Working at Facebook or Google, you might (somewhat indirectly) improve people's lives or even save them sometimes, but many physicians do so frequently in a ver

Working at Facebook or Google, you might (somewhat indirectly) improve people's lives or even save them sometimes, but many physicians do so frequently in a very obvious, direct, and personal way. This seems very different from trying to increase the time that users spend on a web site, or trying to sell more advertisements, or writing code that displays a box on a screen and fills it with some sort of information. In the US at least, many physicians enjoy a high degree of autonomy as well as high social status and high income. (The latter two can also be something of a down side since some mechanisms for maintaining high social status and high income can be detrimental to patients and to other health professionals.)