Do Doctors deserve such high salaries?
Doctors and lawyers are one of the highest wage earners in most of the developed countries. This article in Telegraph’s Opinion section discusses whether doctors deserve to be overpaid. If you happen to be in India, the best way to get rich is to start a Medical College / Engineering College.
The thought struck me when I read on Tuesday, in open-mouthed disbelief, that the average British GP now earns more than £100,000 per year. That is very serious money indeed. It is the national average, please note, which means that quite a lot of GPs must be paid a fair bit more. In almost any other profession or trade, you have to be at the very top to earn anything like that. For example (hence, I suppose, my bitterness), I would be very surprised to be told that more than 300 journalists in the entire country were paid more than £100,000 a year - and I assure you that I am not among them. But there were 41,574 GPs in the United Kingdom, at the last count.
That is an awful lot of rich men and women. Some 10,000 of those doctors are married to other doctors, which means that there must be a large number of medical households in the land, raking in the better part of a quarter of a million a year - largely at your expense and mine.
Yes, I know that GPs will tell us that they had to undergo many years of training, working exhausting hours for a pittance as junior hospital doctors, before they started pulling in the big money. Until last year they would have told us, too, that they had to be on call in the small hours of the morning and over the weekend. But all that has changed since the Government introduced its new contracts, and now two thirds of GPs have exercised their option to put their feet up after office hours.
Another advantage that doctors have, and which the rest of us don't, is more or less complete job security (they have to be practically mass-murderers, like Harold Shipman, to get struck off the register). They can also up-sticks and settle in any part of the country that takes their fancy, without having to take a pay cut. So what, exactly, are we getting for our money?
posted by Kaps at
12:44 PM
6 Comments:
@Chennai Chatter,
thanks man. it is better that a doc marries as a doc as others might not understand the pressures of working on weekends and night shifts
By
Kaps, at 5:14 PM
Doctors probably deserve it. They are life savers, mostly work all time/any time. But the pay of Nurses who almost share equal work load is so unjust.
By
Me too, at 10:55 AM
Have u seen shwaas?
I honestly have to acknowledge doctors I know who work around the clock from morning 6 till midnight.
Such selfless beings deserve the money they earn and much more!
They always can do it by switching voer to "consulting" or becoming the doctors of the RICH men, but they dont. And truly are gifts to humanity.
By
Anonymous, at 11:43 AM
@Me too,
It is a sad fact that nurses are paid very low. hope the disparity is rectified. thanks for dropping by.
@ Divya,
There are all kinds of doctors. These days it is increasingly difficult to come across dedicated people. This is the reason for people to believe that doctors are overpaid. i guess this article was in lighter vein.
By
Kaps, at 3:29 AM
When software programmers with the IQ of a Sloth Bear are getting paid so much I don't see why we should even be talking about docs being paid lots in freaking UK or USA. In India, docs are under-paid. They do some real work unlike most software types that hide behind Excel sheets. And, being a doctor and running a medical school are two different things brother.
Chennai Chatter: Get laid buddy. You sound funny.
By
Anonymous, at 12:42 PM
@Suman,
I think the boom in software salaries in the demand supply gap and the outsourcing boom. Lot of s/w pros slog and lot and they probably deserve the pay. I also agree that lot of docs in India are under paid. But it is a different story overseas.
I brought in medical schools and engineering colleges just to show the money making which goes on there.
By
Kaps, at 4:37 PM
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