Doctors expect and get huge salaries - but are they worth it?
Or are they bleeding the system dry - diverting monies that could be used to better treat patients in order to pay for their vineyards or their country getaway.

"On average, a physician will interupt a patient describing his or her symptoms within eighteen seconds. In that short time, many doctors decide on the likely diagnosis and best treatment. Often, decisions made this way are correct, but at crucial moments they can be wrong - with catastrophic consequences".

In a splendid and courageous book by Dr Jerome Groopman entitled "How Doctors Think" the author "lifts the lid on possibly the most taboo topic in medicine : the pervasive nature of misdiagnosis. His narrative exposes all of the subtle mental traps - the snap judgements and sterotypical thinking, the premature conclusions and herd instinct - that dangerously narrow the vision of too many physicians".

Don't for a second imagine that our doctors are worth it - only self diagnosis over the internet can save the patient with the more unusual or baffling symptons.

I could go on, and on, and on ----

There was once a little village in Wales with a dry stone, hump–back bridge. The local Council was very worried about it and called in an "expert". He looked carefully at their bridge, took a little hammer out of his pack and tapped one stone. "That's the one he said. Replace it". The Council were very grateful until they received his bill for $2000.00. They said that that was ridiculous for simply tapping a stone and refused payment. The expert sent a second bill which stated:
1. Tapping stone. $1.00
2. Knowing which stone to tap. $1999.00

Monopolies are never good

The problem with all government sponsored/fostered industries is “monopoly” (or her sister, oligopoly) is the only way they operate.

Maybe the fanciful notion and socialist utopia of “free medicine for all” is just too expensive a collective proposition when the market forces, which prevail to ensure excellence in other markets, are denied the right to function in the arena of medical services.

Maybe a real insurance system, working on a real commercial basis and at arms length from both the medical profession and government will produce the competitive stimulus which works so well elsewhere

(I will now wait for the heavens to fall in, in an attempt to crush me)

Examinator,

If you spend your life looking through your filter of paltry qualifications and income.

I know of many top engineers earning > $200 000 p.a. and some on their own earning much more.

If you do a PHD in art, you know you probably will end up working for Mc donald's

One of the other causes of high medical costs in this country is the requirement to see an MD for prescriptions or many minor health issues.

Many nursing staff are perfectly capable of diagnosing common ailments and knowing when a doctor is needed, and should be allowed to issue prescriptions for low scheduled items.

Requiring a MD to treat simple ailments will create a shortage of MDs and increase the costs to the state.