Thursday, August 2, 2012

Seriously?!

So I read this article http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/sunday-commentary/20120727-eli-lehrer-your-doctor-makes-too-much-money.ece about how doctors and healthcare professionals make too much money.  I was so irritated by the end of it that I wanted to scream.  This guy doesn't know what he's talking about.  First of all, medical school tuition was much more than $25,000 a year.  Try double that.  And doctors have residencies they are required to complete, where other professions he is comparing them to don't.  Last I calculated, when Pete stays under the cap on hours each week (which they don't track because no one is going to be the guy who says, "Hey, I've worked too much this week.  I'm going home.") he was making 4-5 dollars an hour.  And the debt will take us much longer to pay off than this guy suggests.  In looking through job postings, I have never seen a job for a primary care physician making $200,000.  Plus, I think about the stress that some of these doctors are under; one wrong cut and the person they are trying to save could die.  That's a tremendous amount of responsibility that the average job doesn't have.  I liked this rebuttal that a physician sent in.  Especially the last paragraph because it is so true.  Same situation with teachers, too...  http://www.meandmydoctor.com/2012/07/setting-record-straight-on-doctor-pay.html?spref=fb&m=1&fwcc=1&fwcl=1&fwl

Phew.  Sorry for the rant.  Maybe at an earlier day, when I hadn't seen what I've seen or had the strain and stress on my husband and family that we've had, or packing around the enormous student loans, despite the fact that we lived on $20,000 a year during medical school, or heard the stories of patients spitting on my husband while he was trying to stitch up their gashed faces in the ER, or continually spent weekends, holidays, evenings, nights, parties, Christmas Eve, Christmas day, without my husband so that he could be in the hospital helping others, then maybe my opinion would be different.  But for now, you can't convince me that these doctors don't earn every cent of their keep.