re: Do ER doctors earn a lot compared to other drs?

Anyone here have any idea what the maplractice insurance costs are for the different specialties? When I had my cervical fusion 15 years ago, my neurosurgeon was telling me how outrageous his insurance was - I don’t remember exactly, but it was somewhere in the $60K range. As a dentist, mine was cheaper than my car insurance - under $1,500/yr.

Neurosurgery is the highest and it varies state to state

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Anyone here have any idea what the maplractice insurance costs are for the different specialties? When I had my cervical fusion 15 years ago, my neurosurgeon was telling me how outrageous his insurance was - I don’t remember exactly, but it was somewhere in the $60K range. As a dentist, mine was cheaper than my car insurance - under $1,500/yr.

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To put it into perspective though, what’s a neurosurgeon billing out a year? $4-5 million probably right? Maybe more? $10 million?

What’s a pediatrician bill out? Obviously surgery is much higher risk and should naturally require higher insurance rates. But insurance also is directly related to your business gross revenue and neurosurgeons and orthos are at the top for that.

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No way he they had a full ride in med school and opted ER. Top 1% get med school schollies and no way they choose ER. Would have been a dermatologist or higher level subspecialty with that high of a rank!!

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This has so much ignorance in it, but like most, you don't know what you don't know, so I'll try to help you out. I am an emergency medicine physician. I got paid throughout my undergrad (a little) and graduate (enough to save some after living expenses) education. I would be bored out of my mind if I were a dermatologist and never even considered it as a specialty. Most physicians did not bust their arse for their entire 20s to do a job they don't enjoy just for a slightly higher income.

I enjoy EM for a variety of reasons.
- it allows me to be a diagnostician, which I think is the most interesting part of medicine.
- the crashing patient (require fast, smart interventions to prevent death)
- intellectually challenging
- a wide variety of illnesses
- variety of procedures
- you actually get to save lives
- no call
- when you're off you're off (no phone calls off shift)
- enough time off to pursue other interests
- we have the best stories

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Sounds about right for a bunch of gumps. But if many of the highest ranked med school grads opt for EM our medical system is in serious trouble. I highly doubt it's common place

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More ignorance here. For the acutely ill, undifferentiated patient, the medical system should want the best available person to figure out what is going on and make the emergent interventions as fast as possible. It is often more difficult to diagnose someone than to treat them once the diagnosis is known (biggest exception to that is decompensated right ventricular failure, which can be very difficult to manage even when known). A lot of medicine is very algorithmic once a diagnosis is established. Somehow you think it is better for the system that the smartest people look at moles and hand out steroids from 9am-3pm on weekdays?

Luckily for the system, doctors are not as ignorant as you are, and many really smart docs go into emergency medicine. The current residents at my institution are top notch and will be great when they finish.

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I enjoy EM for a variety of reasons. - it allows me to be a diagnostician, which I think is the most interesting part of medicine. - the crashing patient (require fast, smart interventions to prevent death) - intellectually challenging - a wide variety of illnesses - variety of procedures - you actually get to save lives - no call - when you're off you're off (no phone calls off shift) - enough time off to pursue other interests - we have the best stories

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Glad for you. I also love my specialty (radiology) and can’t imagine choosing nearly any other.

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I'd throw spine in that group as well. Sometimes Neuro will cover Spine call, but separate specialties.

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So how much more do the “spine specialist” whether ortho or neurosurgeons who do a lot of litigation make?

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Glad for you. I also love my specialty (radiology) and can’t imagine choosing nearly any other.

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Correct.

That is the wonderful thing about medicine - you can choose from a variety of ways to help people every day and make a nice living in the process. You could offer me double my pay and I would not switch specialties.

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Glad for you. I also love my specialty (radiology) and can’t imagine choosing nearly any other.

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Glad to hear it. And you likely chose it because of that and didn't choose it just because you couldn't get into derm. shoestring's idea that the top 1% of every class should go into derm and somehow that prevents "our medical system from being in serious trouble" is ludicrous.

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Glad to hear it. And you likely chose it because of that and didn't choose it just because you couldn't get into derm. shoestring's idea that the top 1% of every class should go into derm and somehow that prevents "our medical system from being in serious trouble" is ludicrous.

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I have to assume this leads to an ebb and flow of pay variation to some degree right? As in, as more attempt to get into it then supply and demand would decrease over time?

There's a dentist local to me that now does cosmetic "dermatology" related things for lack of a better term like botox and some other things I can't remember. She's clearly just chasing the dollar and work/ life balance.

I'd say on average the smartest physicians I work with are infectious disease. Having a good ID doctor at your hospital is like having House on staff.