MD rads wrote:
I sense anger and jealousy in your post. It is misdirected. Medical costs are excessively high in the U.S. due to many things, but most assuredly, physician pay is not one of them. Furthermore, I can't think of any other job more deserving of high pay than a physician. The sacrifices are huge monetarily, physically, mentally, emotionally as well as time costs. It is beyond what your average person could ever comprehend. I gave away ALL of my twenties and early thirties for my profession and I still often work 6 to 7 days a week. My wife is an outpatient internist, and she would be the first to tell you that I more than earn every penny I receive for the work I do, which is something that only a handful of people in the entire country are capable of doing. She is definitely underpaid for the work that she does, but that is due to factors which have nothing to do with how much specialists are paid, which is mostly a function of supply and demand. The reason people don't want to go into primary care is because of excessive paperwork, increasingly ungrateful/demanding patients, and erosion of salaries due to large healthcare organizations replacing them with undertrained NP's and PA's.
DPTs have the same stress and barely crack $100,000. MDs making $500K+ to dump pills on everyone is absurd.
