I’m a nurse and oversaw a doctor checking his bank statements: his salary is a bit more than twice what I earn.

This is not a particularly productive doctor, if you listen to several doctors and nurses where I work at. Just today I overheard a group of 3 female doctors ranting about him and how all he does is sitting and playing with his phone, always redirecting us nurses to talk to the other doctors. I was surprised, because I never expected to find so much drama between doctors, them being much more educated than nurses and I never expected doctors, specially female doctors, to use that kind of language.

This lazy doctor earns more than double my salary. It’s depressing.

But I also feel like a loser, because even those ranting doctors earn more than twice what I do… and they get to sit for longer than I do.

Regretting my life choices.

Maybe the sane choice here would be to study or to get a certification that means a higher salary?

  • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I think you’re on the right track. First, especially with your experience, do the work and become the doctor you want them to be. And buy a Porsche.

    Second, how much work did that person do to earn the degree? How much debt did that person incur?

    I’ve seen many times where a person with lesser education outperforms a “superior.” It’s not really fair, but getting the degree and then the job…that’s just the way it is.

  • Oxymoron@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Think you probably went into the wrong career if your aim was to earn a lot of money, if wages are similar to the UK.

    Even if they somehow got sacked for being lazy or whatever, it doesn’t affect your salary, so I wouldn’t really obsess about it? It obviously takes a lot more training to become a doctor and that’s why they’re paid better. Along with the massive responsibility. I’m sure it’s a stressful job and it could be that those other doctors just don’t like that doctor and so are talking shit about them. You don’t monitor this doctor the whole day (if you do then it sounds like you’re not doing your job very well), so you can’t really say how he spends all his time.

    Maybe he’s just coasting now, having done the hard stuff. But he had to do the hard work beforehand to get qualified. But yeah if you wanna be a doctor and think you can do it then make that your aim I guess?

    Of course you could earn more money doing another job completely unrelated to healthcare if you trained up and progressed enough.

    If you enjoy your job then I wouldn’t worry. If you don’t then try to retrain.

  • Bear@lemmynsfw.com
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    7 days ago

    Life’s unfair. Always has been and always will be. Imagine someone making half what you make, and sitting less, and not feeling like a loser about it.

  • skotimusj@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I would also ask yourself how often and how long you work compared to this doctor. I think standard for nurses is 3-4 shifts per week. Doctors work much more than this and often have out of work responsibilities as well. The hourly rate is much closer than you make it out to be.

  • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    Only double? Honestly I would have thought more.

    We live in a world where most jobs compensation is determined by the difficulty of the program. Medical doctor is very hard to get into and hard to do. Sounds like the problem now is that he’s lazy. Don’t get me wrong, nursing is hard work. But that’s how the cookie crumbles.

  • Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    7 days ago

    There will always be someone making more than you. The only person you should be competing against is yourself, to reach your goals in life. If your goals are to become a doctor, then go back to school and do it.

  • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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    8 days ago

    Doctors go to school for seven years racking up debt, and then usually have to shoulder the burden of liability and operational costs. It’s expensive to become a medical doctor, and expensive to be a medical doctor.

    These costs are part of what keeps both doctors and patients safe. Doctors end up with both the power and the risk.

    Nurses by comparison have only basic training before on the job training kicks in; it’s relatively easy to become a nurse, and if you mess up, the worst that’s going to happen is that you get fired and have to go work somewhere else.

    But even as a nurse, if you’re quick to pick things up, you can move up the ranks and find a specialty that has more power and pays better than a standard RN. Without the seven years of debt.

    And life’s not just about pay; quality of life is generally more important, and that sucks for most doctors, who have relatively short life expectancies and limited time to spend their money.

    • SacralPlexus@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Doctor here. 👋 I just wanted to give my experience. I had to do eight years of schooling/debt, THEN I had to do 6 years of post graduate training (internship, residency, fellowship).

      Now the post graduate years are paid like a job but not at a physician salary rate so paying on student loans during that time was next to impossible for me because I was in a high cost of living area. So my interest continued to compound during that time. It sucked.

      As for the OP I just want to say that part of the reason I expect a higher salary is because I gave up 14 years of my life - most of my youth - in training to get here. Those 14 years were immensely valuable and I often regretted going down this path because of all the things I gave up instead. The training was incredibly difficult and time consuming. I lost touch with all my friends, had to move repeatedly, etc. It was absolutely brutal and felt endless. That’s part of what those paychecks are paying for.

    • 200ok@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      This.

      Additionally, there are lazy people in every company/industry. Many of whom earn more than the average person. Oftentimes, life just isn’t fair.

  • db2@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Become a doctor, then the nurses can hate you whenever you decompress too.

  • rhacer@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Your worth, your value is not determined by what someone else makes.

    Also, I’m a bit ignorant of this subject so forgive me if I get it wrong, but did he not go to school significantly longer for his MD than you did for yours?

    I believe he also had to go through the hell that is residency, I didn’t believe nurses do.

    If you’re envious of his salary, improve your skills, or your education. If you’re happy where you are at In life, then don’t let the fact that others make more than you interfere with that happiness.

    No matter what you do, there will always be others who make more, one of those sad facts of life.

    • spittingimage@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      I believe he also had to go through the hell that is residency, I didn’t believe nurses do.

      Nursing education never ends. All the nurses I know are a bit loopy from the constant need to retrain and recertify.

  • stinerman [Ohio]@midwest.social
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    7 days ago

    This lazy doctor earns more than double my salary. It’s depressing.

    Wait until you find out how lazy people with inherited wealth are…and they make way more than double your salary in passive gains.

  • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    How does anyone accept executives making 100x or more the salary of everyone else?

    Or youtubers, or twitch streamers making bank?

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
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      7 days ago

      I’m okay with YouTubers getting paid. A lot of them put his of thought and work into their videos without earning anything, before they do. And yt never paid any of them fairly. What I’m not ok with is it’s endless ads and creators not being fairly compensated. Hence why I donate what I can, when I can, to creators I use. I also wish invidious instance operators were easier to donate to, but I see why they aren’t.

    • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
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      7 days ago

      Okay that’s different

      A MD with 7+ years of education and loads of debt earning more than a nurse with far less education and debt is fair.

      An exec with barely any education, debt or importance earning 10× or more what the actual workers do is not fair.

      I don’t deal with that, but I also can’t fix it without unwrenching the fabric of our society and I’m going to need a lot more people for that.

    • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      This is a little different. Whereas executives might not have any requirement on education or performance, in the US at least you’ve got 6 years education And 2 years residency to become an MD. It is still crazy money considering I’ve got 11 years in a PhD with an actual contribution to a field, but not insane compared to a 4 year degree or less.

  • teft@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Are you an RN or a Doctor of Nursing? If you’re an RN he has many more years of schooling than you. That alone will get him a higher salary. If you’re a Dr of Nursing then I’d go talk to your boss or start looking for another job.

    Wages aren’t really about how much work you do, if it were then the janitor would earn the highest wages in the hospital.

  • BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one
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    7 days ago

    The fact that you’re jealous of a person who spent ten years of their life studying in a stressful and competitive school with over $100k in student loan debt reveals to me you have no awareness and are exactly in the correct job you were supposed to be in.

    • Githyanki@lemmings.world
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      7 days ago

      I think they know. The problem is the doctor that about all of the work gets paid as much as the others that do his and their own.

      My wife got a position at a teaching hospital and the director was making about 2.5x her salary. When the administration figured out he was completely unqualified to be the director, they made him a faculty and her the director. Now he still made 2.5x her salary and proceeded to just sit in his office and not do any of the work. He was tenured and so it took 4 years to force him out of the school. He of course quit and got a job elsewhere just before being fired.

      Some people are just lazy and worthless, but are able to study hard enough to learn how to pass the tests. Then they try and coast thru life because of how hard they worked to get there.

    • abbadon420@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      Yes, they don’t understand, so what?. Maybe they’re young, maybe they just never learned. Do you really think your backhanded comment is going to make things better? If you want to strike people down for asking questions that are too simple from your perspective, you should visit stack overflow more often.

      You response mentions the right issues, but tone of voice matters. If you insult, belittle or alienate anyone who tries to understand what they don’t understand, you’re just throwing them to the republicans or the right wing populists.

      People these days are often not interested in learning or understanding. If someone does, you should encourage that.

    • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      Look at the grammatical errors throughout their post. The cherry on top being the statement at the end being terminated with a question mark.

      They also just recently had a question that includes them being on a pip.

      I get the feeling that this person should be grateful that this doctor is only making enough more than they are that they would use the word “twice” to describe the salary discrepancy.

  • Delphia@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    If it helps at all, if you do your job right follow the doctors orders and administer care and medications as instructed you are next to impossible to be held responsible for the patient having negative outcomes. A doctor, even a hard working one who knows their shit well and does their absolute best is still under the constant threat of a career ending lawsuit from a patient.