Yes, it might be the median salary, but it's the starting point from which all expenses that I outlined, and those that I probably don't even know about, are subtracted. Whereas the salary that we are paid (excluding taxes, because both doctors and airline pilots pay them) really has very little coming out of it. So another way of looking at it is if a doctors' annual salary is $200k, we need to look at that as gross, before expenses. Our salary has virtually nothing taken out.

As well, the amount of education that doctors require, plus the amount of time they spend in medical school, plus the time in specialty school, plus the time spent interning, plus the cost of setting up a practice, all suggest that these guys are some of the worlds most highly skilled workers. Personally, I have no problem paying a cardiac surgeon $6000 for 7 hours work, because that's exactly what I did when I had open heart surgery with 5 bypasses. Just for reference, my total hospital bill, for all services rendered by the hospital and its staff was over $100k. Thank goodness for medical insurance.

JJ