Hi!
I'm a year 11 student, taking Bio Chem Maths FM next year. I'm going to be making a couple more threads potentially in the next few weeks out of curiosity so stay tuned!
Although I am fully aware I shouldn't really be thinking about this at all right now, I've frequently noticed there's such a massive pay gap between doctors here and in the US or UAE.
Now I've always wanted to go into medicine, not sure about specialisms yet though. I feel like it's almost heroic, aware you're impacting hundreds, thousands of lives for the better. The last thing I'm worried about is student debt, salaries etc. It's a secure career, on top of it being respected.
But just yesterday, whilst scrolling through tiktok at 3AM like the person I am, I found a vid on the huge pay difference between doctors in different countries; averaging 300-400k in America, compared to an NHS consultant's salary of 71k.
When I spoke to my dad about this, he said there's so much more to it than that, including private work and surgery. The more advanced the specialism, the higher the salary in essence.
What I'm trying to ask is basically why don't doctors just move to the US after getting qualified as a GP etc? Why not just work there for like 3 years, then come back to the UK and be comfortable, without having to work 3 times as many years before feeling financially free? Is it not possible? Is it really complicated? Exams, qualifications etc.?