Work ethic is probably a thing learned at home (and quickly disappearing). I don’t care if my heart surgeon has common sense as long as they have knowledge and experience in repairing the heart. But they don’t get the third thing without the first. To my previous point, anyone trying to get a nursing degree in less than 12 months is taking the quickest route possible. Do they have the work ethic? It’s why businesses require college degrees. It demonstrates that the person at least committed to and finished that task.
Exactly.
Say you have a heart attack and an Interventional Cardiologist puts in a stint.
BA 4 years->Med school 4 years -> 3 years IM residency (salary 58-75k depending)-> 3 to 4 years cardiology residency (salary 65-85k) -> 2 year Interventional Cards fellowship (salary 80-100K)
So 8 years of school + 8 to 9 years of training making on average less than 90k
Costs
BA/BS degree (50-150k)
Med School degree (50-150K)
MCAT, Residency Application fees, Step 1, Step2, Step3 exams, Fellowship application fees, travel expenses to interviews, moving expenses to programs (15-20K)
Add to this optional extras like a chief year + masters degree which are more and more common and add time and expense.
Not to mention regularly working 80-100 hr weeks during the 8 years of school
Now after all of this folks are going to want/need to be highly compensated.
These are just the facts. To your point you need training + a ton of hard work and drive to get there...and then to the larger point, after all that do people really expect you to then be selfless and work for pennies?
Obviously not, which is why there are massive distribution problems for physicians, and which is the whole point of programs like PSLF which a lot of folks want to eliminate.
Without PSLF you will just exacerbate healthcare issues in rural areas across the country.
Put plainly, we need certain professions, we want them to be extremely competent and we need them distributed all over the country, therefore we (tax payers) have to pay.
There ain't an easy button to this shit and partisan gridlock leaves us with half measures to problems.