OT Re: MDs: Don't forget liability insurance and the number of hours they have to spend filling out insurance forms to get their patients seen by some other doctor for something that IS needed, and the number of tests they feel obliged to order to avoid liability lawsuits, and the number of prescriptions they feel pressured to write because their patient saw some ad on TV or wanted because they had a virus but wanted an antibiotic anyway.
There have been far fewer people applying to medical school over the years, and it doesn't pay as well as it did twenty years ago. And nobody goes into medicine for the sole purpose of filling out insurance forms from patient-paid insurance companies (who benefit from denying claims), or Medicare or Medicaid forms.
Many doctors leave the field out of frustration.
Plus, in the U.S., you have to pay a huge tuition bill to get your MD, whereas many PhDs in science have their tuition bill picked up by the university or at most have to be a teaching assistant to get a stipend. I am told that in France and perhaps other European countries, medical students do not have to pay anything close to what medical students do in the U.S., so they aren't facing $100,000 or $200,000+ in student loans when they graduate.
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