In Switzerland, at least for the french part, most of the doctors are not Swiss anymore. It literally became white collar immigrant job. Wife is one of those and sees the problem very clearly due to speaking about this with both (those few) swiss colleagues and the rest - its simply not attractive career path for locals, too much suffering and risk for relatively little reward.

Those bright enough go to law, IT and similar.

Speaking for my wife, she had to wade through absolutely brutal first 10 years for absolutely no good reason (she ain't no neurosurgeon, just internal medicine GP with FMH), no personal life at all at the prime of her life. 50 work week in contract (when average here is 42), reality with all required bureaucracy goes to 60-70, for everybody, consistently, unpaid (illegal here but who cares, state owns the hospital), often much more and catching up with tons of bureaucracy/billing at home.

Add night shifts, which most of us elsewhere have no experience with, that mess you up for many further days. You are a fraction of yourself, mentally and physically, for easily a week, more if you had to go through say 4-5 in a row.

These are the conditions that we put repeatedly people who have full control over life and death and health of their patients, often without further supervision, hoping they somehow magically never ever make a mistake, and when they do, folks immediately cry a murder and families sue to hell with massive dollar signs in their eyes.

You complain about that, or that you spend whole weekend being on call 48h unable to do anything really for literally 20 USD altogether (price of a canteen lunch here), including when you have to come and work 10-hour shift? You are put under pressure, shushed for being a pussy if you complain, told to toughen up since previous generations had it even tougher, and they somehow got through. Nobody mentions how horrible parents those absent folks were, how burned out they often were, quietly weeping or drinking themselves into oblivion. Well yes, those that didn't just quit, didn't go insane, didn't commit suicide, sure they got through. And now enjoy seeing young going through a bit milder version of the same. Of course there are insane amounts of money involved, but its always between insurance and hospital, doctors get less than capable IT folks for much less work. I am IT guy and consider this utterly fucked up wrong.

A good friend of ours sued the hospital (biggest public in Switzerland) for breaking basic Swiss law consistently like that, he was first but quickly gathered tons of other doctors. IIRC hospital finally caved in, a bit, but he is gone from it for good to private sector. Twice the pay, half the crap.

I could go on and on like this, a lot of doctor friends in our circles. It ain't some dream job, (at least a bit well-placed) IT job is a blessing in comparison.

/rant