I’m a nurse and oversaw a doctor checking his bank statements: his salary is a bit more than twice what I earn.
This is not a particularly productive doctor, if you listen to several doctors and nurses where I work at. Just today I overheard a group of 3 female doctors ranting about him and how all he does is sitting and playing with his phone, always redirecting us nurses to talk to the other doctors. I was surprised, because I never expected to find so much drama between doctors, them being much more educated than nurses and I never expected doctors, specially female doctors, to use that kind of language.
This lazy doctor earns more than double my salary. It’s depressing.
But I also feel like a loser, because even those ranting doctors earn more than twice what I do… and they get to sit for longer than I do.
Regretting my life choices.
Maybe the sane choice here would be to study or to get a certification that means a higher salary?
Doctors go to school for seven years racking up debt, and then usually have to shoulder the burden of liability and operational costs. It’s expensive to become a medical doctor, and expensive to be a medical doctor.
These costs are part of what keeps both doctors and patients safe. Doctors end up with both the power and the risk.
Nurses by comparison have only basic training before on the job training kicks in; it’s relatively easy to become a nurse, and if you mess up, the worst that’s going to happen is that you get fired and have to go work somewhere else.
But even as a nurse, if you’re quick to pick things up, you can move up the ranks and find a specialty that has more power and pays better than a standard RN. Without the seven years of debt.
And life’s not just about pay; quality of life is generally more important, and that sucks for most doctors, who have relatively short life expectancies and limited time to spend their money.
This.
Additionally, there are lazy people in every company/industry. Many of whom earn more than the average person. Oftentimes, life just isn’t fair.
Doctor here. 👋 I just wanted to give my experience. I had to do eight years of schooling/debt, THEN I had to do 6 years of post graduate training (internship, residency, fellowship).
Now the post graduate years are paid like a job but not at a physician salary rate so paying on student loans during that time was next to impossible for me because I was in a high cost of living area. So my interest continued to compound during that time. It sucked.
As for the OP I just want to say that part of the reason I expect a higher salary is because I gave up 14 years of my life - most of my youth - in training to get here. Those 14 years were immensely valuable and I often regretted going down this path because of all the things I gave up instead. The training was incredibly difficult and time consuming. I lost touch with all my friends, had to move repeatedly, etc. It was absolutely brutal and felt endless. That’s part of what those paychecks are paying for.