Replies to post #52367 on Biotech Values

[poorgradstudent]

OT: >The skill set required for teaching is a bit different, and surely requires less intellect (e.g., set an example by drinking water in class....). <

Well, despite your attempt to make it sound stupid, I do believe that simple impressions count. My best math teacher had chalk all over his pants and hair by the end of the class... he cared about the material, his enthusiasm mattered, and therefore our respect for him grew. You can bet that when that teacher spoke in class or took certain actions, the rest of us paid attention.

>Given that there are perhaps 10x as many teachers as doctors, would your Utopia be raising the wages of all teachers and decreasing the wages of all doctors? Or just the "influential" K12 teachers, meaning, large merit distinctions? I'll bet the teachers unions won't go along with that. <

The federal government provides incentives for industries and sectors to spur interest and investment. Well, they can do the same for employment classes. Raise the salaries for teachers, and the occupation will be more competitive with other forms of employment.

>I would have thought that we have the opposite problem, that given the intellect required to become a doctor and practice medicine, at some point at the margin students smart enough to go to medical school will go work for Goldman Sachs or a hedge fund.<

Medical schools take in plenty of applicants who do not have undergraduate degrees in the sciences. So the implicit message by these graduate schools is: we want motivated and organized individuals because with that skill set, we can make you a doctor regardless of the topics of your undergraduate years.

The question then is why a humanities major would choose to apply for medical school or why a science major would apply for a law school rather than go down the career path of being, say, a K12 teacher? At that point, I think we would be fooling ourselves if we did not concede that salary is a major consideration. There is an article this weekend in the NY Times about recent graduates in the financial industry skipping MBAs... why? the bottom line was that they were making plenty of money, and some didn't want to lose their earning potential while attending classes. If teachers made as much as employees at hedge funds, I can pretty much guarantee you that our "finest and smartest" would be competing to become teachers and would happily skip those extra years of medical or law school.

That's where the federal government can step in and say:

"We believe that those who teach our children are worth at least 50% of the salary of those who take care for our sick, or those who trade paper back and forth."

Not sure many would have the guts to disagree with the above sentence. And if they did, imagine the attack ads you could generate ;-)

[rfj1862]

>I would have thought that we have the opposite problem, that given the intellect required to become a doctor and practice medicine, at some point at the margin students smart enough to go to medical school will go work for Goldman Sachs or a hedge fund.<

This is a very good point. Becoming a doctor is a long, arduous process that not only involves medical school but years of low-paid, high-stress labor before you start making a reasonable income.

Although not a direct analogy, I went to grad school at Columbia. We started with about 15 people in the molecular biology program, and 3 got their PhDs. What happened to most of the rest? Wall Street or high-paid consulting jobs.

This issue might be less exaggerated outside of New York City; nevertheless if you're smart enough to go to grad school (or medical school) you've got options. Cut the pay of doctors and you'll also cut the number of talented physicians dramatically.

Just from experience--since a good half of my friends are in medicine--people don't become doctors for the big payout at the end. There are plenty of easier ways to make money if you've got the brains to get into med school.