Physician responds
When I applied to med school in mid-1980's, there were only 2.5 applicants for every seat (went to a state school in TX). We had some real tools. When I wanted to fly for a major airline after 20 years of flying and 4 years at a regional, I only got 1 interview - I managed to get hired, but the odds were daunting - several thousand apps for a couple hundred slots. I have heard of other majors with much more hopeless odds - FedEx?
I have spent a lot of time around both pilots and docs. There are some truly brilliant people in both fields, but in general most docs are no smarter than anyone else, they were just willing to suck it up and study way past the bored-out-of-your-mind-can't-stand-it-for-another-second-or-my-eyes-will-explode stage, usually because once you have headed down that road and are massively in debt and are in your late 20's, it seems too late to start over and you kind of hope life as a practicing physician will be better than life as a physician in training (it's not, just more money). Anyone smart enough to perform well at the airline level could have gone to medical school, in my opinion. I have also met some truly brilliant folks in the airline business, only they usually don't take themselves as seriously as the docs and are a lot more fun (and happy).
As for salaries, I think that the salaries shown in the link provided were seriously low. What I have seen available publicly about physician salaries always seems incredibly low. I suppose that is done on purpose to keep the public outcry down, though I don't know how it has been so successfully done for so long. Physicians don't talk to each other about their incomes AT ALL, they are very secretive about it and it is considered very poor form to ask, as in most professions. Here's what I know and have gleaned over the years:
1. I am an anesthesiologist (on leave) and currently earn 370K + benefits working 60hrs/week and every 6th weekend. I get to work at about 6, and sometimes get home in late afternoon, sometimes early evening, sometimes at 11p. When working a weekend I work 14 days straight, if the schedule has me covering more than one weekend a month, I might wind up with 2 days off out of the month. This has been my cushiest anesthesia job out of the 3 I've had in 16 years of practice. [Most docs are indoctrinated to work very long hours, and any complaining or working less is highly frowned upon and viewed as a poor attitude or sign of weakness or lack of commitment to the profession. This peer pressure to work long hours is not conducive to job satisfaction, happiness, or long term good health, but that is the tradition. So, if your doc is a curmudgeon, cut him/her a little slack].
2. Surgeons tend to have the highest salaries, with the subspecialties having the highest (ortho, ophthalmologist, ENT, Urology, Neurosurgery). A friend of mine who is an orthopedist told me a not very busy ortho doc makes around 250K, a moderately busy one makes around 500K, and a real busy guy makes about 750K. He was a general orthopedist. In my curent job I have worked with guys who are hyper busy and do almost nothing but joint replacements, and I am confident they earn over a million.
3. My guess is most general surgeons make in the 300k - 500k range working long hours with lots of call. Most subspecialty surgeons make in the 500k - 1M depending on the field, the payer mix in their practice, and how busy they are.
4. Radiologists and pathologists earn in the 500k - 800 range.
5. The lowest paid and the hardest working are the primary care guys. These are family practice, pediatrics, and internists. I think their salaries are in the 150 - 250 range again, depending on numerous factors.
I think part of the low salary problem in flying stems from the undeniable fact that flying an airplane is fun. People pay money to do it. I have not met many doctors who enjoy their work so much that they would do it for free, much less pay money to do it, contrary to what you may have seen on the tube. There are a few, just not very many. In fact, many are doing it precisely for the money and the "prestige" (if there's any left), or because their wives won't let them quit, or more accurately, because they don't know what else to do.
I have always been amazed that something as enjoyable as flying which has a seemingly never ending supply of eager aspirants, has maintained decent working conditions and pay when, at least initially, people want to fly so badly that they would pay for the gas. It is a real tribute to the unions and the profession itself that this has been achieved against all natural market forces.
Summary:
Docs are not smarter than airline guys on average.
Med school is easier to get into than a major airline.
Flying is more fun, therefore pays less (though if you compare a captain's salary and the hours at work to an internist or some other specialty, and the benefit of spending your life doing a job you enjoyed vs doing one you didn't, I think most pilots would be pleased with their career choice).
On the whole, I have been more impressed by the pilots I've met, and certainly have enjoyed working with them a lot more, than the vast majority of physicians I have worked with.