Compensation for physician labor will become increasingly non-monetary which is a continuation of a trend that has endured over my entire 20 year career in medicine (reimbursement for my services has been flat or decreasing over the last 15 years.) Perhaps we as a society will need to pay tuition for medical school and/or increase med school enrollment and/or increase use of midlevel providers: what economists call “reducing barriers to entry”, but the fact is we will need more practitioners who make less money. Period.

My salary has remained stagnant for over a decade while my workload has increased because the acuity of *my* patients has increased. I now supervise many midlevels and take care of their sickest patients and this is a trend that will continue. No longer will I have the luxury of the “coin drop”, ie, billing top dollar for routine services. Basically, the “system” is saying that the average run-of-the-mill patient can’t afford me… or is it me saying that?

Oh yeah, don’t forget to sign your name and leave your phone number. We might need to talk to you about your decision sometime.

What baloney. As a DVM entering a residency program, I’m not sympathetic at all!

If you want to see high student loan debt, long working hours, competitive admissions, licensing and board exams, residencies (yes, many of us don’t stop with the DVM degree), stress, burnout and daily responsibility for lives, talk to some veterinarians. Let’s add in adverse working conditions and relatively high risk of occupational injuries, too.

Even though the average DVM earns much less than the average MD, veterinary schools still manage to attract top candidates. People still want to be veterinarians, and veterinarians certainly don’t expect to be rewarded financially – if we did, we’d have gone to medical school (and we could have). Most veterinarians are financially comfortable – not in the salary class of physicians – simply comfortable.

Maybe the medical profession would be vastly improved if people chose to become physicians despite – gasp – no expectation of financial reward?

Stop whining.

The road to medical practice is long and grueling. I have friends that have graduated medical school $300,000 in debt. I finished a 5 year residency and 1 year fellowship before the institution of the 80-hour (double what “normal” people do!) work week, during which I consistently worked 100 hour weeks and 36 hour shifts. I think my record shift was somewhere around 42 hours with no sleep. As an attending, I find myself often exceeding the resident mandated hours restrictions. In my specialty, I am responsible on a daily basis for life and death decisions that often have to made with inadequate information on an immediate basis. If I fail, I am critiqued by my colleagues and face the possibility of a career limiting lawsuit. Needless to say, the stress is amazing. A recent survey regarding physician burnout found rates of some 30-40%, and that over 20% entertained suicide.

I didn’t go into this for the money, but it may ultimately be the reason I leave.

Seriously, when your blood pressure is 60/palp, your pulse is 150, your hgb is 5, your base deficit is -13, and the proverbial brown material is hitting the spinning blades, do you really want the person taking care of you to be underpaid?

every doctor charges a reasonable fee and every doctor stops taking any insurance, health care will again be affordable and doctors will no longer treat their patients as 8 minute cogs in a machine.Insurance companies have no right to do what they do, and it’s about time someone puts them in their place.

US physicians may be some of the highest paid in the world but in NO OTHER COUNTRY can you SUE a doctor for millions like in the US. No other country’s physicians pay as much malpractice insurance and also in taxes (w/ Obama’s new tax plan) as we do.

We give our patient’s more autonomy than any other international physician will EVER give you.

And we get LESS respect than in any other country.

So realize what we do and give a little respect!

1. Find ONE PhD who is $200,000 in school debt when graduating (which BTW w/ interest will be close to a million dollars when paid off)

2. Find ONE PhD who works on average 80 hours per week on their feet running around a hospital..let alone find any other profession who will work on their feet in a stressful situation saving people’s LIVES for a 30 hour straight shift.

And I’m sorry, sitting in front of the computer working on a grant for 30 hours doesn’t count!

3. There are only a handful of professions with such a competitive road as in medical school. No other professsion has so many licensing and board exams throughout a career as physicians have to deal with.

4. PhDs don’t go through residency buddy. Our residency COUNTS as a part of our education. So given most residencies last from 3-8 years, that is up to 16 years of education before practicing as a doctor and making the salary we do!

5. Physicians are under-appreciated and under-respected for what we do. Pick any other profession with so much responsibility as having someone’s LIFE in our hands. We are held responsible for so much!

6. If you cut down on physician compensation, competitiveness for medical school wil drop like a fly and the drive for research will go down as well. I know it sucks but that’s the reality of the world..money drives everything. THIS will considerably LOWER your quality of healthcare and the prospects for advancement in medicine. Not every doctor goes into it for money but if we’re investing so much of our life (sacrifice in family, in debt, working like dogs for others) for medicine, I’m sorry but $50k salary a year won’t cut it. Physicians are humanitarians, servicing mankind but come on…we’re not all mother Teresa willing to give up our ENTIRE life for others without any compensation. get real buddy!

Okay, I’m done.

1. If the U.S. had single-payer health care (as almost every other developed nation does), physicians would not be refusing Medicare as there would be only one payer.

2. U.S. physicians are the highest paid physicians in the world and are the highest paid of any large profession in the United States

First, just why are those MDs refusing Medicare? Because it doesn’t cover the bills. Mandating Medicare coverage means no private options and we all get to share in the same mediocre level of rationed care. Thinking that you’ll get the same quality of care you do now for “free” with government as the single payer is a pipe dream not based on observable reality.

Your second point is just a pure Marxist class envy. Why shouldn’t physicians be highly paid? Would you put in four years undergrad, four years of med school, two-three years of residency, all the while accruing debt over $100,000-200,000 to make $30,000 a year? The Soviets already tried paying physicians like teachers and no sane person would ever want to repeat that experience (research it if you aren’t familiar with it).