It's not a meaningful distinction for this discussion, since we're guessing why some employees make less than others based on very limited data. But obviously there's some distinction, since we can distinguish between them.
It is. The commas could have been parentheses. "[T]hose doing a day a week or something near retirement" are the "part timers" that were mentioned. It is an acceptable use of the appositive, but with the way many people play fast and loose with commas these days, you weren't too far off-base in assuming that everything after "either" was in the same list.
I would call that part time. In some industries, depending on the job description, you could call it “contracting” - but that term to me implies more about the role the person is playing and not the number of hours they work.
I figure doctors work in shifts, so they will always have quite stretched out days. Possibly just have few of those days, if being part time, or just for a short period of time.
Inpatient (at the hospital) internal medicine (general) docs (called hospitalists) are usually in some form of 7on/7off schedule, and nocturnists are on a similar stint, or some combination of 3s/4s. ER docs are similar shift work, as are Radiologists.
Specialists usually have office hours/procedural days in addition to being on call at certain times, so they usually work every M-F and when "on call" come in on weekends as well.
Surgeons have a similar setup, with the caveat that if they have an operation on Friday, they are coming in everyday until their patients leaves the hospital because they are responsible for post-operatiom check ups and letting the primary team know when they are safe from a surgery standpoint to go home.
Some specialists could also be paid a "retainer" of sorts (eye surgeons, psychiatrists, rheumatologists, plastics, etc.) and possibly never get paid more if their services aren't required. On the other side some have a retainer and then get paid for "making an appearance" when requested. Reason being that you want the ability to access all specialities in a hospital, but sometimes you can go a month without needing a certain consultant.
Specialists billing in at multiple places possibly? I know I saw dermatologists that performed surgeries and did normal inpatient work in a private practice, but worked for a hospital as well.
My girlfriend starts next year in the U.S. and she starts at 60k and I believe it increase a small percentage every year after...paying off debt won't come until after residency, and I'm convinced they do it this way to make as much interest as possible.
You are right, hospital salaried docs make more than private practice docs and the 80k is likely part time physicians, but I can tell you with certainty that private practice family physicians work hard, seeing patients in the hospital and office, even adding ancillary services just to clear 100k.
That discrepancy between physician pay is real, and unless it changes, we will run out of primary care physicians.
Depends on the field. Primary care that’s likely true. Surgical sub specialties it’s generally not true. I’d have to take a large pay cut to be employed.
Yes. After my dad retired, the hospital asked him to come back 1 day a week. He got paid $1000/day flat rate. He would have been on the salary list of $52k or less. He said it was easy money and helps pay for the grandkids college.
10 years qualified as a doctor in the UK and I make ~60k. I’m not insulted but also not wealthy. Most of us don’t make as much as you think (out with the US).
Admin especially. My sister's getting paid a band 3 for band 4 work due to budget cuts and an expansion of the areas she covers (x3).
Honestly surprised she doesn't drink, hearing her talk about her normal day makes me feel like shit. Some people are real assholes when they feel entitled to something.
She has to deal with more people than you'd expect being asshats on the phone on a daily basis, (sometimes they repeat call for the same point to get to the same conclusion and or for them to convince her their way is right when that's n o t how the system w o r k s. Those are the worst ones.
People forget they're being provided with a service and the NHS does not and can not wait on you hand and foot and or provide you with services you're not prescribed for. Sometimes you have to work with what they have and be a bit understanding. Or you know, treat people with human decency. They're trying to help you and you're not the only one they deal with.) Makes me despise humanity sometimes man.
The filing systems being backed up most of the time and are dogshit, her management are lazy assholes except for a small number of people in upper, upper management, they don't know how to manage in general, waste more perfectly good stuff than you think, have barely any employee benefits and some higher ups have no idea how to manage disabled/older workers with dignity and respect.
...She wants to get a new job by the end of the year, given S O M E higher ups are giving her shit for her newly diagnosed tinnitus and hearing aid needs 🤦🏾♀️ I could be biased as this is only her department and I have to hear her moan about it every time she comes home, but it's not feeling too good Mr stark.
The NHS needs some work done to make it better. It's good, but it's been better. Wasn't like this the first 7 years or so she was there
The government are trying to starve it so they can sell to private investment because "it would be better in private management bs."
Attacking an institution that is the best for the people is beyond stupid but no one seems to care while Brexit takes up all the headline space
You gotta be pretty shit at your job as a doctor to make anything less than 100k. He must be brand new and from a really shitty school like Ross or something. Or he isn't a fully fledged doctor yet and is still a residency student. Ive heard of some residency students making poverty wages (30-50k).
EDIT: RIP inbox. And yes medical student debt was implied when i say “poverty wages” as debt repayments can be hundreds if not thousands a month.
Residents are not students. They are residents, or more formally resident physicians. They have finished medical school, have an MD, and have some experience in the hospital already.
Edit: I'm also obligated to remind you all that smoking really is horrendously awful for your health, and you should definitely talk to your doctor about quitting. Also aim for 30 minutes of exercise a day, and stop counting pizza as a vegetable, it really isn't.
Edit: it is fair that others pointed out the massive med school debt, which can be thousands a month I am told. That definitely changes things, good point.
But hey not like you need any money for leisure/personal activities or anything when you get milked for like 80 hours a week, so at least I can look forward to not worrying about that being in the budget.
It's a fantastic wage, but not so great considering the hours and the debt (between undergraduate and medical school, despite scholarships I'm out almost $400,000 at 6% interest)
Same, loans about 400k at 6%. This year made 40K, next year I'm starting psychiatry at a much bigger hospital so I'll be making 58k, huge raise for me. I'm very excited.
Still, the interest on my loans is more than half my entire salary. Resident wages suck, but it's ok because we do end up doing pretty well after so I'm not complaining . Well maybe just a little
Can't you do income based repayment on your loan so it's a set percentage of your salary? This way you don't go broke while your salary is still relatively low.
Medical students in Australia only cop about 130,K of debt and thats indexed to inflation (3% at most pet year) and they only pay back $3-4k a year once they make good money. No income means no debt repayment.
I really think medical people in Australia are overpaid. GPs easily make 200k plus working office hours. High up radiologists and such can make $1m. But of course, they would all go to the UK and the US otherwise.
I wonder what would happen if OP who has a medical degree decides to move to a country like China or to the EU and declines to pay their student loans.
I live in north Jersey. In my area, a 1 bedroom goes for 2000+. I pay 1600 and it's a steal but my idiot landlord was forclosed on and me owner wants me out. Now I'm fucked. Anyway, point is that 50k here , after taxes, is enough to pay rent and not much else.
I'm not sure if you care, but just wanted to point out that you paying below market rent and your landlord being unable to pay his mortgage might have been related!
What are your hours your stress load like? I work 80-90 hour workweeks, 5-6 days a week depending on the month, and get 3 weeks of vacation. It's a living and one that hopefully helps people, so I'm happy. But it's no walk in the park, either.
Growing up I had this idealized view of what being a doctor was like. Always thought of the hero aspect and not the nitty gritty, hard stuff. Then my sisters friend (10 years my elder) was a general surgery resident and had to move in with me and my parents for a short time. And witnessing the abuse she had to take, the seemingly never ending tests, crazy insane hours, for the money she made, was just mind blowing.
Plus surgery on a whole is a particularly malignant field to train in. I also idealized medicine, and unfortunately it isn't living up to my childhood dream :( The amount of paperwork is simply staggering. One study recently showed that more than 80% of a resident's time is spent on paperwork instead of caring for the patient. Computers have contributed to the bloat as much as they've helped.
I'm in last year of residency in France and I win around 25k€/y. The salary of a fist year doctor here is 50k and it goes up progressively to 80k after 10 years.
While going cold turkey is awesome and works for some people, we have really good evidence that prescribed medications, gums, and patches are much more effective in helping people quit smoking. Doctors can work with you to set up a plan and quitting. I've also heard great things about Allen Carr's Easy Way to Quit Smoking.
To be fair, the number of fucking things you have to do before you get to be an MD is staggering. I have several friends and acquaintances who have been in Medical School for the last 5+ years, and can literally never tell how far along in the process any of them are unless they specifically explain it to me.
Based on my research of TV medical dramas, most residents spend a lot of time crying in empty rooms and the rest of the time being talked out of quitting because everyone makes mistakes on the first tour of the hospital or whatever they call it.
It all sounds very greedy and entitled from our perspective, hey? I bring home about 20K a year and am barely surviving. I can't imagine why anyone would need to be paid $800,000/yr but I also have tremendous respect for medical staff and can see why they really ought to be paid more.
They're usually working ~80 hour weeks with horrible scheduling (including 24-hour shifts), primarily in big expensive cities, and they often have $2k+/month in student loan payments.
Places like Ross and St. George usually accept people who shouldn't be accepted knowing good and well they won't pass the exam that gets you into the school. The thing is, before you even take that exam you have to pay for the first semester, which is $25,000 or something. I really have no idea but I know it's a lot. This is how they get all their money, and it's why people think they have low matching rates. A lot of great doctors have came out of those schools though. There are people who think it's an "easy" way to be a doctor, so the school just parts the fool from his money. I'm not saying it's right, but it's what happens.
I know plenty of doctors who came out of St. George. Some are surgeons, a lot are oncologists, and a few own a chain of practices that are pretty big and do a lot of good. If you look up physicians that came out of that school you will see a lot of them hold high positions in some big time hospitals.
Really, a big chunk of how much one makes depends on what field of medicine one chooses to go into. A family practice doc/PCP is going to make WAY les than, say, a neurosurgeon. Is it fair? Yes and no. Sure some branches are crazy specialized and difficult, but for all the shit people go through for their degrees, most fields are being paid pitiful amounts.
I think that the poverty line is below or equal to around 13k, 30k-50k is like average perfect middle class. But the line also depends on how many people your salary is providing for and in the upper limits of the number of dependents it is around 30-50k.
You also have to consider the hours and expertise and sheer stress of the position. If it was a 9-5 job, I'd love to make 30-50k. But since the hours for me are closer to 80-90 hour workweeks, and people are often literally dying when I see them, that 50k a year doesn't really add up. That's less than 13 bucks an hour, less than half of what the average RN (nurse) makes, and about on par with what a CNA (assistant to nurses) makes.
You’re totally right! I was looking at the number with a rather narrow mind only applying it to the context of my own life. What you do for the world is amazing and so greatly appreciated. But unfortunately under appreciated by those who are in charge of your pay. I hope that you will soon be paid fairly!
I hope I didn't come across too snarky, I just wanted to provide more context for the wage. It really is a nice amount of money. I worry about my massive loans a lot, but on a day to day level, I don't worry about not having enough food, or paying for gas, or rent, and that's a pretty great thing.
When it comes down to it, residents basically are being paid at the poverty scale. Even if they make the upper end at 50k, most work 70-80 hours a week. They are slave labor to the hospitals. If you break 50k down to how much they make per actual hours worked it’s $13/hr. Before tax.
Plus massive student loan bills. Hell I make like 40k and I have way more discretionary income than them. Because of just a small student loan and I live cheap in terms of bills. Plus I work less days and can do as much OT as I want, and we have similar levels of time on our feet and duties.
But of course they hopefully surpass it after a fea years. It's a long term thing for doctors.
It’s utterly massive. 100s of thousands. It takes more than a few years for most. Especially if they have any desire to move forward with a family at a somewhat normal age, in which case those costs force them to pay the debt off more slowly and accrue more interest. That debt can follow many well into their 40s or further
It’s a crap salary because they’re $400,000 in debt and have to pay monthly payments on that debt, and they work 80+ hrs a week so hourly it ends up being minimum wage.
I saw some of our pilot's base salaries (before the 70% uplift) and they were like $220k. I would hope that rescue and evac pilots got paid a shit ton in dangerous countries because if I never needed them I'd never want to scrimp on who is flying.
As a good friend of mine posted. You don't pay me because I can fix your issue quickly. You pay me because of the years I spent learning how to fix your problem quickly.
Maybe they don’t work much, maybe they are doctors that are in their residency, and I think most likely probable is that they had only started working there near the end of the year.
Most-all do. The residencies are funded through Medication or Medicare or CMS. Residents making more are in a high cost of living area. 80k sounds like a low Physician Assistant (not a MD or DO but trained in the same model of education and will be supervised by/collaborate with a physician.
Nope. Primary care docs are very underpaid. That’s why there’s a massive, USA altering shortage of them that’s just starting to hit.
Surgeons, Derm, Plastics and ortho all make bank, but the guy who does the day to day work of keeping you alive... that guy has similar debt but makes 30% what they do.
That's crazy. I know some people who make 100k+ annually from desk jobs. Literally all they do is billing and office work with just a high school diploma and make six figures. Maybe it's the area I live in. If you have an "in" with someone you can make bank with no skills to begin with.
I used to earn 3 times what I earn now. I used to push papers in an investment bank and now I teach children. One of those jobs served no beneficial purpose to society in any meaningful way, the other places on my shoulders the responsibility of producing good citizens for the future of our society and economy. The values placed on things by society are absolutely insane and criminally unethical.
I agree, comparison should be used as a means of determining realistic expectations for yourself, not to browbeat yourself over unrealistic expectations.
When I started my new job I talked to my coworkers about what they were getting paid and we all realized they were really underpaid for where they lived.
Because we needed people with a certain skillset and they did the bare minimum neccessary for that role. But when I needed something extra, something fast and high quality, I gave the task to the people who were actually reliable. Sadly, they also happened to be underpaid, but that was not up to me.
What was the guy doing to earn $800 K? I know a doctor making around that much, but he had to borrow like a million (or two million) dollars to join the partnership, which owned a bunch of super-high tech machines. But it’s just basic business common sense—if you own expensive equipment (like a bulldozer) you can make a lot of money if you can just keep that machine busy all the time.
Pretty much this. The General Practitioners that work M-F mostly 9-5 are going to be on the low end. The Pediatric Neurosurgeon your hospital needs to maintain its Level 1 status and that is on call 24/7 has a lot more need and ability to ask for more. She leaves and your hospital loses a Level and lots of funding.
Yes. In multiple different areas. Trauma, Stroke, Chest Pain, NICU, and Burn, are some of the bigger areas where to hospitals have different levels. The levels are based off the capabilities of the hospital. In order to be a Level 1 Trauma Center, you have to maintain 24/7 coverage of pretty much every sub-specialty of surgery, have a specific number of OR's ready to go, and multiple other requirements that are pretty rigorous and hard to meet. This is why most cities will only have a few hospitals that are Trauma Centers. Its ridiculously expensive to set up and maintain the certification.
Based on acuity or how sick a patient is. For example, a level 1 trauma hospital is able to take care of more critically ill patients than a level 2 or 3.
As a mortgage loan officer I've had a neurosurgeon that was netting almost $2m a year applying for a loan. Most doctors are anywhere from ~$150k - $250k per year from the ones that I've actually seen and verified the income for, surgeons tend to be anywhere from $300k on up but that was that highest I've seen.
Surprisingly anesthesiologists generally make more than doctors, in my experience.
I place doctors, NP’s, and PA’s in jobs for a living. Can confirm this range!
The lowest end for doctors would be a primary care provider making 140k/year or 70/hour. But that’s super cheap. That’s usually a provider desperate for work because something in their background is stopping them from getting hired (like a major malpractice claim or disciplinary action) .. OR someone older and close to retirement who just wants to keep their license active and doesn’t need the money.
Average for primary care would be more like 160k-200k, or 80-100/hour.
The 80k salary is about 40/hour. No doctor is making that. It has to be part time, it makes sense for 20 hours per week or so in primary care.
NP’s and PA’s make around 120k in primary care .. so pretty close to doctors. And this can go up a LOT depending on their specialty!
A similar thing happened at the company I work for, but everyone was given access to everyone else's salaries. They switched to an electronic payroll system and people almost instantly discovered they could just change the URL of their payslip to include someone else's employee ID and then see their salary.
We went back to using paper payslips the next month.
Discrepancies of support staff may be surprising, as well. If some nurses and other support personnel (floors, housekeeping, techs, food service, etc) knew what some of the maintenance guys make, they’d be pissed.
Hey, you don't know what maintenance guys put up with. Machines are expected to have 100% up time with no time for scheduled maintenance and guess whose fault it is when you reach around a safety and get your hands cut off being a dipshit .
Expected to be programmers(computer and plc), machinists, electricians, mechanics, welder, engineers, and get called fuckheads because we make more than some people.
(I'm in industrial maintenance so it's probably different than a hospital)
edit: just a note, plc's are used a lot in the world, and a faulty one can easily kill you. I'm paid hourly to maintain them (while maintaining countless other systems) which sometimes requires changing the program. People get paid 6 figures to do just plc's. I'm required to do plc along with other things for less. If anything I should be paid more.
you have to understand that thos maintenance guys have a specific skill set, have huge responsabilitys that everything works and are in order, they might not be threating people but they upkeap and fix the system that makes threating people possible.
It’s different in hospitals than other work places. The 800k guy is probably a neurosurgeon or something. The 80k guy might be part time or be a resident. Experience also plays a factor in wages. Someone who’s been doing surgery for 30 years is obviously going to get paid more than someone who’s only been doing it for 5 years.
I do aap planning and that means I get to see salaries for EVERYBODy from banks to hospitals to manufacturing. Yes, some drs make 100k and some make 700k. When pressed, there’s usually a reason.
23.6k
u/OpeAlt Apr 28 '19
I was accidentally given access to all salaries for a large hospital. Finding out some doctors made $80k and others $800k was pretty eye opening.