That is the total cost (tuition + living expenses) of a year of study at the nation’s most expensive medical school. If I end up there, I will graduate with about $300,000 of debt. Yikes. 

Last month, I spent a week or so literally in a panic over these numbers. Most people in this country don’t make that much money in a year. Everyone that I talked to told me not to worry because I was going to make plenty of money once I became a doctor. In this day and age, it’s expected that physicians earn a certain kind of salary. That seems fair. They’re providing a high-value service, one that Americans don’t mind paying good money for. But when most people talk about physicians’ high salaries, they rarely say anything about the value of the work. They say, “Of course we should pay doctors a lot. They have all that debt from medical school.” 

This debt and the expectation of a high salary as a practicing physician really skews the incentives for new doctors, even though most people do not go into the profession in the first place just to make money. Trust me, if you really just want to make a six-figure salary, you can get there without spending your twenties studying and working yourself to exhaustion. No matter what your intentions were at the beginning, after spending all that time, effort, and money you don’t have to become a doctor, working in primary care or opening a clinic in the poor part of town can seem like economic suicide. 

During the health care reform debate, many of the doctors I spoke to expressed concern (or outrage) that they would end up working more and earning less. But the uncomfortable truth is that to keep down the country’s health care costs, the way we pay for health care is going to have to change, and that will inevitably reduce physicians’ incomes. We can make that more palatable by decreasing the huge cost of a medical education, and by setting up the health care system so that it’s easier for physicians to do right by their patients. Take away the frustrating burdens of paperwork and business administration—for example, by implementing a universal insurance billing system (or, someday, a single payer system). Money only goes so far as a reward for the lifetime of hard work and sacrifice required of physicians. Maybe it’s time we tried to think of some other ways to recognize and appreciate the medical profession. 

Physicians in other OECD countries get paid less than they do in this country. But they don’t have all that debt to deal with, either. 

1. waganerohea liked this
2. mithuy08 posted this