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aeroplant
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Hey there,
do doctors (MDs) make a lot more money than engineers in the US? If yes, why?
do doctors (MDs) make a lot more money than engineers in the US? If yes, why?
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/People_with_Doctor_of_Medicine_(MD)_Degrees/Salaryaeroplant said:do doctors (MDs) make a lot more money than engineers in the US?
The flip answer: Because they're paid more.If yes, why?
D H said:The flip answer: Because they're paid more.
Less flip, society values people who save lives/keep us healthy more than it values people who make design computers, automobiles better, design bridges, launch rockets, etc.
D H said:http://www.payscale.com/research/US/http://tienphatjsc.vn/ketsat
http://www.hochanhvietnam.com/vn/giasu.html"
Nspyred said:I always thought that med schools are expensive b/c they know the earning potential of doctors. Call me a cynic, but I think they get paid so much b/c people will pay the doctor's price to save their life, and b/c of the constant threat of being sued-- something that is relatively easy in the US. I don't think the public perception of engineers (I know, who have saved more lives in total than doctors have) is quite the same.
arunma said:I'm pretty sure that the high cost of medical education isn't a function of expected future earnings. I'm told that it actually costs medical schools money to educate doctors, even after they receive the income from tuition. This is in contrast to law schools, which turn a profit from keeping their schools open.
As for your other assessments, yeah, you're probably right. And let's face it, we can all agree that saving lives is more important than building technology.
jtbell said:Don't forget that doctors in the U.S. also have high expenses, e.g. for malpractice insurance. That's one reason why new M.D.'s gravitate towards high-paying specialties instead of general family practice, to the point where many parts of the U.S. have a shortage of general practicioners who handle basic medical care and screening and preventive medicine.
arunma said:I'm pretty sure that the high cost of medical education isn't a function of expected future earnings. I'm told that it actually costs medical schools money to educate doctors, even after they receive the income from tuition. This is in contrast to law schools, which turn a profit from keeping their schools open.
As for your other assessments, yeah, you're probably right. And let's face it, we can all agree that saving lives is more important than building technology.
It probably comes from the same place the monies needed to give students am undergraduate degree: Alumni donations, corporate donations, government subsidies. (Typical undergrad tuition, whether private or public, rarely cover the costs.)whs said:Really? So where does that money come from? They just happen to charge the students less than what it costs to educate them?
whs said:Really? So where does that money come from? They just happen to charge the students less than what it costs to educate them?
DrJD said:Medical doctor -
4 years of Undergrad
4 years of Medical school.
3 to 7 years of Residency making 42 thousand a year.
So an MD doesn't start earning money until 11 to 15 years after high school.
So on average an engineer has a 6 year head start. Not to mention debt load. Most people I know personally will have at least 300 thousand in students loans from medical school, that has accumulated around 75 thousand in interest during residency. So MD's start 6 to 10 years later with an extra 375 thousand in debt.
So just in order to attract anyone to the field, salaries have to be high. I definitely think part of it is the importance of saving lives, but a big part is just numbers.
but I'll just highlight that it's more likely for an engineer to be able to make a lot of money at a startup company, compared to an MD. There are certainly medical startups, so MDs can make money at them also. But there are many more startups that are staffed by engineers.
hamster143 said:I'll take a steady $300,000/year job over the chance of winning a startup lottery any day of the week.
You have to be lucky just to be in a startup that succeeds (because most of them flop). You have to be in from the beginning, otherwise you get very little equity. And even if you win, you have to pay taxes through the nose (in California, 26% AMT + 9.3% state tax).
Some concrete numbers.
In 2004-07, there was an average of 160 IPO's per year in the United States. There were almost no IPOs in 2001-03, and again since 2008. Let's assume that, for every IPO, there was one acquisition of a private startup. I'm going to guess that each IPO created an average of ten engineer-millionaires and ten management-type-millionaires.
That's 12 thousand engineers turned millionaires in ten years, across all engineering specialties (software, hardware, telecom, ...)
BLS says that there are 857,000 computer software engineers and 291,000 electrical/electronics engineers in the country.
hamster143 said:Virtually no one (except maybe neurosurgeons) spends 7 years in residency. Most doctors are done in 3 years.
The average debt of a graduating medical student before residency is around 150k. On top of that, 30-40k in interest will accrue during residency.
It's not like medical schools are struggling to attract prospective students. Quite the contrary. There's cutthroat competition to get in. UCLA School of Medicine has the acceptance rate of 4.5%. Stanford is at 2.5%. U of Chicago, 2.9%.
Most doctors are done in 3 years? The only specialty that is 3 years is Internal Medicine, of which many graduates go on to fellowship for 1 to 3 years.
And you are right about acceptance rates, thus my saying that medical school is extremely competitive to get in to. Also a faulty use of statistics though. Did you happen to look up the overall statistics for medical school admissions? Around 50% of those who apply get accepted.
berkeman said:It's not luck. Good research numbers, though. And I agree 100% about the tax fairy.
hamster143 said:This link shows 3 years in family medicine and pediatrics. Internal medicine, family medicine and pediatrics taken together already give you around 50% of all doctors.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/medicine/education-faq/part2/section-4.html
44% is the most recent figure. It means that we can easily increase the number of doctors by 50%, possibly by 100%, if we get rid of the residency bottleneck.
Even that overall acceptance rate is almost unheard of. If you want to study engineering, there are schools that will accept you and put up only modest prerequisites (or, in case of University of Phoenix, no prerequisites at all) - as long as you pay money. If you want to study law, GPA 3.0 and a perfect LSAT score are likely to get you into a top-14 law school, such as Duke or Cornell. In medicine, GPA 3.0 and a perfect MCAT score mean 50/50 chance of not getting ANYWHERE, including Sticksville Medical College. I can't think of any field of study where the majority of applicants are unable to get into any school, even if they are willing to pay.
http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/table24-mcatgpa-grid-3yrs-app-accpt.htm
And, of course, the acceptance rate would've been even lower if not for this massive debt load. It's all part of the AMA conspiracy to keep the number of doctors artificially low and their pay artificially high.
DrJD said:You are right too, there aren't any other careers that are this hard to get into for schooling. But not many other careers handle life and death decisions on a day to day basis.
dE_logics said:Problem is when it comes to saving lives or curing themselves, people don't want to compromise...they want the best they can afford; as a result you get lots of money in the medical field.
DrJD said:Just to give you an idea of the differences between an engineers training and a medical doctors.
Engineer -
4 years of Undergrad (many stop here)
1 year for masters (Most stop here)
So 5 years after high school you begin earning your salary of 50 thousand, and start working your way up.
Medical doctor -
4 years of Undergrad
4 years of Medical school.
3 to 7 years of Residency making 42 thousand a year.
So an MD doesn't start earning money until 11 to 15 years after high school.
onlycurious said:First off, for most universities, an engineering curriculum usually has 10-12 more credit hours than any other school within the university. That's almost a semester more than any other major. Also, it takes the average student 4.5 - 5 years to graduate with an engineering degree because the material they learn is complex, even compared to Med school.
And since when do you get your masters in 1 year? It usually takes 2-2.5 years for the average person to get their masters. So you're looking at about 6.5 years of schooling for engineers versus 8 years of schooling for doctors.
Most engineering companies require you to have internship experience.
And you also make it seem like $42,000 isn't money... 3-7 years of residency/fellowship is getting paid. They just get a huge raise/promotion after their residency.