Why Are Doctors Treating Lupus If There Is No Cure?

Anim M, Markert RJ, Wood VC, Schuster BL. Physician practice patterns resemble ACGME duty hours. Am J Med 2009;122(6): pp.587-93.

A physician practicing in a primary care setting, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, earned an average of just over $200,000 in 2010, while specialists averaged over $355,000, the highest of any professional category tracked. By comparison, lawyers average just over $110,000, airline pilots about $92,000, and chartered actuaries — who calculate risk for insurance companies and must pass complex exams.

Boye EB, et. al: Immune complex-mediated interstitial cystitis as a major manifestation of systemic lupus erythematosus. Clin Immunol Immunopathol 13: 1979. pp.67.

The wage disparities, however, don't stop with physicians, who do, after all, need to complete an academic curriculum that's beyond most people's abilities. Registered nurses and dental hygienists, who need only associate degrees, earn about $70,000 a year. This is about as much as degreed computer programmers.

Cutler, David M.. Your money or your life: strong medicine for America's health care system. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, pp.96

Between 2005 and 2011, as overall average wages barely kept pace with inflation (with rising health costs making real take-home pay flat for many workers), average medical wages grew a healthy 18 percent, rising from just over $62,000 to almost $73,000. The American Hospital Association estimates that two-thirds of medical costs are attributable to wages and benefits.

Dorsey ER, Jarjoura D, Rutecki GW. Influence of controllable lifestyle on recent trends in specialty choice by US medical students. JAMA 2003;290(9): pp.1173-8.

Total employment in the medical/education “super-sector” has never declined in the more than 40 years that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has tracked it, using current methodologies. From 2008 to 2010, as the country sustained the deepest job losses since the Great Depression, the number of health care practitioners and support personnel increased by almost 400,000, even as the economy overall shed more than 7 million jobs.

Medicalschoolsuccess. (2013). Is Being a Doctor Worth It Financially? Not as Much as You May Think Accessed on April 12th 2013 from http://www.medicalschoolsuccess.com/is-being-a-doctor-worth-it-financially

By some measures, American health care practitioners don't work as hard as their peers in other countries. While other wealthy countries average just a little over three hospital staff per bed, American hospitals have more than five for each bed. The U.S. health care system may not be worse than those elsewhere — it does draw people ...