Yeah, I have some pretty direct knowledge of what it's like to be a surgeon, and I don't think many of us at the major airline level would trade our job for any of theirs, to say nothing of the ~5 year residency (plus a fellowship year or two to specialize) they have to endure first. That said, the original point about high pay to prevent a shortage still holds: the process to become a surgeon is brutal, yet fresh faced doctors line up for the suck because they know they'll have a half-million+ dollar job on the other side.