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Dr. K's avatar

While it is true that CV and neurosurgeons (and spine orthopods) categorically make the most, their numbers are deliberately and artificially limited which is part of it...not to take away from the technical skills of the really good ones.

But I remember as a medical student a general internist, "Dr. Smith", who always had a whole unit of the hospital filled, and a patient panel three times the size of anyone's. Patients would get up at 4:30 in the morning to primp for him so they looked their best when he made rounds at 6:00. He was an OK doc, but the best patient-relator I have ever seen...he cared, they knew it, and that, coupled with decent medical knowledge, made him not only well respected but, I am sure, better compensated than the super surgical specialists.

I found it amazing that he was so loved by his patients and learned more from watching him than almost anyone else I watched. He also never wore a white coat (at a time when EVERYONE always wore one). After desperately working to reach the point where I could wear a white coat (which took several years), I came to recognize that it took several DECADES to be able to take the coat off (if one ever reached that point) and to be known for who you were, not what your badge said. And he was a doctor who cared.

It matters -- to the profession, to how we educate and most of all, to patients.

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