First, Wall Street executives are vilified. Are academic physician-administrators next?
The WSJ Health Blog didn’t do the profession any favors by highlighting the fact that 3 of the top 4 highest paid college employees were physicians at academic medical centers, pulling in $3 million to $4 million per year.
Needless to say, that statistic comes out at an inopportune time, only reinforcing the false public notion that every doctor is so handsomely paid.
The ACP’s Bob Doherty asks whether it’s anyone’s business knowing the salaries of physician executives, but whatever you think, there is no question that “academic medicine will have to address a public perception that taxpayers can’t afford to subsidize high physician executive salaries, when millions of Americans have no health insurance coverage, when medical students graduate with an average of $140,000 in debt, and when primary care physicians in patient care earn 5% of the amount paid to the lowest of the top four physician-executives employed by medical colleges.”
If I were an academic physician, who in most cases, struggle to balance research, teaching rounds, and other clinical responsibilities, I would be pissed that the academic executives up top are making out like bandits.
The public and political scrutiny of these inflated salaries of our university physician leaders will be unforgiving in the current economic climate, and it’s unfortunate that these medical executives give the false impression that all academic doctors are paid this way, when in fact, they are often paid far below market wages.
Related posts:
- Philip Morris and academic research
- Academic physicians who teach are seeing a raise
- Would you accept a lower salary if you could graduate from medical school debt free?
- "If you don’t care to have pity for physicians, fine"
- The VA is not immune to executive bonuses
- Patients do not want their doctors paid on salary
- The impact of foreign physicians
{ 5 comments }
Oh my, salary envy srikes again on Kevin’s blog. If professional athletes can rake in upwards of 10 million/year, then it certainly is fair that successful physicians can make even a fraction of that. Has everyone forgotten that we live in a free, capitalistic society?
It’s ridiculous how much tax-payer money academic physicians make! We’re appalled!
Sincerely,
Jim Tressel, Urban Meyer, and Rick Pitino
ANON,
You forget! Obamessiah has declared an open season on class warfare. Comrade, we are now the USSA. It is impermissable to be compensated for one’s labor. Did you not get the memo? You know, the one about change? How once Obamessiah is done, all we’ll have is change in our pockets…
This issue is a little more complicated. The original article lists David Silver as a dermatologist whereas he is, in fact, a dermatopathologist with a large referral practice. He is paid a consulting fee per case paid by the health insurance of the patient from whom the specimen is obtained. It is not unusual for a dermatopathologist to “read” 500 or more cases per day because the specimens are small and fall into a well known and small set of categories.
As soon as you decide how much someone else’s job is worth, then watch out, because someone else, who has no experience in YOUR job, is going to decide how much YOU should make.
I thought high salaries were something to aspire to, not berate and belittle. Even docs lower on the payscale are feeling entitled, now? How discouraging.
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