mouths to feed, just like everyone else.
Just like athletes are playing, "for the love of the game."
You're not like everyone else, there's no need to try to pretend otherwise. If you got paid minimum wage or even the median income, you would not be working as a doctor. There's no way people would go through med school, residency, and fellowship unless you have a fairly good size income, and that's ok, but don't pretend that you're just another person, clocking in and clocking out.
They sort of are, though.
I don't really understand your point - like any program that you have to pay for, there's a cost and an upside. And of course we rail on people here who borrow tens of thousands on a useless degree.
Unfortunately becoming a doctor is expensive, and it's a long-term commitment. It requires significant debt to borrow for school - not to mention cost of living - I assume that once out of undergrad, it's probably fairly difficult to hold down a part time job to support yourself. Would people even consider going through 8+ years of school, borrowing ??? however much, if they started out of the gate at a low salary? Probably not. Not if you can get a degree in 4 years and make as much.
It's kind of a messed up system. So yeah, you borrow hundreds of thousands, then work a decade to pay it all off, and then you are suddenly demonized for making $300k a year.
But I don't know - not being in the industry - one of the things I have to think about...when you get this doctor bill, and it seems outrageous. Then the insurance company "negotiated rate" is half that. But that doctor's office still has ... overhead, lights, rent, salaries, equipment, health insurance for their employees, billing...no?
My baby had a $25k surgery at 9 months old. It was 18 months before that damned billing was settled, between the doctor, the hospital, and the insurance companies. My son was double covered, we paid zero out of pocket - but imagine the overhead with the workers at the insurance company and both billing offices, filing, denying, re-filing, denying. Plus the phone calls my husband made (at least a dozen) "did you bill insurance company A?" "Oh, no, we didn't." "Well, that's the primary, here's the info". Ad nauseum.