> As I said, after COVID we got a real wake up call of who mattered, and Nurses and Physicians deserve every penny that they get
I'm not saying they don't deserve to get paid well but some doctors earn 10-15 times as much as the nurses they work with, so its not all about "value to society", it's simple market forces. I used the word greed which is very negative but we can simply call it market forces.
Also why do you think family doctors earn half as much as plastic surgeons for instance? Are plastic surgeons bringing 2X the value? If anything family doctors are first in line and responsible for hundreds of lives each year.
For the record I think both nurses and doctors oughta be paid very well, possibly much more than me, as do construction workers and kindergarten teachers. And no, I don't think a doctor should earn one million yearly but that's just my opinion. But anyway the system simply doesn't work like that. The market doesn't care much about who works the hardest or who contributes the most to society.
Few American dr's make $1M. Most of those that make many multiples more than nurses are specialists, and they are still much less than $1M. I do know ones that do better... Because they are involved in effectively second jobs around biotech startups, maybe clinical trials, vs the actual patient care. I've been curious on celebrity patients (who seem to be more about donations/endowments.) You can get $700k by being the only specialist in the middle of nowhere and working nonstop, but most prefer not to.
Instead, someone doing regular family medicine is more like $150-250k... Less than a US programmer with significantly less training & responsibilities. You don't get big RSU refreshers for saving lives.
But the interesting thing is comparing over time. Specialists not only likely took loans and no salary for the stressful years of college, med school, and then residency, but then did another 2-4 years of fellowship, and really good ones, another 4-7 years of underpaid phd. They are making up for 1-2 decades of being underpaid and even debt, beyond the daily stress. More fun? As all the pay comes deferred in big batches, it is also taxed at ~double the rate of everyone else. Triple hit for savings: they don't get the compounding investment bump of people who started to get paid 1-2 decades sooner. Insurance is high too - disability, liability, etc. that regular people don't pay.
After another decade or two it balances out and starts being more than others, and then they retire.
I am not really comparing whose situation is better but since you brought it up: Doctors in general earn more but work much much harder. They also have much much better job security, it is unheard of for a doctor to be considered obsolete at his 50s.
I wouldn't want the life of a doctor personally but financially it is the better field imo, on average.
Maybe put differently: You can be 9-5 FAANG type and retire as early as 40. In contrast, due to the delayed paycheck for specialists... they're looking at another 10 years after that. Likewise, at FAANG, you're living large as a 20-something, while specialists are running on debt & tiny stipends while going through crazy stress: you don't get to enjoy that paycheck while in your prime. There are always outliers, but with 500K+ well-paid folks just in FAANG, and probably 1M+ when other high paying are included, there's a reason even medical folks are getting squeezed out of the bay area.
I'm not saying they don't deserve to get paid well but some doctors earn 10-15 times as much as the nurses they work with, so its not all about "value to society", it's simple market forces. I used the word greed which is very negative but we can simply call it market forces.
Also why do you think family doctors earn half as much as plastic surgeons for instance? Are plastic surgeons bringing 2X the value? If anything family doctors are first in line and responsible for hundreds of lives each year.
For the record I think both nurses and doctors oughta be paid very well, possibly much more than me, as do construction workers and kindergarten teachers. And no, I don't think a doctor should earn one million yearly but that's just my opinion. But anyway the system simply doesn't work like that. The market doesn't care much about who works the hardest or who contributes the most to society.