Although I think this poll is interesting and all, the results should be taken with a grain of salt. What would be equally interesting is to poll the same question to a group of PRACTICING orthopods. I would suspect the results would be a bit different. I may sound like a cynic, but while $125K per year seems like a decent living to most med students (living on next to nothing), most active practicing orthopods, regardless of how much they "love" what they do would find it difficult to accept the current number of hours they devote, the stress they incur, the liability they accept (both financial and personal) and the accumulated cost of training (from both loans and deferred salary compared to their cohorts) for $125K per year. I would be willing to bet that if somehow overnight, the average orthopod could only earn $125K per year, the already increasing deficit of orthopaedic surgeons would skyrocket. There are many other fields which require less training and deal with much less liability and stress on a daily basis which can earn as much or more.
The whole point of this rant is that while the question is a hypothetical one, the situation of decreasing reimbursement and increasing overhead is very real and threatens healthcare daily. While medicare (and thus private payers) continue to eek down physician reimbursement, employees essential to running a practice continue to demand increases in salary at least consistent with the cost of living. When is the last time you heard of a nurse or transcriptionist taking a CUT in pay to continue to work. The cost of paper, lights, and electricity don't routinely drop either. On the surface it is easy for an idealist to consider salary concerns selfish and superficial, but unless orthopaedists and physicians in general begin to demand their value in society like every other segment of the working class does, we will continue to accept less and less for doing the same job. Eventually there will be no financial incentive to pursue medicine, and while there are certainly other reasons to go into orthopaedics and medicine in general, most qualified candidates will seek out other professions.
Sorry for the book, but I find this a very important issue for orthopaedics and medicinein general in the next ten years.
-ED
