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Analysis | The average doctor in the U.S. makes $350,000 a year. Why?
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12 years of college + internship?
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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It's a minimum of 4 years undergrad and 4 years of med school. Then indentured servitude as an intern, resident, and fellow which can add up to at least 3 years, but usually more than that. As a post-grad you work long hours for usually around minimum wage and doing all of the grunt work so administrators can make boatloads of money. The problem is not physician salaries, it's the leeches that are the middle men of hospital admin and insurance companies.
Often graduating with massive debt. By the time they’re making $350,000/year they’re just making up for lost time/salary they would’ve had in other professions and also paying down enormous debt.
Same could be said for any doctorate.
Their MD probably saves more lives than my math PhD :)
And why do doctors earn so much more in America than in other countries?
Medical treatment seen as a public good for all vs If you can't pay, sucks to be you.
Doctors deserve it.
Some of them, maybe
The more interesting question to ask is why do doctors essentially everywhere else in the world not apparently deserve it?
Do the UK and France simply hate their doctors more? Are they not as good? Presumably not, and so what are the economic factors that led to this state of affairs?
The UK and French medical fields are very different financial entities than in the US.
america is the centre of the imperial core and has a privatized medical industry
There is a limit on the number of residencies. It keeps the number of doctors artificially low. Saw some recent news that they may change that soon.
If its taking all doctors and averaging there are three things. Most doctors live in cities so more expensive areas. Specialists make more than general practitioners. There are many doctors who put in tons of hours (for example surgeons usually have set days or times they do surgeries and set times and hours to do office visits and then need to check in on patients post surgery. Usually my surgeons have done rounds of patients at least once during the weekend and that is with a pretty full weekday schedule). I think this amount seems about right. Should a doctor with all that schooling and having the talent necessary to even get in make less? Im not worried about the literal best and brightest who have sacrificed a lot making 10x what poor folk make. Its the ceo's making well over 100x and that includes hospital administrators and insurance companies. The doctors actually do the things that help us.