>>>Hmm ... others could not tolerate what MD's have?
>
>Here's the full quote:
>
>>>...who underwent residencies that used to be appalling and now are only difficult under conditions that others never would tolerate. You have to really, really want to practice to make it through.
>
>I thought I was talking about a residency, not a competition to see who has done something unpleasant. If you insist on competing, give me the comparison with employment conditions in the USA wth >120 hours/week rostered time dealing with complicated disease scenarios and very sick people, and woe betide you if you make an error. IMHO the patients also might refuse to accept these conditions if they had a better understanding of how many hours their doctor has been awake. Of course I agree that there are other awful situations such as trench warfare in WWI, but then you might as well start talking about the suffering of American Indians on the long treks and completely lose all context. The point is that US kids with some of the best academic records choose medicine rather than banking and endure residencies that their former classmates never would tolerate. Don't forget that med students generally had lots of choices and as I keep saying, the greedies you like to imagine have known for years to do banking followed by law. Also don't forget that increasingly physicians seek salaried positions where they have no involvement or benefit from service fees, making your interpretation less credible by the day.
>
>>>You thought that the guy who stole $160million is an exception. I don't see it that way...
>
>Do you have other evidence except individual cases that are so unusual as to be newsworthy?


The trend toward salaried MD's is a good thing in my view, especially if it's accompanied by the elimination of fee splitting and perks from Big Pharma. The notion that an MD has to also be an entrepreneur has corruption built into it.

My senior friends and I have all switched to using walk-n clinics using salaried MD's and nurse practicioner's who aren't on call from hospitals. We get excellent care and are out in a hurry.