I'm just shedding light on the issue.
When the medical students grow up and the residents finish and get jobs, go to a doctor's parking lot in a private hospital and look at who comes out of the porsches and mercedes. Private practice internal medicine and surgery attendings. Radiologists have increasingly become employed and even the private ones have seen huge reimbursement cuts.
YES! OBGYN call and Anesthesia call is a piece of cake when compared to radiology call. Look at a normal practice. Not inner city hospital NYC, Chicago. But a 100-500 bed hospital which probably makes up the majority of what is out there in the USA.
How many babies does an average OBGYN deliver in 1 night. 0-2? Who checks the cervical dilation every hour, nurse midwife? How much do you get paid for taking that shift?
How many OR cases does an in house on call anesthesiologist do in a night. Averaged over a week, maybe 1-2/ night. Last figure I heard was $1000 to take call, plus whatever you make doing the surgery in professional fee. So $2000-$3000 for 2 hours of work and the night of call.
We have two anesthesiologists on call each night one to do epidurals, one to do after hours OR cases. Each gets compensated per hour for their troubles. I don't know the hourly rate, but I would imagine about $200.
How many cases does an average in house overnight radiologist interpret in a night. A crazy number. How many breaks over 5 minutes does the radiologist get? Probably 1-2. And they send cases from 4 other places to you to interpret. They are salaried and work nonstop. Can't be private because the hospital won't allow it. Our interventionalists take call but don't get hourly pay. You get to bill when there is a case.
How many hospitalists who are working nights sleep more than 2 hours a night, probably 50-75% or more. I managed to average more than 2 hours of sleep each night I was in house on call.
All of you base your numbers on some internet survey that is SELF REPORTED. Look at someone's tax return then we will debate the issue. I'm a mid career mid income radiologist. I drive a toyota that is paid off, have paid off half of my house. My buddy is a private practice general medicine doctor. He has a M6 paid for and a house twice the size of mine. You don't get a mortgage for a 3 million dollar house on a 100k internal medicine job. Find out the addresses of the doctors that you work with or for before you join a group. If you sign with a group and find out that the president lives in a 4 million dollar house and the partners live in 400K houses, you can guess that the money isn't shared equally. I found that out when I interviewed for a PP radiology group in California.
For those of you with no business sense, which is the majority of doctors, including those who are clinicians employed at the 100-150K salaries, Medicare reimbursement +private insurance reimbursement= gross income. Gross income- practice expense = net take home income, what people call salary. Almost every doctor making 7 figures from medicare is an ophthalmologist. Ophthalmologists are notorious about telling people their income is low and horrible like 100-200K. When you get lasix surgery which takes 10 minutes and costs a few thousand dollars, tell me where the money is going? Maybe you can make more reading bone x rays at $5 a piece.
Before you start working as a real doctor, get a clue. Find out of the real numbers of what you will be paid for your services. Look up what a 99213 office visit pays. Look up what a inpatient admission pays. Find out how much you will be paid for a laparoscopic cholecystectomy or an ERCP (around $500-600 medicare, up to $1000 pro fee for some private insurance). The people who really need to do this are the ones spending all this time on a discussion forum without a clue about life.
Also, before you choose a specialty, spend real time with a staff doctor in the practice setting of your choice.
I was SHOCKED when I shadowed a private general surgeon. He spent 1-2 hours in the OR on his operating days and had a cush time in his office following patients on his non OR days. HUGE difference to the academic surgeons who operate for hours and have a full schedule.
Anyhow, the best advice is to do what you like. Honestly.
When you are 50 years old after working 20 years, all doctors have a comparable life. The vast majority make 200-400K working for someone, the hard workers and private doctors make the 400K plus. After taxes it is pretty close.
