The case against family medicine

[medigeek]

Average income in ontario is like slightly over 300k/year and there's potential to make more.

Hours work? 9-5/40 a week.

 

 

Many of your specialist peers work 60 hours a week for 250k/year.

 

and you're complaining?

[seeking1]

An analogy- Family medicine is like a fully loaded Toyota Camry (no offense to any Camry owners and fans). It`s roomy, reliable, good on gas, good value for money, and decent. But at the end of the day do you want to be driving a Camry and have it parking it out on your driveway, for the next...say 35 years.

 

I would prefer a reliable Camry, frankly.

[seeking1]

Average income in ontario is like slightly over 300k/year and there's potential to make more.

Hours work? 9-5/40 a week.

 

 

Many of your specialist peers work 60 hours a week for 250k/year.

 

and you're complaining?

 

This x1000000.

[rmorelan]

Average income in ontario is like slightly over 300k/year and there's potential to make more.

Hours work? 9-5/40 a week.

 

 

Many of your specialist peers work 60 hours a week for 250k/year.

 

and you're complaining?

 

It wasn't the money aspect that was the complaint just goes to show their are other factors - and not just the I what to help people side

[rmorelan]

Not if your Porsche is this:

 

or this:

 

 

Toyota's are incredibly boring cars anyway. They're like a cardigan sweater. Nothing flashy or exciting. Not that much fun to wear. But they're comfortable and hold up over the years. Even Toyota realized how boring the company image had become (and unappealing to young buyers), hence the launch of Scion.

 

Sure - I just think I will have more fun with the extra 50k than I will with the car.

[tooty]

Many of your specialist peers work 60 hours a week for 250k

 

Where's your source for this?

[medigeek]

It wasn't the money aspect that was the complaint just goes to show their are other factors - and not just the I what to help people side

 

I know, but money typically fits in with prestige.

[medigeek]

Where's your source for this?

 

Source for what? That they work 60 hours a week? Or the incomes? The former is well known, the latter was just me pinpointing a certain salary range (obviously it can be as low as 150 or as high as 1 million).

[aaronjw]

Source for what? That they work 60 hours a week? Or the incomes? The former is well known, the latter was just me pinpointing a certain salary range (obviously it can be as low as 150 or as high as 1 million).

 

In other words, pulling info out of your a$$ again.

[bloh]

Yup ^^.

 

Also, any GP that takes home 300k on a 40 hour work week is not viewed as a good doctor by their patients. So do what you like.

[uwodesperate]

Originally Posted by medigeek View Post

No it is the deciding factor given that had the girl just drank less, it [being raped] wouldn't have happened at all.

 

Lol.... please do me a favor and tell that to your daughter and granddaughter in the future

[ArchEnemy]

Average income in ontario is like slightly over 300k/year and there's potential to make more.

Hours work? 9-5/40 a week.

 

 

Many of your specialist peers work 60 hours a week for 250k/year.

 

and you're complaining?

 

medigeek spouting BS again...

[medigeek]

In other words, pulling info out of your a$$ again.

http://healthydebate.ca/2012/03/topic/cost-of-care/zero-percent-growth

 

 

 

Originally Posted by medigeek View Post

No it is the deciding factor given that had the girl just drank less, it [being raped] wouldn't have happened at all.

 

Lol.... please do me a favor and tell that to your daughter and granddaughter in the future

 

You mean not let my daughter go to high school/college parties? Sure will do Do you have a better method of preventing such ocurrences?

[aaronjw]

http://healthydebate.ca/2012/03/topic/cost-of-care/zero-percent-growth

 

 

Fail as usual.

 

From your link:

 

1) No mention of the specialist hours (60) which you were quoted on by tooty.

2) no mention of this $250K figure for specialists that you were also quoted on by tooty

 

Now to address the hours issue: http://www.cma.ca/multimedia/CMA/Content_Images/Inside_cma/Statistics/32-MeanHrsWorked.pdf

 

Note the FP/GP average hours worked of 49.77 vs specialist average hours worked of 53.25

 

Addressing specialist income:

 

There were large variations in payments to doctors between specialties, with radiologists and ophthalmologists earning an average of about $600,000 per year, surgeons and medical specialties that do a number of procedures (e.g. cardiology and nephrology) between $400,000 and 500,000 per year, family doctors an average of $300,000 per year and non-procedure medical specialists (such as geriatricians) earning $200,000 to 300,000 per year.

 

Nice to see you cherry pick the mid range from the non-procedure specialists earning $200K to $300K to come up with your figure.

[KitKat]

Nice post written by a passionnate GP!

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penny-wilson/myths-about-general-practitioners_b_3937618.html

[medigeek]

Fail as usual.

 

From your link:

 

1) No mention of the specialist hours (60) which you were quoted on by tooty.

2) no mention of this $250K figure for specialists that you were also quoted on by tooty

 

Now to address the hours issue: http://www.cma.ca/multimedia/CMA/Content_Images/Inside_cma/Statistics/32-MeanHrsWorked.pdf

 

Note the FP/GP average hours worked of 49.77 vs specialist average hours worked of 53.25

 

Addressing specialist income:

 

 

 

Nice to see you cherry pick the mid range from the non-procedure specialists earning $200K to $300K to come up with your figure.

 

I mentioned already i was cherry picking Don't forget that things like psych/peds/derm bring down the average number of hours worked. Is it not common knowledge that meds subspecialties/surgicial specialties hit ~60 hours and sometimes more? Family doctors more so have the 9-5 thing (on average) plus the extra paper work.

 

Largely, incomes are quite similar by the hour (except for a few specialties which earn much higher) between GPs and specialists. This all being on average of course.

 

You missed my point anyway, the OP said GPs lack prestige.. and (on a similar topic) I said well they don't lack income, so no need to feel bad in that regard.

[Lactic Folly]

Often times you strike up a conversation with other residents, and when they find out you`re in family medicine, they say ``We definitely need you guys...we need good family doctors for sure`

Hrm, it's not uncommon to hear variations of "I'm glad there are other people who like doing this"... I've probably said it about surgery, and they've said it of me! (minus the arrogant air)

[rmorelan]

Hrm, it's not uncommon to hear variations of "I'm glad there are other people who like doing this"... I've probably said it about surgery, and they've said it of me! (minus the arrogant air)

 

hehehehehe hear it every day about radiology ("how do you guys stay awake?"). Implying a job I find exciting and interesting is some how incredibly boring.

 

ha - but that is why restaurants have menus. We don't all like the same things.

[bloh]

The biggest case against family medicine is encroachment of NPs and physician assistants as well as the lost respect from the general population. Long gone are the days where a patient will go in with a chief complaint completely blind and respectfully listen what their family physician says. Today, they've already spent hours on the internet and go into the encounter partially convinced that they know more than their GP and all they really need is to see a specialist. It's very sad.

[Alastriss]

Fail as usual.

 

From your link:

 

1) No mention of the specialist hours (60) which you were quoted on by tooty.

2) no mention of this $250K figure for specialists that you were also quoted on by tooty

 

Now to address the hours issue: http://www.cma.ca/multimedia/CMA/Content_Images/Inside_cma/Statistics/32-MeanHrsWorked.pdf

 

Note the FP/GP average hours worked of 49.77 vs specialist average hours worked of 53.25

 

Addressing specialist income:

 

 

 

Nice to see you cherry pick the mid range from the non-procedure specialists earning $200K to $300K to come up with your figure.

 

 

Not to be condescending, but are you in medicine? If you are, and if you are far enough in your training (clerk, resident, etc) then you should be aware that a lot of these averages are a load of crap. The income earned by physicians can vary widely, as well as the hours worked. In fact there is too much variation between practice styles to make many of these averages meaningful, and physicians often under-report what they make. GPs can make a lot more than specialists, depending on how they manage their practice and vice versa. Medigeek may very well be correct in what he is saying.

[medigeek]

Not to be condescending, but are you in medicine? If you are, and if you are far enough in your training (clerk, resident, etc) then you should be aware that a lot of these averages are a load of crap. The income earned by physicians can vary widely, as well as the hours worked. In fact there is too much variation between practice styles to make many of these averages meaningful, and physicians often under-report what they make. GPs can make a lot more than specialists, depending on how they manage their practice and vice versa. Medigeek may very well be correct in what he is saying.

 

He's a middle aged pre-med who comes on here to argue with people half his age (serious).

[rmorelan]

Interesting how we bounced to income on this thread as the original concern was not income at all but rather respect - which the OP really valued. I am guessing that form him/her that money beyond a point was not as important has that respect as a result. Point is overly focusing on only one aspect of things probably doesn't make much sense when doing analysis.

 

Let's say GPs earned more but were obviously respected less (respect by the way is not well correlated with income in medicine in Canada. You could argue academic docs are respected the highest - do the most complex procedures, research new cures, run departments, and teach the next generation - but they earn less than a lot of community docs that are just focusing on doing billable things). Neither income nor respect are particularly altruistic but they are things some people of course value.

 

and yeah you can really tell that people have initially problems digesting how doctors earn money and how averages are not all that useful (median is often quoted actually internally because as we all learned in stats for a distribution with a lot of outliers averages are not really a good descriptor). With a few exceptions fully practicing doctors don't have salaries, fixed hours, fixed incomes, or fixed practice structures. It is like asking what the average restaurant makes makes - well they are small ones, and huge ones, franchises on major highways, well run ones, poorly run ones, and of course their success can change over time .......

[rmorelan]

He's a middle aged pre-med who comes on here to argue with people half his age (serious).

 

ha - that would still have him being an adult arguing with other adults

[aaronjw]

Not to be condescending, but are you in medicine? If you are, and if you are far enough in your training (clerk, resident, etc) then you should be aware that a lot of these averages are a load of crap. The income earned by physicians can vary widely, as well as the hours worked. In fact there is too much variation between practice styles to make many of these averages meaningful, and physicians often under-report what they make. GPs can make a lot more than specialists, depending on how they manage their practice and vice versa. Medigeek may very well be correct in what he is saying.

 

I'm not the one throwing around averages in this thread to support my failed logic and more importantly, doing so from a web page espousing averages and then cherry picking the lowest of the low to support the the hypothesis that family physicians make more than specialists, and especially so given hours worked.

 

Furthermore, medigeek didn't even source very accurately by linking to the healthydebate.ca site. If he had of linked to the actual report (uhh you like, like read some of it) he might have seen that 21 of 30 (not including GP/FP) specialists physicians make in excess of $300K with 15 of the 21 making $400K+

 

Instead

 

Sure average sucks, we all know this. But you use the data you have that's available to form an opinion. Not pick and choose what fits your narrative, like:

 

Average income in ontario is like slightly over 300k/year and there's potential to make more.

Hours work? 9-5/40 a week.

 

 

Many of your specialist peers work 60 hours a week for 250k/year.

[medigeek]

I'm not the one throwing around averages in this thread to support my failed logic and more importantly, doing so from a web page espousing averages and then cherry picking the lowest of the low to support the the hypothesis that family physicians make more than specialists, and especially so given hours worked.

 

Furthermore, medigeek didn't even source very accurately by linking to the healthydebate.ca site. If he had of linked to the actual report (uhh you like, like read some of it) he might have seen that 21 of 30 (not including GP/FP) specialists physicians make in excess of $300K with 15 of the 21 making $400K+

 

Instead

 

Sure average sucks, we all know this. But you use the data you have that's available to form an opinion. Not pick and choose what fits your narrative, like:

 

Nothing in my statement was false. I said "many" which is a vague word

 

Moving on