In a previous post I questioned the argument that CEAs should be retained in order to encourage doctors not to emigrate to more financially rewarding countries. The examples cited in this article were Australia and the USA.
I was remiss in not providing evidence for contradicting the article, but have now found evidence which not only backs up my argument, but also surprised even me.
This article in the New York Times confirms two things. First, if you exclude the USA, British doctors are up there at the top when it comes to pay compared with anywhere else in the world, and certainly we earn significantly more than our Australian counterparts.
Secondly, although it is true that US doctors earn more, the differential is nothing like as large as I (and I suspect most of you) would have imagined. If you then factor in the eye watering premiums for malpractice insurance Americans pay compared with our crown indemnity, then most of this differential is gone. Add in our pension scheme and it is amazing there is not a mass exodus of doctors to the UK from the USA.
So those advocating the retention of CEAs can not honestly use this argument, and I suspect they know it full well.
Over to you CEA apologists.
I remember talking once to an American MD PhD type, and joking about the "unofficial ranking" of specialities in medical jokes (both the presumed intellectual rankings, and the presumed financial reward rankings, which are not the same, of course). Interestingly, the presumed rankings were different in the UK and the US. One thing he said was that, in the US, Obs & Gyne was viewed as a 'bottom of the barrel" speciality. When I asked why, he said it was 100% to do with the eye-watering malpractice insurance premiums and the virtual certainty of getting sued.
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