[engineeringwoke]

What would make you think that? The supply of doctors is artificially restricted in every country that I know of; it's pretty much a universal mark of privilege. In the United States, residency spots basically don't grow and it's very good for over-allocating doctor's salaries. Same in Germany, where they love their well-paid doctors and big hospitals.

[lotsofpulp]

Based on how much discipline (or lack thereof) people have to learn. Or maybe simply lack the innate ability. Not even all the people motivated enough to pass all the hurdles to get into medical school graduate from medical school.

That is not the perfect proof, but I am also coloring it with my anecdotal data about which percentage of kids were enthusiastic to learn any advanced topics in school such as math, physics, chemistry, much less memorize a metric ton of advanced biology information.

It is true that supply is artificially restricted in the US, of course. In many ways, not least which is an unnecessarily expensive and lengthy certification process. But I cannot imagine anyone with the average discipline being able to come close to a full fledged MD.

[SkittyDog]

I can understand why you might think this, but you're factually incorrect in this case.

In the United States, the supply of medical doctors is artificially limited by state laws that prohibit the practice of medicine without a license. Licensing requires successful completion of an accredited medical residency program, which on turn requires completing an MD degree from an accredited medical school. The American Medical Association and similar state-level groups effectively control the number of residency and med school slots by controlling the accreditation process.

Most of the rest of the world has similar systems in place, including India.

On the one hand, the AMA system has been described as a means of guaranteeing the quality of doctors, and preventing unsuspecting patients from being hurt, killed, or defrauded by poorly trained doctors.

On the other hand, it's also been described as cartel designed to allow doctors to charge inflated prices for medical care, by limiting the supply of doctors, and extracting unreasonable rent from the public.

Most economists would agree that both descriptions are basically correct.

[trophycase]

It's kind of a common thing these days to pretend like anybody is smart enough to do anything.

[daniel-cussen]

In Chile it's not artificially restricted, or to anything nearly the same level. Doctors can still make a lot of money, they just have to be really good. Medicine then becomes 10-100 times cheaper, in that range.

German doctors I believe make under 100 grand.

[engineeringwoke]

Before specialization, yes. And private practice is a lot more, but getting the license is a pain. However, that is still very well paid in a country where you have such great benefits. The American sticker price salaries are not honest when you have to pay for so many things out of pocket (healthcare and education, just to start). I have lived and worked in the US and EU.