I’m a nurse and oversaw a doctor checking his bank statements: his salary is a bit more than twice what I earn.

This is not a particularly productive doctor, if you listen to several doctors and nurses where I work at. Just today I overheard a group of 3 female doctors ranting about him and how all he does is sitting and playing with his phone, always redirecting us nurses to talk to the other doctors. I was surprised, because I never expected to find so much drama between doctors, them being much more educated than nurses and I never expected doctors, specially female doctors, to use that kind of language.

This lazy doctor earns more than double my salary. It’s depressing.

But I also feel like a loser, because even those ranting doctors earn more than twice what I do… and they get to sit for longer than I do.

Regretting my life choices.

Maybe the sane choice here would be to study or to get a certification that means a higher salary?

  • db2@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Become a doctor, then the nurses can hate you whenever you decompress too.

  • rhacer@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Your worth, your value is not determined by what someone else makes.

    Also, I’m a bit ignorant of this subject so forgive me if I get it wrong, but did he not go to school significantly longer for his MD than you did for yours?

    I believe he also had to go through the hell that is residency, I didn’t believe nurses do.

    If you’re envious of his salary, improve your skills, or your education. If you’re happy where you are at In life, then don’t let the fact that others make more than you interfere with that happiness.

    No matter what you do, there will always be others who make more, one of those sad facts of life.

    • spittingimage@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I believe he also had to go through the hell that is residency, I didn’t believe nurses do.

      Nursing education never ends. All the nurses I know are a bit loopy from the constant need to retrain and recertify.

  • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    How does anyone accept executives making 100x or more the salary of everyone else?

    Or youtubers, or twitch streamers making bank?

  • stinerman [Ohio]@midwest.social
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    3 months ago

    This lazy doctor earns more than double my salary. It’s depressing.

    Wait until you find out how lazy people with inherited wealth are…and they make way more than double your salary in passive gains.

    • weeeeum@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Double than ANY of our salaries with their passive gains. Few of the working class are failures, only the system

  • teft@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Are you an RN or a Doctor of Nursing? If you’re an RN he has many more years of schooling than you. That alone will get him a higher salary. If you’re a Dr of Nursing then I’d go talk to your boss or start looking for another job.

    Wages aren’t really about how much work you do, if it were then the janitor would earn the highest wages in the hospital.

  • prime_number_314159@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    If you’re in the US, run for Congress, win, reform the medicaid backed doctor residency program, with the aim of opening it up so many more people can become doctors. Then watch as the new supply brings down salaries, and eventually gets lazy/ineffective doctors fired. Revenge is a dish best served nation wide, as they say.

  • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    I’ve worked for and with people who made a lot more than me.

    So what? They achieved that by doing something I didn’t. They may have also made sacrifices I didn’t. Doctors certainly busted their ass a LOT more than me - I could never do what they do in educational terms alone (not to mention the biological stuff).

    Did you really get to being a nurse without knowing typical salaries for different types of nursing or different kinds of doctors?

    Now to answer the real question: how to not be bothered by this. Start by changing the idea in your head that your work has the same value as the work of someone else, let alone someone who spent years more time studying than you did, and also took on a lot more debt to do so, and a lot more risk.

    Go read “Your Erroneous Zones” by Wayne Dyer. It’s an intro to the methods of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) - these thoughts of yours are “scripts” that aren’t useful for you. He teaches how to change thinking such as this.

  • Delphia@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    If it helps at all, if you do your job right follow the doctors orders and administer care and medications as instructed you are next to impossible to be held responsible for the patient having negative outcomes. A doctor, even a hard working one who knows their shit well and does their absolute best is still under the constant threat of a career ending lawsuit from a patient.

  • Boozilla@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    You’ll go crazy if you dwell on this. The corporate world is the same way. Generally speaking, the less actual work a person does, the more they tend to get paid. It’s a tale as old as time.

  • Kaiyoto@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    If it makes you feel any better he’ll be the one that gets slapped with malpractice if he fucks up. He’s inherently accepting a certain amount of liability as a doctor.

    The other thing that comes to mind is he is trained specifically in his field to diagnose and treat. As a nurse you are trained to do what you do best.

    That doesn’t give him a right to be on his phone all the time and be a dipshit. Eventually, that will have consequences of some sort. Currently he’s receiving less respect and earning a shitty reputation. That might come to bite him in the ass some day. Him being lax may come out in his work and bite him in the ass too at some point.

    But I understand your frustration. I’ve got shitty managers who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground and I constantly question how they got and are keeping their jobs.

    • QuarterSwede@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      This is exactly why my RN wife won’t become a nurse practitioner or similar. She’s absolutely capable, just doesn’t want to deal with the malpractice insurance.

  • gbzm@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    You don’t accept it, because that’s bullshit. You also don’t accept that it’s somehow your fault that society (and your employer) is okay with that kind of injustice.

    I think there are two sane choices, you named one that’s really a good idea cause you do not have to take that shit.

    The other one would be sharing this situation with other nurses, forming a union or joining one, and going on strike. Letting the hospital see how well it functions when only those lazy doctors doing 1% of the necessary work and getting 2 thirds of the cake show up.

    • Joshi@aussie.zone
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      3 months ago

      I’m a doctor and my partner is a nurse and the size of the difference is straight up injustice. Join your union and vote for militant leaders that will push for better conditions and salaries. If you don’t fight you lose

  • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I think you’re on the right track. First, especially with your experience, do the work and become the doctor you want them to be. And buy a Porsche.

    Second, how much work did that person do to earn the degree? How much debt did that person incur?

    I’ve seen many times where a person with lesser education outperforms a “superior.” It’s not really fair, but getting the degree and then the job…that’s just the way it is.

  • folekaule@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Check with your employer if they will help with your continued education somehow. My employer, for example, will reimburse some tuition costs if you get a degree while working there.

    As a nurse you can continue up to and including a PhD. Or you can go to medical school and become an MD. There are many options. Try to find a few that sound interesting and learn more about them.

    If you feel you have unused potential, maybe making a change in your career is just what you need. Even if you just look into what it would take, it could put things in perspective for you.