Thread: Doctors \ Money

What do you think of doctors getting very well paid versus health being so expensive to people who need it? (Private in US)(or for Governement like Canada that have Universal health care)

I tend to think that Doctor being so well paid will be more inclined to save and provide health for money instead of beeing doctors in the idea to take care of people. I'm not generalizing.

I know studies to become Doctors are really expensive, in this case shouldn't governement provide more help in becoming Doctors and than have doctors beeing less paid? (specialist like Neurology and all)

The vast majority of medical expenses are not on doctor consultations, although surgery may be an example. Do you know how many people are involved in your treatment in hospital? Doctors are just the tip of the iceberg, indeed you have your main consultant physician and the team, but there are also nurses, ward staff, cleaning staff, pathologists, microbiologists, anaethesists and theatre staff, radiologists and radiographers, lab technicians, porters and catering staff.

All of this must be paid for without even considering the expenses of the equipment, heat, electricity, xray film, syrgines etc, laundry and of course the big one; drugs!

Keep in mind the number of years doctors have gone unpaid to reach the title doctor and then the years of postgraduate training to become a consultant physician or surgeon.

Yes doctors may well be ovepaid, but there is a certain need for them to be rewarded for undergoing such a drawn out and academically difficult career path.

I agree with Robbie the entire health care system, globally, has problems. Nurses from the Philippines, I think we've all seen them. What's going on? The country keeps churning out professionals needed locally and they keep taking off, with their "ticket" to a guaranteed foreign work visa and better job. A lot of poor countries are stuck feeding this brain-drain spiral. Cuba's the only exception I can think of... why, because the state lends its professionals (schooled at public expense) under contract with the host countries, they can't just be bought. A free country can't retain its investment that way, since skilled workers are free to sell themselves to the highest bidder, typically American.

Hard to say.
But it's not only for doctors that it can be long, expensive and still hardly rewarding in the end. Like for example, pilots do pay most for the times for their entire courses like 50000$ and even more, still in the end, they get crappy paid and have to work their butts off to survive.

On the same time, it feels like doctors getting so well paid won't do it anymore in order to take care of peoples health but money. It's like when I go for medical check as a pilot, I always think it's funny cause the guy barely listens to my answers.

Originally Posted by Pong

I agree with Robbie the entire health care system, globally, has problems. Nurses from the Philippines, I think we've all seen them. What's going on? The country keeps churning out professionals needed locally and they keep taking off, with their "ticket" to a guaranteed foreign work visa and better job. A lot of poor countries are stuck feeding this brain-drain spiral. Cuba's the only exception I can think of... why, because the state lends its professionals (schooled at public expense) under contract with the host countries, they can't just be bought. A free country can't retain its investment that way, since skilled workers are free to sell themselves to the highest bidder, typically American.

Cuba's health care system is a wonder, Castro's greatest achievement.

Highest life expectancy for any country with similar economic means, and there are more Cuban doctors working in underdeveloped countries than any other country. Castro's form of communism is probably the closes to a success story of any of the communist experiments. It did a lot of bad, but in general turned out more good. Now if they could make a slow transition to a democratic socialist republic it would be great.

In Canada a doctor gets around like 150-200k, this isn't so high for someone of their level of education. After all, a member of parliament get's pretty much the same salary and they have no qualifications at all.