Of Doctors' & Lawyers' Salaries

The internet has been abuzz this few days ever since the impending increase in ministerial salaries was announced. Of course the spotlight has also been cast on youngpapblog.blogspot.com , which was set up in february. For some reason their post defending the increase in minsterial salaries has been making the rounds on the internet. Of course comments are flying fast and furious. But one thing has given me pause:

"Yet we see so many doctors driving fancy cars, living a luxurious life and some charging ridiculous fees. Yet I do not see you guys bitching about such doctors. Can you help me here to understand your double standard?"

Should lawyers be there to uphold justice? Yet they are the top earners. Where is your logic?

This comment was made by some fella in Dr Huang'g Blog. Naturally i am seeing a bit of red in this.

Its quite sad that doctors and lawyers have been dragged into this fray. Perhaps the purpose was to attract attention from the debate on ministerial salary, perhaps it was a belated defence. On a side note it was fortunate that the fella posted it on a blog where the several Drs there could easily rebut him.

To drag doctors and lawyers into this debate is pointless, for several reasons. Doctors and lawyers are subject to market forces; their income will depend on the amount of competition out there. As Dr Oz put it, if ur not happy with a doctor u can always go and look for another doctor. The same argument can be used for lawyers. I daresay if ur not happy with ur minister u cant look for another minister; sure there are the elections but because the elections work on the basis of the majority rule ur options are rather limited if u dun like said minister for some reason.

Doctors and lawyers also have the proverbial sword of damocles over their heads; one need to look at the ST forum now and then to find someone complaining about how horrible a doctor/lawyer is. A recent example would be a person complaining about being overcharged. Lawyers also do face flak from the clients they are supposed to represent if the client is unhappy with their service for whatever reason. There was also an instance where a law firm used entrapment on another law firm and complained to the Law society that the latter was engaged in touting.

But u may disagree saying that Dont civil servants get flak too? Well the distinction is that the consequences of the flak are different. For doctors they are hauled up before the Singapore Medical Council; for lawyers the Law Society. The civil service can just dismiss the complaints as the ramblings of the green eyed monster. Thus the lawyer and doctor face more pressure in this regard.

Therefore comparing ministers and doctors and lawyers is like comparing apples oranges and pears. This comparison in my opinion is worst than using Mr Durai as an example of why paying more for corruption wont work.

Now to part 2. This benchmark thing is a rather weird representation of what lawyers are earning. While there are lawyers who are rich, there are several other lawyers who are not. In fact there are lawyers leaving the legal profession feeling burnt out after working; there are those who feel that their effort aint worth the remuneration. Thats why there is a shortage of lawyers now.

With regards to doctors, they are not even included in the benchmark for minister's salaries! This is rather suprising if they are supposed to be reaping in the big bucks. Furthermore there are different types of doctors. General Practitioners (GPs) are not doing that well; there is a surplus of GPs and in turn they have competition from the poly clinics, this will definitely dampen their income.

In fact there are some news paper articles which said that doctors and lawyers are entering the grey area of multi level marketing. If this is true then its rather disturbing as these doctors and lawyers have decided to risk their reputation and future prospects by dabbling in something which is rather grey and hence rather dangerous. Perhaps this should highlight the fact that things are not so rosy as they seem.