I will have to ask my own doctor about this the next time I see her.

Politicians should do that as well.

There's something more going on with that story than is described. The numbers don't seem right.

The population of Quebec is around 8 million people. This story describes the position of about 400 physicians (I'm excluding the cited residents and students from the count, they're still in training). Monterey County, California, a county of rural areas and small towns on the Central Coast, has a population of a bit over 400,000 and has almost 600 physicians.

I'm going to assume there are thousands, and likely tens of thousands, of physicians in Quebec. Does that mean that the small number described in this article are a very small minority? And that the vast majority of doctors don't agree with this position? Or, maybe it's something else entirely?

In any heterogeneous group, a diversity of opinions is to be expected. Is that the bland story this article is telling but focusing on those with a dramatic but not widely held opinion? That's a typical journalistic technique, if so.

Do nurse salaries vary based on doctor's salaries? I feel like these are two different issues.

I'm torn on this. I think nurses are wonderful, under-appreciated and under-paid. However, I also think doctors should be paid very well. They go through many extra years of schooling, residency and sometimes specializations. They take on immense debt to do so (though it is subsidized in Canada). It's very high stress with high malpractice insurance costs.

An area that doesn't pay its doctors well is going to be an area with less skilled doctors. As always, there will be exceptions but I think it's a natural economic consequence.

That being said, I think the support and recognition by the doctors is great and I hope some of the other hard working people can get raises too.

chi, at least in California, malpractice insurance is way down from when costs peaked a few decades ago. More and more docs are working in group practices these days and aren't directly bearing the cost anyway. The larger groups are partially self-insured.

Residents make about $50K a year. Loan repayments can be deferred until the training is completed. Medical school costs have skyrocketed in all but some state schools but I can assure you (from personal experiences of family members and my and their friends) that these costs and loan repayments DO NOT serve as a disincentive. People who want to be docs become docs, their loans get repaid without major sacrifice, and they have long and well paying careers.

I don't think nurses are underpaid, it may be the opposite. A four year BS in Nursing and passing the test (which most do) will get you, with a few years of work experience, a $100K/year job in the Bay Area. Now, there's no upward mobility from there unless the nurse decides to further specialize or become a supervisor but that's a good salary for an educational path that isn't all that competitive or difficult compared to many others.

amicus, there are so many differences between the type of coverage the average American (who has coverage) has and what the Canadian provincial health systems provide that I think coming away with any conclusions about this phenomenon is very likely to lead to misunderstandings and possibly wrong conclusions.

I don't think loans are a disincentive. But most people in their chosen careers are financially motivated and will consider salary heavily when deciding where to work, assuming they have options.

As for malpractice, maybe it depends on specialties. I've had my ob-gyns stop delivering babies because malpractice costs were so high, and this was recently.

I suspect delivering babies is a higher malpractice risk than other things (thanks to the personal injury bar) but malpractice awards are limited by law to a much lower amount than was typical beforehand. (Which is why the insurance is so much less expensive).

While that might be what the doc is telling patients, there's no way to know if that truly is the reason. The very nature of the work surgeons do makes problems and errors more serious but you hear of few cases of surgeons discontinuing practice or performing procedures because of malpractice insurance.

Nursing school is, however, one of the most competitive majors across the nation. Students seeking this major often wait three or four years to gain acceptance into a program and accrue staggering debt in the process.

Maybe where you are, maddie, but none of that is true where I am. The majority of nursing students in my area graduate from our state's very large state college system, or a few private schools. Entrance is relatively non-competitive. Tuition for residents in the CSU system is about $7500 per year. For the several CSU programs I just checked before responding, there are a few supplemental admission requirements for the major but as a for instance, the GPA required for the few pre-reqs is 3.0 and these can be taken at a community college.

The CSU system requires little more than a high school degree for admission.

Several of my kids' friends became RNs and believe me, none of them were anything special when it came to academics and none had difficulty getting into or graduating from nursing programs. Young adults with academic ability who feel a calling for a career in human healthcare of course aim for medical school and there's simply no comparison about the degree of competition or the academic achievement required for that, compared to nursing.

Hey Elmer, it is indeed difficult now to get into nursing schools here, due to high demand. Perhaps the nurses you know are not spring chicks. :)

I have no idea where you are getting your information, elmer. The nsg programs in the CSU and UC programs are HEAVILY impacted! Many, many students go out of state to increase their chances of getting into a program! That 3.0 GPA may be what the book says, but has no reality for actual acceptance into a program. Medical school is, of course, a different road map.

Yes, now in their late 20s, so they were applying or transferring into programs in the early 20-tens/teens.

"Impacted" for CSU means there are more applicants than spots. That's a relatively recent development for the CSU world where they for some time accepted nearly all comers who met their (relatively low) entrance standards into most programs. But that's long been the case of course for any decent college in the state and nationwide. Schools that have high percentage acceptance rates don't tend to be very good, compared to their competition.

I think the sweet spot and maybe the mission focus for the CSUs should be lower income students and those from immigrant families where the CSU student is the first or one of the first college attendees in the family. I applaud and value such a mission and maybe applicants of that profile should be given admission preference to all programs?

There are a number of private colleges that have nursing programs too. Recalling earlier comments in this thread, student loans of RN students can be handled with the generous salaries they can expect in their careers.

I won't continue a disagreement with you, elmer, on this issue. You are wrong. Trust me, I have MUCH MORE knowledge on this topic of nsg and admissions in the CA state and university school systems than you. Many majors are impacted; nsg is BEYOND impacted. Those private schools?: try $60,000 for a 9-12 month program after you have a BS or BA in another degree and then complete pre-reqs for nsg!

Whether slots are limited or not, competitive admissions (if that's what they're doing, something new) is a plus, not a minus. That's how the world works and how better colleges work. There shouldn't be a guarantee that anyone can take any program they want, nor does it need to be free or low cost. Especially given the earnings potential RNs have, maybe nursing schools at the CSUs, UCs, and elsewhere should have higher tuition charges than other majors do. As do the public and private professional grad programs (like med schools) in California and elsewhere. .

I'm happy to let it drop but you are wrong, trust me.

(I wonder if you find my use of that phrase any more useful than I did when you said it to me?)