4 ms·

Come on, doctors are some of the most highly compensated wage earners. Every working stiff at all income levels sacrifices disproportionately to their income,

• eppp 2y ago
  Some doctors* The front line primary care doctors and nurse practitioners dont make as much as IT people quite often.
  • Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
    From what I understand, the primary care physicians that work for a large medical company don't make much, but ones that run their own practice can make double or even triple, but then they take on enormous risk.
  • whimsicalism 2y ago
    Lets not lump in nurse practitioners. I'm absolutely in favor of giving more responsibilities to NPs and paying them more than they currently are. Data on doctor salaries is very difficult to come by publicly, however H1B salaries indicate the average pay for H1B PCPs is $200k [0]. These are the lowest paid physicians. If you look at the data, many many physicians are making much more than that - with many specialities averaging $300k+. Generally H1B workers make less than comparable native-born (even though that's illegal) so we should view this as a lower-bound. That puts hourly pay for average PCPs lower than the top SWEs, but comparing average with average or specialty with average and you're already quickly outpacing large majority of SWEs. [0]: https://h1bdata.info/highestpaidjob.php https://h1bdata.info/highestpaidjob.php
    • ProllyInfamous 2y ago
      My local Southern US county pays it's first-year PCP's $120,000, is a MCOL-area. Of course, there is a typical shortage of doctors prying for this coveted physicianhood /s
      • whimsicalism 2y ago
        So clearly that is the lowest of the low, not sure why we are comparing the lowest rather than the averages to get a sense of pay.
    • stubish 2y ago
      Who is paying the malpractice etc. insurance for these doctors? Those salaries may effectively be a lot lower.
      • whimsicalism 2y ago
        These are h1b hired doctors, so almost certainly for a system laying their own malpractice.
      • FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
        Malpractice for a GP is around $7500/yr... An OB/GYN or anesthesiologist is closer to $200k+
  • bornfreddy 2y ago
    Some IT people*
• whimsicalism 2y ago
  Doctors have such high social standing that you're downvoted for saying the obvious
  • ProllyInfamous 2y ago
    60% of my US med class were idiots. I have no clue if that's improved (with another decade of training, since I dropped out), but an even larger majority are miserable.
• SkyPuncher 2y ago
  Sure, but it's extremely hard to overcome the hole that medical school and residency puts you into. 4 years of tuition, then 4 years of pitiful wages is a long time. The top, most competitive fields have astronomical wages, but most doctors salary is closer to that of an engineer. Anecdotally, I'm a software engineer. My wife is a physician. We'll be in our 50's before my wife's career out earns mine. That financial hole of med school and residency is so deep and the salaries on the other side just aren't _that_ much better than other paths. I didn't even pursue FAANG level salaries, either. That being said, job security and availability is far, far better for my wife. We can basically live anywhere we want and she can find a job.
  • treis 2y ago
    Essentially nobody but doctors and those profiting off exploiting them wants that system.
    • SkyPuncher 2y ago
      Honestly, I don't think most doctors want that system either.
• ben_w 2y ago
  > Come on, doctors are some of the most highly compensated wage earners. You mean it's not us tech workers? :P Seriously though, I've seen the pay scales in some countries, they're nice and all, but they come with many extra years of training (expensive plus limited income while you do that), plus shift work and overtime that is bad for everyone (staff and patients) and which shouldn't be necessary — and wouldn't be necessary, if most nations all hired about twice as many of them… but that would require us to also train twice as many and politicians who do that get the budget shortfall today while their successors (possibly in other countries) get the reward for the benefit of their being more trained doctors and nurses. I'd pay them the same for less hours. Mandatory less hours — go home and sleep, let someone else tend to this patient while you rest.