Larry Jaques wrote:

Please tell me where a "regular ol' doctors" make 4K a hour. I'll try to
convince my wife to move.

Grants Pass, OR and Concord, CA. My oral surgeon @ $4k and my
sister's appendectomy surgeon who got $22k for near-outpatient (no
overnight stay) service. Granted, those were the clinic/hospital
charges, but CHRIST, $22k for 3 hours work and a change of sheets?

I can't belive that Grants Pass would be to any significantly way different
than Boise, ID (where we are) or White Salmon, WA (where we were).

What you are not seeing in those itemized bills is how much the surgeon
is took home. Nor what the the anesthesiologist took home. Nor what the
surgical nurse took home. Nor what the vast legions of support nursing staff,
medical records clerks, billing clerks, insurance relations staff,
administrators and janitors. In the tiny 20 bed hospital in White Salmon
I daresay that every surgery was paying the salaries of easily 30 people.

Again, don't heap the entire bill upon the guy doing the actual work. He
may be getting a good chunk of it, but to some degree he earned it. After
all the lowest of general surgeons spent 4 years as a undergradate education,
4 years of medical school and 5+ years of residency and internship. Thats to
say nothing of required annual continuing edation. If I had 13+ years of
education, I'd like to be paid a bit more too.

By the way, according to http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Healthcare/Ph...d-surgeons.htm
the median income of physicans and surgeons is about $80 an hour. I used to
make more than that doing private computer consulting.


--
Frank Stutzman