Yes, Soros the ultimate socialist ingrate who bought the election for Team Obama to impose his view on how things ought to be in a country that so kindly gave him the opportunity to make himself what he is? That Soros? I have more than enough empathy for those that deserve and demonstrate it by giving quite generously to varies charities - not for lazy, self-indulgent, sniveling whimps who begrudge others for what they have worked hard to achieve.
ET is barely a cut above Jerry Springer when the subject deviates from trading (and sometimes when it is on topic). With the chips falling off people's shoulders in this thread I could go to Vegas and start up a casino! I find it amusing that while most of you are unable to succeed at your own chosen profession, you nevertheless feel more than qualified to comment on another profession with a 7-8 year learning curve for what are generally very bright and industrious people. For the guy in Med school, the attitudes prevalent on this thread are a good cross section of what your patient's attitudes will be. This thread should have been moved to chit chat a long time ago.
OK OK, maybe I came off a little harshly. You see I actually have great respect for doctors, but I guess as part of that respect I tend to hold them to a higher level, from an ethical point of view. I'm not *at all* saying it's bad to get rich, and I don't have a problem with you personally making money. I run a small Inc and as 50% owner I hope to buy a nice sailboat in a while for example. I'm saying that since demand for doctors isn't going to fall, we need to increase the supply. That means vastly increasing enrollment in medical schools as well as pre-med and science undergrad. Maybe we could import doctors from India? The thing is that everyone, including poor people, need to see doctors, and what's more doctors can only see so many people. I don't see how you can work 80 hours a week and stay at peak productivity. In France, I only bring up France b/c I've lived there and am a dual US/French citizen, and for the record I'm not a socialist, hehe, but anyway they have more doctors per inhabitant than we do and despite lower salaries somehow manage to attract good talent to the profession. Note that medicine is not socialized in France. Doctors are private. But medical school there is free, as I believe it should be here. My godson there is in med school. He's very sharp and comes from a good family. His mom (my older cousin) works for IBM and his dad, well, creates complex financial derivatives... My godson could have chosen a more lucrative route but chose medicine because, it seems to me, some people are basically just born to be doctors. I'm a US Navy vet so I used to see the Navy doctors who were very good I thought even though they didn't make much money. The flight surgeons were very good (I flew but wasn't a pilot -- I was intel). I saw some Air Force flight surgeons in Korea and they were also very good I thought. But they didn't make much. They did what they did for some other reason. Something like a calling. You yourself say that when you were a kid you became a doctor so you could help people. So even if doctor's wages go down, we'll still attract fresh talent. And if medical school were expanded and free, I think we'd attract a lot of talent.
Many docs got the help of the military to pay for med school. Often by the time they've paid back their service obligation they think, "might as well stay for 20" to collect the benefits. One of my friends was a flight surgeon and a medical unit CO in Vietnam. Says he often went on field rescue missions sitting on a doubled-up flack jacket so he didn't take one in the ass.
Interesting things to think about. Surely that would have been a better life. But to make that happen, I think I would have had to work for someone else. Certainly such a position would have been available with the likes of Kaiser or Group Health. And I have friends who went that route. What comes with it, though, is someone else (a corporate, profit-driven someone) telling you how to practice, which is generally to the patient's detriment. Still, I don't think that medicine was a good fit for me under any circumstances. I just don't get my jollies from serving other people. Although I did strive to do an excellent job, I just was not enjoying it. I'm not the type. As for making half the money, that depends. If I could make half what I made my first year in practice, that would be all right. However, if I could only make half what I made my last year in practice (which was half of what I made my first year in practice, due to insurance company reimbursement cuts), then no. It would not be enough to live on.