All of the above. I did it for 25 years and never had an issue but it can keep you awake nights. Especially in a busy practice setting. I tuned in early in my career that I would want to get out while I still had my marbles so I saved like hell.
From a moral perspective I do understand how it could keep you up at night. What is the actual insurance that pharmacists carry? is it like doctor's malpractice insurance? is it as expensive?
It's quite inexpensive. As an employee pharmacist, I pay only about $250/year. It was more when I owned a pharmacy. I guess lawyers go after the deep pockets ie: corporate owner of the pharmacy practice. I have only rarely heard of pharmacists being sued for malpractice. But it can happen.
The pay is high because it is heavily regulated - you have to do a lot of training and jump numerous hurdles to get qualified. Unqualified entrants are sent to jail. Just like any field that has high artificial barriers to entry, those who have surmounted the barriers earn above-average profits. You can see the same effect with dentists, doctors, lawyers, realtors etc. If all those professions were wide open to anyone without licensing, their wages would be far lower. Whether that is worth the trade-off in terms of less security for the customer is a debatable issue. It's not a bad job if you are prepared to do the study and put up with the tedium. Classic job for dull responsible people.
How was he being smug? He was explaining his opinion of the economics behind high pay for the medical profession. How much a profession gets paid is down to supply & demand, and has nothing intrinsically to do with how "valuable" the work is. Water is even more important to me than doctors or nurses, yet I can get it free. Rothko paintings are worthless to me, provide no benefit at all, yet it would cost me tens of millions for one. Restrict the supply and the price (wage) goes up, other things being equal. Increase demand and you get the same. That's why uneducated 20somethings who can bounce a ball very well get paid tens of millions, nurses/doctors only make tens or hundreds of thousands, and soldiers make fuck all. Clearly soldiers are the most important job in society, without them we would all die or be enslaved, they are also the most at risk in wartime, yet they get paid almost nothing. The only reason is because lots of people are willing to do it, and it doesn't take much unique skill - just be in shape, and go to boot camp, almost any 16-30 year old can do that. Whereas bouncing a ball and landing it in a hoop versus the top 100 other competitors in the world is a very rare skill, even though it is risk-free and completely useless outside of its scarcity & entertainment value. Hence importance and contribution to other people's genuine welfare has almost nothing to do with wage levels. It's purely supply & demand.
By sending the fleecers to jail for a long time, just like any other field of criminality? Note that realtors are licensed too in the USA, so are banks and the securities industry. That worked well to protect the public, didn't it? Regulations are a complete waste of time. Regulators never stop real problems that the public encounters, they only encumber both suppliers and customers with ludicrous regulations and a morass of red tape and extra costs, killing jobs and productivity and providing nothing of benefit. The courts are sufficient regulation, as proven by their effect on the rates of murder, assault, rape etc. Jailing people for a long time for criminality is far better regulation than a bunch of clueless bureaucrats making up pointless rules about a field of activity they have no understanding of.
I agree completely. I had posted this a few days ago in the immigrants thread http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2331641#post2331641 How is it that an average engineer can get here in USA on any piece of paper but the best doctors of western europe need to come to US just to appear for USMLE interviews to be able to work here. And off course the visa for the interview is almost always denied. Lobbies keep the supply down.
Yes, and let's start that standard of proof with any law introduced or kept on the books by the government, right?
What planet do you live on? Most of my DRs work 4 days a week and my dentist charged me $1700 to do a root canal that took about 45 minutes. The average income of DRs in my area is at least $250k so who cares about 100k of debt? One of my Drs charges about $11,000 an hour to perform a basic procedure. American Drs are among the most immoral people that have ever lived.
pharmacists are grad students who couldn't get into dental or medical school. i know 3 pharmacists and 2 others who are in pharm school now. they are reasonably bright but not in the same league as MD's. here in CA, an outpatient retail pharmacist typically starts at $85-90k, then move up to 125k within a few years. financially it's not worth it. you borrow 100k, study an extra 3-4 years (which means lost wages), so you can earn about the same as a hardware/software engineer. furthermore, you deal with bitchy customers all day (my pharm friends gripe about this constantly). the only advantage to the job is that it's not outsourceable to india, so long as they continue their monopoly. inpatient pharmacy is more desirable but there are less openings, and hence employers can cherry pick from the best candidates.