djconnel wrote:The reason doctors are disliked is because the profession is unfairly protected from competition. The medical system us set up to suppress decision making based on cost and, in any case, in many cases the patient isn't competent to price shop due to it being an emergency. The medical system is like a parasite on the economy, consuming an ever increasing fraction of resources, with practitioners so obviously paid disproportionately to other skilled professionals. Fold in a healthy dose of arrogance and conflict of interest and you have the fuel for a lot if resentment.
People are jealous of professional athletes more than doctors but the professional athletes are obviously there due to merit and so there is more admiration than disdain.
Pro athletes tend to quickly suffer for lazy, poor performance but from doctors this is not only not punished but is expected.
No offense DJ, but that is a lousy opinion. As someone in the medical profession, I feel obligated to respond to your claims.
What other profession do you know of that takes a minimum of 23 years of education and training and most likely +25 years for someone who sub-specializes? What other profession do you know of where one doesn't get paid for 2-3 months AFTER providing a service? What other profession do you know of where a customer can receive a service or product and not pay? What other profession do you know of where one can lose their home, business and assets because a jury thought the customer went through a lot of "pain and suffering?" What other profession are the lives of individuals in the hands of the practitioner?
Why do you state "The reason doctors are disliked" when in reality the rankings I have seen for the most prestigious professions typically has physicians at the top along with teachers nurses and firefighters. Please show me where all this supposed "dislike" that people have for physicians is. Maybe this is completely subjective on your part and only you hold this view?
And no, the medical system is not designed to suppress the decision making based on cost. I am not even sure what you mean in this case. The reason there is no set price is because each patient is different. The cost of a lung transplant isn't the same for each person because one patient might develop MRSA pneumonia and require spending a week in an ICU and the other leaves the hospital without complications. One person might show up to their doctor for a physical and get a clean bill of health and the next might find out that they have cancer. Both patients went to the doctor feeling well, both have different outcomes. Medicine is not a field where you can predict the future and base costs on this. Same asinine thought as bringing a car to a dealership with a "noise" and expecting them to tell you right on the spot the problem and cost to repair without them looking at the car and determine what is wrong. One "noise" has a completely different cost than another "noise." In summary, every "noise" does not equate to the same problem or the same cost.
The medical system is like a parasite on the economy, consuming an ever increasing fraction of resources, with practitioners so obviously paid disproportionately to other skilled professionals.
Not even sure I know what this means? Sure lets build more bombs and fighter planes instead to attack the "bad guys" hiding in the mountains. It is a good sign that our society spends money on research, technology, drug development, medical equipment design, new hospitals, educating future physicians and other health care workers. Not sure why you view this as a negative. With those added years than grandma or dad had after their bad heart attack or stroke, guess where those treatment regimens and protocols came from? Guess where the diabetic who would have died in their 20's 100 years ago but can now live into their 80s came from? Guess you expect all the advancements in breast cancer research and Alzheimer's to come at no cost. Maybe you need to read more into the economics behind advancement.
Who ever said a physician is "obviously paid disproportionately to other skilled professionals"? You as an engineer? Most engineers have what, a bachelors maybe a masters? Sure there are some that have a PhD. However every physician in this country has a doctorate degree plus their post graduate clinical training that is at least another 3-7 years. So at what point does their ability to take care of sick sick people make them over paid when they take all the responsibility when someone dies? At the end of the day when you leave the office and finish your math calculations, you don't have to deal with the call in the middle of the night regarding a gunshot trauma or the old lady who fell down some stairs and has a brain bleed. Physicians are paid more secondary to their education/training and the responsibility and demand placed on their lives.
Fold in a healthy dose of arrogance and conflict of interest and you have the fuel for a lot if resentment.
Arrogance in what regard? Maybe the physicians you have met have been that way, and I feel bad that you have had that interaction. I sure don't nor do my colleagues. A good physician knows what they know, but they also know what they don't know. Must be the environment in Cali? I sure don't see that around my parts. Don't let one bad apple spoil the bunch.
I also don't know what you mean by "conflict of interest"? I don't know of any physician who would purposefully make their patient sicker, keep them sick, or put them on a treatment or therapy that would not make them better. That would be negligence and malpractice. Do engineers have conflict of interest?
I am getting the sense from your comments that you have some bitterness towards the medical profession. I am not sure why.
People are jealous of professional athletes more than doctors but the professional athletes are obviously there due to merit and so there is more admiration than disdain.
I didn't go into medicine so that people would be jealous of me. I went into the field because I want to help people who are sick, I want to make a difference, I want to be the person that can help them, I want to be at the forefront of a field that is always changing and learning new things, and ultimately I want to help out society.
Pro athletes tend to quickly suffer for lazy, poor performance but from doctors this is not only not punished but is expected.
Do engineers suffer from lazy and poor performance? What physician are you trying to describe as being lazy and a poor performer? Let's see, we are required to pass 3 sets of national boards to get a medical license, have to graduate from medical school, have to enter a residency and successfully complete that, need to pass your specialty boards, if you want to sub-specialize then you need to pass your sub-specialty boards and you need to renew your medical license every two years there after and take medical board recertification every 6-10 years. Yeah, that sure makes a bunch of lazy people with poor performance. How much oversight is there in the engineering field in relation to that? I am not saying every physician is perfect, but you really need to look at the whole picture and not an isolated instance or individual.
DJ, I am very surprised by this comment as I have always viewed you as one who is very logical. Seems like you might have some underlying issues to deal with.