Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog

Well, if you start importing foreign physicians to lower the salary of physicians, you are going to need to import A LOT more than 100000 because medical students like me will not work for 70k to 120k. I also hold acceptances to 3 top 15 law schools so let's just say my options are flexible. Many of the students in my class also have PHDs in biochem, degrees in electrical engineering, etc.

In addition to the mass exodus of current physicians and students you would create, no one would choose to go into medicine. You would be viewed as an idiot.

Finally, good luck getting 100000 physicians to come to America to make 70k to 120k. The reason they come to America is because the average physician makes 200k.

So just to be safe, you better import around 500000 physicians while the pay is high because you are going to need them for a long time as their is a mass exodus of Americans out of medicine, current college students do not choose medicine when there are greener pastures, and no foreign national in his right mind would take such a huge risk for so little return.
 

Why stop there. Let foreign countries run hospitals, let's use drugs only made in China, and stop all futile treatments, joint replacements etc. We would save lots of money.
 

Based on some of the unscrupulous behavior and corrupt practices that are imported along with these physicians it is my estimate that health care costs would double. In reality, many physicians are choosing to stay in their native countries or train in the US and go back home as rapidly developing economies offer better opportunities than those present in the US.
 

Hospitals have tried the same stratagy with Nursing by recruiting, assisting with housing, placement, and test preperation to bring in more foreign Nurses into the US to ease the nursing shortage (thats code for drive down wages). Thankfully most State Nursing Boards have resisted pressure to ease the Standards. The first time pass rate in California for foreign trained Nurses has historically been less than 40 percent as opposed to greater than 80 for US trained. I have worked with a few who were from the far east on 2 year contracts at wages far less than a new starting Nurse. My observation is most were very poor patient advocates and critical thinkers. They were good at following orders which is all that mattered to some. Most of the ones I have known had to be moved out of the ER to less intensive settings.
 

Nor will it happen.

This country is not ever going to get bright college students to devote seven to twelve years after college to unpaid work in medical school (while taking on boat loads of personal educational debt) followed by slave wages as a hospital resident all for an occupation with salaries that are less than teachers and firefighters make in many U.S. cities.

"Families"--those so convenient beneficiaries of any big government proposals--will not be so benefited. These kinds of estimates are bloviator's fairy tales. Expertise of the type that most people expect from medical practitioners takes time and money to develop, and that is just not going to change for those who think that opening immigration to doctors from less developed countries will make everything cheaper (and even for the nutters who think that undoing the structure of present "Flexner" styled training will make care better and cheaper.)
 

"This country is not ever going to get bright college students to devote seven to twelve years after college to unpaid work in medical school (while taking on boat loads of personal educational debt) followed by slave wages as a hospital resident all for an occupation with salaries that are less than teachers and firefighters make in many U.S. cities."

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Why don't I hear the same belly ache from postdoctoral fellows/research associates in molecular biology/biochemistry, most if not all of whom work as hard, if not harder than any medical student and who incidentally will never see a salary of $200,000/year?

Are MDs just plain greedy or did they merely forget somewhere down the line, why they entered medicine in the first place?
 

That is because the best and brightest do not go into researching or PHDs. Everyone I know who went on to get a PHD was rejected from medical school. The PHDs I know are either A. Foreign B. Slackers who never really knew what they wanted to do but had a biology degree so they went ahead into some sort of research career.

There are some amazing researchers no doubt, but my friends who went into PHD in scientific topics were not these students.
 

PhD's don't always have to pay for school. Most have their tuition subsidized and make 25,000 per year as a student.
 

Show me where grad students in those fields are racking up the debts of medical students. There aren't TA stipends and the like for medical students. And tell me that grads with biochemistry degrees who are choosing jobs in industry are making only what residents get paid. Sure, if you want a job with tenure and are willing to do a postdoc or two, there is a longer delay, but even academic scientists get work as consultants that substantially augment their faculty salaries which, these days, aren't too shabby either. Oh, and when was the last time you called a biochemist in at 3 a.m.?


You probably don't hear the bellyaching from Ph.D.s since many are doing very well for themselves for what they are doing.
 

not to mention that PhDs get flush benefits packages that come with working for government (e.g. NIH or CDC) or academia (e.g. major university with endless grant money from gov't).

These alone are worth probably upwards of $50,000+ (if you include the retirement plans w/employee contributions & pensions) per year, and there's no way a small primary care practice can afford this for him/herself, let alone staff!

and MDs are NEEDED by everyone at some point, even overnight/weekends/holidays. PhDs have off evenings (starting at 3pm for some) & weekends (starting at noon friday for some.

Just WAY more responsibility & liability for MDs.
 

The Flexnerite defenders of the Standard Oil robber barons of American healthcare are out in force. The MD arrogance is also a facet that is quickly revealed.
 

""The Flexnerite defenders of the Standard Oil robber barons of American healthcare are out in force. The MD arrogance is also a facet that is quickly revealed."


Yeah, we're talking about real John D. Rockefellers here. Robber Barons! Well at least crazy can also be funny.
 

"You probably don't hear the bellyaching from Ph.D.s since many are doing very well for themselves for what they are doing.
# posted by Anonymous : 6:46 PM"

No way! You don't hear bellyaching from PhDs in academia, who are well funded by the NIH. Everyone is happy, when they've been funded. But when the grants are not approved, and you're working in a private research institute, you're ready for either murder or suicide in the heat of your desperation to be funded.

The only safe PhDs are those tenured and whose research will be funded by the University, when and if NIH funds don't come through.

The life of the PhD in the USA is not all roses.
 

"That is because the best and brightest do not go into researching or PHDs."

Does Dr. James Watson share your views on the intellect of the average American PhD?