“I deserve at least two lakhs a month. But they are giving me only 70000!”
It was Vinod, a friend of mine from Bangalore. He was incensed and upset.
“The atrocious part is,” He continued- “that they have offered Chethan, a junior colleague, with only MS, one lakh a month! Why did I do three years of MCh? It is not fair”
I kept quiet. Of course it was not fair. But it wasn’t about fairness. I knew that that Institution was looking for a junior faculty with MS because an MCI inspection was due. They NEEDED Chethan badly at that point of time. But the Plastic Surgery Department was packed with three able specialists who were managing the flow of cases quite well. Vinod was taken as he WANTED to join as his wife was a trainee there; and one of the seniors in the department was his teacher and he had put in a word.
Sadly, I learned early on in life that the value you assign to your skills or character maybe quite different from the money that the world is going to pay you. Your money-worth is determined by a heartless thing called demand-supply dynamics. More or less.
You can rail against it. Disparage it. Wail and beat your heads.
But the fact is not going to go away anytime soon.
In an online forum of doctors, I saw a question-
“I passed MBBS and would like to earn 5 lakhs a month as salary. Which speciality should I take?”
It seemed to me that there is a disconnect between expectations and what is possible.
A drastic change is going to happen in the next few decades. Number of doctors and specialists are going to reach UK or US standards per population. The private players are going to be ruthless. The government will never pay much above market value. What is the realistic income that a specialist doctor can expect when that happens?
It is an extremely complex thing to predict. But I have tried to do it by looking at the financial value of a specialist as assigned by THOSE SOCIETIES WHEN COMPARED TO THE MEDIAN (not Mean) INCOME.
All figures are very rough and approximate, and obtained from credible sources:
We Doctors in India are dependent on the paying capacity of our population, and the average income of an Indian currently (within a few years of the present) is 10000 rupees per month (REF1)
The income of a mid-career consultant in the UK is about 10000 pounds per month. An average citizen earns 3000 pounds (median). So, the consultant earns slightly more than THREE TIMES the median income of that country.
The median income of a US citizen is 4500 dollars a month. A Family physician earns around 20000 dollars per month. So, in the US it is FOUR AND A HALF times (Approx) the median income.
Let us assume that India will follow the US path.
After the specialist-patient ratio approaches those of developed countries, an average specialist in India can expect (at present money values) 45000 Rupees a month.
A neurosurgeon earns around 70000 dollars a month in the US, which can be considered the maximum median for a very sought-after specialist. This is 15 times their citizen’s median. A very sought-after specialist with special skills might earn around one and a half lakhs in India (in present monetary values), after a few decades.
This might take one to three decades. Inflation would have changed the numbers. We can use gold as a proxy.
After a few decades, an Indian specialist doctor (on an average) can expect to earn enough money per month to buy 6 to 7 grams of gold.
Please criticize my opinion and state why you think I am wrong. I could be.
(Jimmy Mathew)
- Jha M, Basole A. Labour incomes in India: a comparison of PLFS and CMIE-CPHS data. Jha, Mrinalini, Amit Basole. 2022 Feb 15.
