Comment by hardcandy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hardcandy | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

What do you consider to be ''absurd salaries''? A friend of mine is a hard working (50 hours/week) 35 year old GP in San Francisco and makes about $175k all-in, which is about the same as the average base + cash bonus (excluding options) of all our white collar friends (mostly software developers, but also some in finance and other fields). He left medical school with about $50k in student debt (very low relative to the average) and only started a ''real'' job at 30 (8 years after his peer group, who by then had accumuluated savings of several hundred thousand dollars each).

I also know a neurosurgeon who makes significantly more than this but given the sacrifices required to train into and hold that job, I'm not sure any amount of money would be fair compensation.

Medicine is unique in that you have to pay providers higher salaries to work in more remote, less desirable locations, which is the opposite of how most professions are structured. But without this, rural populations would have almost no access to specialist care.

I know a couple of neurosurgeons who basically don't practice outside of federal/military facilities, and are covered by the Federal Tort Claim Act [0].

The salary is significantly less than a private practice neurosurgeon, but they don't have malpractice insurance or support staff costs.

In under-served and rural locations there are community clinics, also known as Federally Qualified Health Centers, and as part of the package, student loan repayment by the US government for the doctors. These doctors are usually civilian, and not in uniform (US Military or PHSCC). The repayment program is part of the National Health Service Corps[3].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Tort_Claims_Act

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federally_Qualified_Health_Cen...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Service_Corps

Do you think we could maintain the current staffing level of nsx across the entire US with all their current responsibilities (level 1 trauma etc) if they averaged $200k/year each? How do you ask 2 or 3 surgeons to evenly share 24/365 call to keep a trauma center open at that comp level?

How is 175K not absurd? Only a white collar engineer in SF would say that's a piddly salary. Wake me up when your doctor friend has to commute in from Stockton.

I think the Doctor has a little more job security as well. Medical industry has a higher barrier to entry.

Out of curiosity then, what would you consider appropriate salaries for GPs, general surgeons, and specialized surgeons like neurosurgeons, orthopods, or ENT?

Keeping in mind that medical school costs an extra $250k (whether in debt to sallie mae or paid for by mom and dad), and the post-bac education timelines are 7 years for GPs (4+3), 9 years for surgeons (4+5), and 11 years for neurosurgeons (4+7).

Right now the price is set by a government granted monopoly which determines supply. Many people here believe a more correct way to decide this is through the free market.

Don't forget that it's also standard to have accumulated hundreds of thousands of dollars by the age of 30. What are you, some kind of pathetic loser outside the Software Master Race making the median US salary of about 35000?

For some perspective. A 22 year old college graduate can make $175k per year in total comp with a CS degree working for Facebook or Google. To repeat that. A 22 year old with a BS degree can make $175k per year with absolutely no experience whatsoever.

For some more perspective :).

A $175,000 is close to top compensation in our field. The average software engineer(obviously not just out of school) earns around $96,000. The average GP earns $211,000 and the average specialist earns $411,000.

It's not absurd because of the costs of becoming a doctor, both direct costs and opportunity costs. By the time heavily indebted doctors can hang out their shingles, professional peers have been working almost ten years, racking up a million dollars or so in gross earnings.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com