Renumeration not that great actually

[jock2doc]

But a comment above made me think about why I chose medicine over a PhD which I'd been accepted to do in a field I absolutely love.

 

I really liked your thought process there. I do have a couple thoughts to add though. The barriers to entry for an MD are, rightly or wrongly, significantly higher than for grad studies. I think this has a lot to do with the discrepancy in pay. Look at professional athletes. The extreme difficulty in entering their profession, coupled with the demand for their services, allows them to be paid a ridiculous amount of money. The MINIMUM salary in the NHL is around 500k/year. Now their career length is limited, but nonetheless, basic supply/demand analysis says people are paid (for the most part) what society determines.

[Chamilt]

I really liked your thought process there. I do have a couple thoughts to add though. The barriers to entry for an MD are, rightly or wrongly, significantly higher than for grad studies. I think this has a lot to do with the discrepancy in pay. Look at professional athletes. The extreme difficulty in entering their profession, coupled with the demand for their services, allows them to be paid a ridiculous amount of money. The MINIMUM salary in the NHL is around 500k/year. Now their career length is limited, but nonetheless, basic supply/demand analysis says people are paid (for the most part) what society determines.

 

Thanks! And I agree with most of what you stated. Supply and demand will determine most things. My only comment is, I totally agree that medicine has a higher barrier to entry than grad studies. But this is mostly because they tightly regulate how many enter med school each year and MDs are basically government employees. Although professors (just using them as this is the job most people want when they pursue a PhD) are somewhat government funded as well. Most universities are run more like a business and therefore they WANT to have as many grad students as possible for the tuition and for cheap labour/research.

 

And therefore universities don't seem to care that they are pumping out way to many graduate students and leaving many of them over qualified for the jobs they end up with. And causing something similar to what's happening in some fields of medicine (multiple fellowships to get a job), grad students are do multiple post-docs to get jobs.

 

I would think that if they regulated the # of students into graduate school (more specifically) into phd programs it would make it much more competitive. But from my 3 years of grad school I met lots of students that shouldn't be there. I don't think it would ever get quite as competitive as medicine but just wanted to show that academia largely has a problem of over supply.

 

Last comment is that working with the "guru" in a particular field is probably as or more competive than the hardest residency/fellowship. As they might take 1 or 2 students a year.

[jock2doc]

Good points! I agree 100%

[deeman101]

I find that hard to believe...you have a source to back that up?

 

What do you mean do I have a source? You want the billing codes? Or my psych staff's income tax summary? I assure you I am not making it up. I just finished a call shift today with 2 psych consults past 9pm, my staff had his troll smile on which means he got to use the multiplier. I could submit a pic of that as proof.

[schmitty]

What do you mean do I have a source? You want the billing codes? Or my psych staff's income tax summary? I assure you I am not making it up. I just finished a call shift today with 2 psych consults past 9pm, my staff had his troll smile on which means he got to use the multiplier. I could submit a pic of that as proof.

 

Meaning a source that the average is now over 400K for pyschs in Quebec...I just find that very hard to believe that they now make more than almost all other specialties in the province.

[Orcamute]

A psych making 400k/year in Quebec? He's running a business..