Thanks for sharing this. One question that comes to my mind though: doctors trained in many, if not all countries have expensive training that is partially or completely sponsored by the state or taxes etc…
If the amount of QALY’s a doctor generates is inferior to the amount lost by educating a doctor, this puts us in an awkward position. Not that nature has anything against awkwardness, our world is pretty awkward indeed.
I agree, although I think medics probably break even—if doctors save a few QALYs a year, that approximately makes their salaries a reasonable investment on the current margin (NICE is willing to fund things at 20/30k per QALY, and thus a doctor needs to save 3-4ish a year for their salary not to be more profitably spent on drugs). Although training costs are significant ‘up front’ (I’ve heard figures like quarter of a million thrown around), pro-rated over 40 years it becomes less daunting....
Thanks for sharing this. One question that comes to my mind though: doctors trained in many, if not all countries have expensive training that is partially or completely sponsored by the state or taxes etc…
If the amount of QALY’s a doctor generates is inferior to the amount lost by educating a doctor, this puts us in an awkward position. Not that nature has anything against awkwardness, our world is pretty awkward indeed.
Hey Diego,
I agree, although I think medics probably break even—if doctors save a few QALYs a year, that approximately makes their salaries a reasonable investment on the current margin (NICE is willing to fund things at 20/30k per QALY, and thus a doctor needs to save 3-4ish a year for their salary not to be more profitably spent on drugs). Although training costs are significant ‘up front’ (I’ve heard figures like quarter of a million thrown around), pro-rated over 40 years it becomes less daunting....
Oh yeah, I’m assuming their salaries are just part of the labour market. So I mean here only the training cost, excluding salaries.