Hacker News Reader

Comment by BrandoElFollito | Hacker News Reader

Hey, there is a reason you can use Internet and this is us :)

It is not that IT is overpaid, it is that doctors are underpaid - at least in France.

We are the world champions of strikes and yet, somehow, doctors rarely go on strike. I do not know why.

They also know where they are going, it is not like they discover the world of medicine after 8 or 10 years.

I am happy that they are people who want to help others, but they also need to eat, sleep and party. Nobody will give them that if they do not protest.

View on HN

If you're talking about the situation here in France, it's a bit different regarding money. Doctors are still paid more than most people in IT. Given the IT money in the US, I'm not sure they have the same situation if we look at the hourly rate.

Regarding doctors strikes, I asked the question to multiple ones and the few explanations I got are : - they are deeply regulated and organized, they rely more on acting behind the scenes (lobbying) than going public in the streets - they still have a comfortable situation that they chose ; unlike blue-collar workers who can barely afford food/housing and have to take what job and salary is offered to them ; a GP can move to a private hospital if they want more money and less hours - even though they are organized, they have much more individualistic views of their job than labor workers ; after all they mostly are their own company

I will have to look up actual numbers, but with 30 patients a day this is 25€x30x5x4=15000 a month pre everything. You take out taxes, costs, everything they need to pay in full and I guess the salary will not be very different from IT.

EDIT: I just looked up some numbers and you are right, MDs get about 5000€ net pour month in average, which is higher than IT

> Nobody will give them that if they do not protest.

Poland chiming in. Nobody will give them that even when they go out and protest.

> We are the world champions of strikes and yet, somehow, doctors rarely go on strike. I do not know why.

When talking about public healthcare, strikes mean little. State won't care unless the strike is massive enough to attract media attention. Hospitals can't close down, a "safe" minimum of workers must care for patients so not a big problem for the state generally.

Except if that safe minimum is on strike as well. It takes a coordinated effort, sure, but we have role models such as the train conductors or other champions of strikes

Reply on news.ycombinator.com