Doctors’ pay involves a lot of unseen work

I suppose I could become employed, and let someone else worry about those things. But the financial impact doesn’t go away. Someone else still has to be doing those things, and since doctors are the ones who generate income in the majority of medical practices, the salaries for everyone else come out of ours. Plus, as I’ve previously written about, I’ve been employed before and got sick of the meetings and memos about cost-sharing, productivity numbers, and dollars earned per square foot.

But whenever I hear the refrain about our field being overpaid, I think about the actual hours the public doesn’t see (or care about). This isn’t a job for slackers, and most of us work long hours to make ends meet. It’s a side of being a doctor that’s rarely, if ever, seen outside the field.

Dr. Block has a solo neurology practice in Scottsdale, Ariz.