It’s no secret that more primary care doctors are looking for careers outside of medicine.
And no wonder, considering that burnout rates are at all-time highs, compounded by soul-crushing bureaucratic responsibilities.
This profiled physician on CNN.com, who works at a community health center, sells clothes on eBay – which is not uncommon on the online auction site. What’s impressive, or disturbing, depending on your point of view, is that “the 35-year-old family practitioner says she earned $120,000 last year on eBay, more than she did practicing medicine.”
Especially with universal coverage on the horizon, a family physician such as this will be sorely needed. The fact that she’s finding more professional satisfaction on eBay, rather than practicing at her community health center, speaks volumes about the worsening crisis facing American primary care.
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{ 11 comments }
My back up is McDonalds. I love them and would like to see if I could become a regional manager. I’ll quit medicine before I start to hate it.
When I read the CNN article, I got a different sense than your article conveyed. Her “less than $120K” medical practice job is part-time, not full-time. Depending on the number of hours she’s working (not stated in the article), that may still be a very nice pay rate. I also didn’t get the sense that she was unhappy with medicine; in fact, she chose to come back part-time after taking leave with her kids.
You raise some important issues, certainly, but I’m not sure that this article provides much support for either your point about doctors leaving medicine or the implication that doctors can’t make a living at medicine and have to find a side business to make ends meet.
If she’s finding “more personal satisfaction” selling clothing on ebay then practicing medicine, she does not belong in the medical field practicing on anybody!!!
@Ed: why?
Ed, go soak your head. (”!!!”)
You write like someone with an overwhelming sense of entitlement: your doctor should always be available and not only that, happy with practice, no matter what. What exactly do you know about medical practice anyway?
The present-day “practice” of medicine is not always so pleasant, it being burdened by dfficult and intrusive insurers and government agencies.
More power to any doctor who finds personal and financial satisfaction in something besides medicine. It is her right to enjoy that no less than for anyone else.
Sadly, the underappreciation so many physicians feel on the job is driving many to move away from clinical practice. Having recently guested at a conference devoted to teaching physicians how to move into non-clinical careers and mentored over 60 deeply frustrated and dissatisfied physicians at the conference, I can understand why it may make more sense to go into another line of business.
From the physician’s point of view, an alternative career potentially offers less liability, less stress and anxiety about outcomes, better control over lifestyle and, yes, maybe even a better income. Or income that comes at a less steep personal price.
I’m also observing an apparent disconnect between how physicians are really feeling and how they are perceived by the public, as evidenced times by snide remarks made about physicians and their money, or prestige, or even lack of single-minded dedication!
For all our sakes, I hope there are wise and sensible solutions in the near future.
I like being a doctor. A lot.
But if I found something that paid better, and was as personally satisfying to me, I’d be out of here.
That doesn’t make me, or anyone else, a bad doctor.
Good. We need a genetic cleansing of the type that does into medical practice, slow or fast, let it happen. Go on ebay and sell, including your M…r while you are at it, and stop selling us to big pharma. Good riddens. Be out of here. We need new blood with proper mind set. They are out there, but were shunted out of the profession because they were too ethical for the admissions committees.
If a could make the money, I’d rather do lots of other things than medicine. Being a busy family physician (I’m sure some docs other specialties feel the same way) is to be a dog in a cage, being poked with sticks at unpredictable intervals.
Curious how little insight our patients have into this reality.
She works at a nonprofit, community health center – provide care to the poor and uninsured. These npos usually provide a salary of half the regular income of those in medical practice.
Does it bother anyone besides me that, because she makes more money selling clothes, that equates to “professional satisfaction?” It seems to me that she must have a fairly high degree of personal satisfaction as a primary care physician for her to be willing to moonlight selling clothes to be able to continue to make what she’s making in primary care.
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