We have our "Residencies" too, It's called Instructing. Where you live at home or the crappy university student cage (which is better then a Resident who has to move to where they are placed, Med school bills and all.) You and one student and whoever you crash on are all the risk involved at that point. Consequently you get paied crap; but you are home every night.

By the time you belt into a plane with 50 specimines of the mighty unwashed masses, Recidency is over. You are now part of a commercial flight crew. The fact that both the company and the pilots look at themselves as being in a disposable job just makes the whole thing worse.

Pretending that flying for a regional is like being a Resident is Bull. Flying for a regional is closer to working the crappy county hospital as a full fledged doctor of medicine. Not glamorous, not big money, but you are still a professional acting in a professional capacity at the only job you have.

But either way, Pilots comparing themselves to Doctors may be a sign that the Pilot Ego is completely out of control.