Doctors’ salaries are poorly understood
Re ‘Doctors are different,’ court hears in billings case, June 14
I think doctors’ salaries and their real incomes after overhead and taxes are not understood by the public. When I was a child, our GP lived in a big mansion and we thought he deserved it.
Now many doctors struggle to make their mortgage payments. It takes many years to pay off an education debt of a quarter of a million dollars, which an accepted medical student can get as an unsecured loan from any bank. If for some reason such as illness or unsuitability they don’t become doctors, they remain on the hook for this amount.
Ophthalmologists and other specialists must spend a lifetime paying for the equipment in their offices that I have seen.
Doctors have had several salary cuts in the last few years while everyone else’s are going up.
Does anyone think about the sacrifices doctors make for us while they endure terrible stress and lack of family time? Now GPs are told they cannot spend more than 10 minutes with a patient in order to see the ones lined up needing them. That is very discouraging for them; they want to do a proper job.
They spend extra unbillable hours just doing their paperwork. My GP has phoned me late on a weekend evening to answer my email because he was home trying to catch up.
We should be thankful for our doctors, not trying to pillory them in public for the (very) few rotten apples that occur in every occupation. Nancy Oreopoulos, Orangeville