support is how that is achieved. Public respect and deference used to play a larger role, today people are more comfortable questioning doctors. Normally I wouldn't make excuses for wildly exorbitant compensation, but for so many doctors it is what holds their world in place. Granted there are specialities like dermatology that derive their compensation more from severely limiting the size of the specialty training programs, and the work itself is not as stressful as I'm claiming doctors in general have to bear. All this said, yes of course they're all overpaid. But the way we got here makes perfect sense, and if we're going to change it there must be a new way to aid them that is just as impactful.

BeetleB 9y ago
>It's because being a doctor is uniquely stressful and the training and work takes an emotional toll to a degree that is hard to explain. Knowing several doctors, it is not that hard to explain. And frankly, most of your answer is merely a reflection of the status quo, but not why that status quo exists. Look at most developed countries and I wager you'll see less stress in becoming a doctor. Are they providing lower quality of service than US doctors? And not all doctors work highly stressful jobs. All the PCP's I've had had a comparatively relaxed lifestyle compared to people like surgeons. Sure, they get paid less, but still get paid a lot. In my company I know plenty of engineers who work longer hours with greater stress (roughly 10-12 hour days and then being on call on top of that - PCP's are usually not on call). Their pay is a lot lower than that of a PCP. I'm not saying they don't deserve to get paid a lot. Just that the "number of years of training" is not a good justification for it.

BeetleB 9y ago

>It's because being a doctor is uniquely stressful and the training and work takes an emotional toll to a degree that is hard to explain. Knowing several doctors, it is not that hard to explain. And frankly, most of your answer is merely a reflection of the status quo, but not why that status quo exists. Look at most developed countries and I wager you'll see less stress in becoming a doctor. Are they providing lower quality of service than US doctors? And not all doctors work highly stressful jobs. All the PCP's I've had had a comparatively relaxed lifestyle compared to people like surgeons. Sure, they get paid less, but still get paid a lot. In my company I know plenty of engineers who work longer hours with greater stress (roughly 10-12 hour days and then being on call on top of that - PCP's are usually not on call). Their pay is a lot lower than that of a PCP. I'm not saying they don't deserve to get paid a lot. Just that the "number of years of training" is not a good justification for it.