| Physicians are disposable too, look at what happened with primary care, nephrology, anesthesia and is starting in radiology where private equity firms move in and outsource physician care to allied health professions and create an “eat what you kill environment”. In other countries like Canada it’s also near impossible to get a job in a surgical specialty (and until 2 years ago other ones like radiology), especially in a desirable city despite huge shortages and backlogs because our jobs use a lot of expensive resources. > If you want fewer hours, work fewer hours. What are they going to do, fire you? They can't. They can, many jobs set a minimum FTE you can work. They also reduce fee codes (with a system known as relative value units/RVUs) so you have to work harder to make the same money. We’re at the mercy of payers in US/Can. My specialty (radiology) has had work-unit compensation periodically slashed over the last 10 years (20-30%) that’s been offset by reading more cases (and to a lesser extent technological advances making reading faster although studies have gotten far more complicated to read with modern treatments). There’s also the increasing clinical demand and generally caring about the humans on the other end. I don’t want to read 50-90 CT scans on a ER shift but I have to because the studies are being ordered, the patients need their reports, and we don’t have enough radiologists. |