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On a similar note, we should provide food and housing to the homeless. It shouldn't cost more than $10,000 to feed and house a person, probably much less. I've heard that the current system costs $250,000 per homeless person, so doing this would save $240,000 per person helped. We do already provide free food and housing, although through a very complicated and expensive and inconvenient system:
* Free ride to the nearest hospital: just call an ambulance. In many places, they can't refuse. Cost to us, $1,000.
* Free short term food and housing: a hospital stay, must go through Emergency Room. $500-$1,000 for the visit, more if they stay. Also, they'll be ahead of you and you'll have to wait half an hour to get treated. Some of them will actually injure themselves instead of faking it, and that costs even more. See here for ER folks venting to stay sane, a lot of them are about homeless people.
* Free long-term food and housing: Commit crime, go to jail, get food and warm bed. Cost ~$100,000 per year, plus court costs. Decent winter accommodations.
* Petty crime to acquire food and accommodations (see if anyone would hire a homeless person).

Note that you're already paying for all this, whether you like it or not -- through taxes, through higher hospital bills, through crime and its results. Man up and cut out the middleman, and everyone will be happier.

You clearly have a different idea of what economic value means versus hospital admins and department chairs. Look up the concept of RVU's and you'll see why coming in to work, no matter what, will continue (because it is economically incentivized). Only a TREMENDOUS amount of social change will overcome that.

Check out this thread...

http://forums.studentdoctor.ne...

Yes, I'm a physician in real life and yes, this mentality disgusts me.

As someone who reads http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=257985 I think I can safely say that the emotional state of the caller has NOTHING to do with the urgency of the situation.

Profession / Mean Wage
Physician (MD/DO) $155,150
Dentist $147,010
Pharmacist $98,960

Seems enough to me to do a thorough job.
source: http://www.studentdoctor.net/2009/02/students-realistic-about-salary-expectations/

I'm writing in from the medical side, so I hope that my comments can be useful, too. The military lures medical students and doctors with all sorts of promises such as "You'll be able to practice whatever specialty you want. You can practice medicine where you want. There are lots of research opportunities. You can't be sued for malpractice. You won't have to deal with insurance companies and other civilian paperwork nightmares..." And the list goes on.

In reality, only a few physicians get to practice the type of medicine they want. You want to be a radiologist? Too bad. Become a general practitioner instead. Docs have no say in where they practice. And the paperwork is worse in the military because (1) we do indeed have to fill out insurance forms and cover-your-ass medical notes, and (2) we have loads of performance evals and fits reps due to our status as officers. We can indeed be sued. The research is slim at major hospitals to non-existent at smaller ones. Thanks to the Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC), Walter Reed and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology are set for closure. And on top of all of that, the pay is much less than the civilian side. I once calculated my long-term difference in income by joining the military and saw that in just five years of active duty, I will rack up a net lifetime loss of over $700,000.

The end result is that the majority of military physicians leave the armed forces as soon as they are eligible to do so and we're left with a bunch of young docs who are certainly competent at their job, but are largely inexperienced.

If you want to spend an afternoon reading horror stories, see the Student Doctor Network.

Med school doesn't start until you get your bachelor's degree.

Basically what happen is, you study whatever you want in the first 4 years (or whatever time it takes to get your bachelor's), and then you apply for medical school. So in your case, i will do my computer science courses, plus a bunch of biology/chem/anatomy+physiology courses on the side. Then take the MCAT exam in your 3rd or 4th year. Apply a year early of course.

The following is a great, well written document on how to get started. It was mention here on Slashdot before, but I couldn't find the article.

http://share.studentdoctor.net/downloads/medshort.pdf

It's one thing when a doctor willingly throws themselves into administration and active practice so that they work 60 hour weeks,

Hard to suppress a bit of laughter here, but I'm guessing you don't know many doctors... many doctors routinely work 80+ hour weeks. A quick google came across this discussion thread on the subject. In fact, it seems many surgeons are at the hospital 100+ hours per week. (Remember, there are only 168 hours in a week.) That leaves them with less than 10 hours per day for sleeping, eating, bathing, and commuting.

Part of the problem is a lack of doctors pushing the hours necessary up. Of course, there's a catch-22, there. The biggest reasons people don't go into medicine is insane hours and a need to put in those insane hours in order to pay off your medical degree.