Well meaning parents tell their kids to work hard in school, get good grades, and become a doctor. My office assistant referred to my job the other day as, “The Golden Pen.”
No question, society values physicians. When doctors finally start their own practice, they earn a generous income for working longer hours than average.
But, before you tell students to become doctors, ask yourself the following:
Is it better to earn a high income working long hours after a long, expensive education?
Or,
Is it better to earn a lower income, with shorter hours after a short, less expensive education?
Of course, finding happiness and fulfilment depends on more than how much money you make. Students might enjoy work in another industry. Advising only to ‘do what you love’ to a young person who has no clue what a job entails seems paternalistic and trite, not wise.
Life-Time Earnings
This link suggests that, after considering total hours worked and cost of training, teachers earn more per hour than physicians in the US: The Deceptive Salary of Doctors.
Considering Ontario teacher salaries, it becomes even more important to give young people accurate advice.
Of course, income plays only a small role in job satisfaction. Job stress, risk of exposure to violence and lethal infections, and level of personal control, and dozens of other issues all impact joy at work. These will mean more to some, and less to others.
In the end, be careful about using social biases, urban myths, and news headlines to guide career advice.
(photocredit: bmo.com)
Exactly! On the one hand, someone retiring from a middle income publicly funded job at 55, 37 years out of high school, with a guaranteed income for life, is likely in effect a multi-millionaire. A self-employed professional, 47 years out of high school, who might be expected to have put in >30% more hours of higher stress work, would feel (and be considered) quite wealthy to have accumulated a couple million in assets by 65, with 50% less time left to enjoy it. Given that, I cannot think of anything I would rather have done for my career than family practice.
Thanks again for taking time to comment!
No question, many practice for free around the world and would do the same here. Once we get paid, we hope to be fairly impugned for the ‘huge salaries’ we earn. Urban myths change slowly, if at all.
Great comments!
Shawn
The lifetime pay of teachers vs doctors is cute and well laid out, but actually underestimates the issue, because people making a small amount of money over a long time pay far less tax than people making a large amount of money over a short time.
There’s no question that powerful unions are great for their members. Strong enough in the private sector that they can extract such high wages that whole industries either collapse or move overseas. Imagine the effect of such strength on the resolve of governments to manage the public purse. Are they really an equal match?
Brilliant comments!
80% of publicly run organizations are unionized, whereas only 18% are unionized in industry. Unions happily squeeze companies for higher wages until factories close leaving union members without work. Public organizations do not have the same worry; they just raise taxes.
Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Shawn
Remember as well that it takes a lot more dedication, in all respects, to become a physician. Many teachers in Ontario decide to become teachers because of the high salaries and the overabundance of vacation time. So instead of gaining the best, dedicated and interested teachers, you end up with a group of people that chose an easy route with a union to back them up, no matter how ineffectual their abilities. And the best part…they can extort more money anytime they like by a simple…”Don’t you want the best education for your children?”
Great comment, Laurie!
Public education, like public healthcare, shows what happens when we trust a price-fixing system run by a large bureaucracy. Having the government take over everything works well to focus society during a world war. In the 1940s, everyone sacrificed to support the war effort. Today, everyone – workers, politicians, bureaucrats – works to protect their jobs and increase their lot in life. What worked during wartime, fails miserably during peace.
I’m getting off topic…
Thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment!
Cheers
Shawn