why is it swindling?

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Steph
If you get a warning, put on yer manpants and stop whining about it.

because no other profession (those at the same level of education but in different areas) even makes close to that much. How did we get off of getting such high pay checks? How do they even accomadate those sums while giving reasonable patient care?

oh my dear that is so very far from true. in fact doctors dont make a fraction of what they did in my grandfathers days (in equlivent dollars). Lawyers, (3 years ed) bankers, business types, (various years, much less than docs) many are people with fewer years of education who very regularly and often make much more money and starting at an earlier age. (docs do 4 years *after college* and then a min of 3 in residency, often many more) in fact id say dont be a doc if youre primary goal is a very high income. there are easier cheaper ways to do it.

As for how to give reasonable care: there is no inherent conflict. In fact satisfied folks in the careers will often give better care than overworked embitted people. There can be an effect of psychological overcompensation; that is, if the reward is "too much" for the service rendered (not just for doctors but in any task) people stop doing it for the sake of the service itself and instead for the reward. Some very neat psych studies showed this years ago. It's a very elegent study showing an interesting psychological concept. but you would be very very wrong to suggest that well paid doctors inherently dont care about their patients or provide bad service. you really need to get away from deductive inference in your thinking: starting with general concepts and assuming specific outcomes (ie large reward corrupts so large income makes for bad doctoring) and look at some inductive reasoning: look at *what is* and the work your way to a general theory if you must theorize so much. In reality, doctors reasonably well compensated provide probably the best care.

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Steph
If you get a warning, put on yer manpants and stop whining about it.

ok ok, i concur. I am aware of that I should stop jumping to conclusions because one of these days a brick wall will pop up and smash my face?
Doctors deserve the pay they get. You do realize that they took teaching proofs out of geometry, so most of the future generation including me is going to suck at inductive reasoning.

no i didnt realize they took proofs out of geometry. I would amazed to learn there was a global dictum on such a thing. anyway you dont need 10th grade geometric proofs to learn good deductive and inductive reasoning. but its good you know about the connection.

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Steph
If you get a warning, put on yer manpants and stop whining about it.

well they didn't take it out per se. They spent one day explaining it to us and then told us proofs aren't useful anymore and therefore we won't have to do any. You don't need it, but it would be nice to get taught about it instead of getting a crash course.

I wanted to be a doctor. That's all i ever wanted to be. A few bad semesters in undergrad were enough to keep me out of a US school. So i went Caribbean. I owed $215,000 when I started repaying my loans. I have no problem making the payments (even doubling the payments). rosethorn_14, I make much more than $100K per year. That isn't swindling. I know a lot of people that make more than me who aren't in medicine. If salaries weren't high, who would do it? You do 4 years college, 4 years med school, AT LEAST 3 years of residency before you start making money. Then you need to pay off the loans, and save for retirement, because there aren't pensions in medicine. So you need a ton of cash for that.

The job itself is very stressful, and very time consuming. Most docs work more than 40 hours per week. I know guys who work in the steel industry, and I know police officers who make more than $100,000 per year (with overtime). I do the best job i can for my patients, and in my mind, they come first. I also feel that given all I went through, I deserve to make a lot of money. I'm not ashamed to say it. I want a nice house, nice cars, a private education for my children, a comfortable retirement, and I want to be able to leave each of my kids a comfortable amount of money when I die. For some reason, some people think of this as opulence, greed or excess. My grandfather, who came to this country from Sicily had a different term for it. He called it the American Dream.

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AUC Class of '99
Bored certified
I may be a jerk, but I'm a Jedi jerk like my father.

Some say I look like Buzz Lightyear....
(They're right)

DISCLAIMER: I have no financial stake in ValueMD, or any medical school.

To earn over 100k is not a big deal these days. And there are far more in the medical profession than just doctors who earn that amount (ie pharmacists, optometrists, etc). As Steph said, there are many who earn 100k outside of medicine as well. Heck, my dad who works for the government earns way more than that.

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why should you be ashamed to make more money? We all want to and it's not like you're not working hard for it. So it's fine. I'm not saying the money influenced my decision to become a doctor, but it is a nice bonus.

Does it really matter where you get your medical degree? My uncle is a FMG and he seems to be doing really well for himself, living in McMansion, dating a woman young enough to be his daughter. I know a few doctors who went the IMG route years ago, one of them went to a top 3 offshore school in the early 90's when the tuition was considerably cheaper, they were worried about debt but it turns out that it was a good solid investment.