doctors

[ray hampton]

this had been a busy week, Monday was check-up Tuesday I had a cataract remove,, Wednesday was a follow up visit , being able to see without eye spec. are good, next cataract will be remove soon after the 15 of this month

[Rich Riddle]

Are you having the procedures done at St. Elizabeth or across the river on the Ohio side?

[ray hampton]

St E south, A team of horses could not drag me to Ohio

[Rich Riddle]

I go to the best doctor and don't care where the doctor's office or surgery center is located. At times that's in Northern Kentucky, and at other times it's in Ohio.

[Rich Engelhardt]

A team of horses could not drag me to Ohio
LOL!
I don't blame you!

[ray hampton]

I go to the best doctor and don't care where the doctor's office or surgery center is located. At times that's in Northern Kentucky, and at other times it's in Ohio.

Doctors are only secondly , the nurses are the main workers

[Gary Hodgin]

Hope your surgery turns out well. I had cataracts removed from both my eyes (two or three weeks apart) about 5 years ago. Don't need glasses now for anything other than reading. Get you a good pair of sunglasses cause you're going to need them. My eyes are alot more sensitive to light since my surgery. I wear sunglasses about anytime I'm in the sun. It amazed me as to how much better I can see after the surgery.

[Jim Matthews]

If you go to the O-hiya side, you can have Acropolis chili post-op.

Of all the things I never thought I would miss, leaving Cincy - that was least.
The nearest supply is in Southern Florida - go figya.

Did the Opthamalogist tune up your prescription, at the same time?
I'm just now 50, and they won't consider replacing my lens for another five years.

It would be a huge improvement over the Coke-bottle bottom lenses I've worn for thirty...

[charlie knighton]

good luck with the next one, amazing the difference when you start going blind even with glasses, have your blood sugar checked

[Rich Riddle]

Doctors are only secondly , the nurses are the main workers
I didn't realize nurses were licensed to performed eye surgery. Guess you learn something new every day.

[ray hampton]

Hope your surgery turns out well. I had cataracts removed from both my eyes (two or three weeks apart) about 5 years ago. Don't need glasses now for anything other than reading. Get you a good pair of sunglasses cause you're going to need them. My eyes are alot more sensitive to light since my surgery. I wear sunglasses about anytime I'm in the sun. It amazed me as to how much better I can see after the surgery.

I plan on getting the other eye operation too, my vision before was 20/100 after it are 20/50, the improve in my vision are amazing too , i question the doctor as to why they never told me how bad my vision was , reading without my glasses are worth the operation, the doctor give me a pair of sunglasses

[ray hampton]

If you go to the O-hiya side, you can have Acropolis chili post-op.

Of all the things I never thought I would miss, leaving Cincy - that was least.
The nearest supply is in Southern Florida - go figya.


I'm just now 50, and they won't consider replacing my lens for another five years.




It would be a huge improvement over the Coke-bottle bottom lenses I've worn for thirty...

Did the Opthamalogist tune up your prescription, at the same time?
not yet

[Gary Hodgin]

Great. Glad to hear the surgery helped.

[ray hampton]

good luck with the next one, amazing the difference when you start going blind even with glasses, have your blood sugar checked

diabetes will take over your life if you do not control the sugar count

[ray hampton]

I didn't realize nurses were licensed to performed eye surgery. Guess you learn something new every day.

the nurses will perform their duties before and after the operation as required , I not sure about the license requiring

[ray hampton]

Great. Glad to hear the surgery helped.


thank you , it feels good to rub my nose bridge without removing the glasses

[Jerry Thompson]

I am an RN and have been since 1969. Doctors and Nurses both work hard as a team. I carry out the physicin's orders and I am trained by education and experience what to report back to the Dr anything awry. I have yet to see a Dr put in a 5 day week or an 8 hour day. It took years of study and sacrifice to become an MD/DO.
Sadly most of an RN's day is busy filling out forms. These are, for the most part on a computor. As soon as computors were utilized those that think up paper work saw this as a new method of making up more crap.
I now work PRN in Home Health. It feels so good to say no I am going to continue building my clock case because this is now my time in life to do what I want.

[ray hampton]

I am an RN and have been since 1969. Doctors and Nurses both work hard as a team. I carry out the physicin's orders and I am trained by education and experience what to report back to the Dr anything awry. It took years of study and sacrifice to become an MD/DO.
Sadly most of an RN's day is busy filling out forms. These are, for the most part on a computor. As soon as computors were utilized those that think up paper work saw this as a new method of making up more crap.
I now work PRN in Home Health. It feels so good to say no I am going to continue building my clock case because this is now my time in life to do what I want.
I have yet to see a Dr put in a 5 day week or an 8 hour day.
I've been in a hospital more than once and would see the nurses every hour or more often but the doctor would limit his visits to one time per day, do your statement mean that doctors work less than forty hours a week or more than forty hours a week

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Ray.....I worked in radiology departments across this country for 34 years.

Doctors often put in more than 40 hours a week and extreme hours too!

Using your philosophy....since I have never seen you work, would it be fair for me to say you are shiftless or have never worked? No? I would suggest it's just as unfair for you to suggest doctors don't work or put in long hours.

Secondly, the doctor has patients other than you that require his services so he doesn't have the luxury to see you every hour. I have a sister that is a nurse practitioner who runs a clinic in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky. She often has to see 20-28 patients per day in that clinic. There are often much more that goes on in the background in a patient's treatment that the patient doesn't observe.

BTW Ray....I'm not a doctor.....I installed and serviced CT and MR scanners professionally for 34 years for 2 different, well recognized corporations.

[David Weaver]

I know a lot of doctors. I don't know any who work as little as 40 hours per week, except for two part time doctors. And those two part timers are PT because their spouses are docs, and they can't swing having kids if they're both working full time.

I've been at several functions (social) at the holidays where some of the docs were on call and they picked up and left when their beepers went off, regardless of whether or not they wanted to go.

If there is a pervasive myth that doctors just stand around a little and go play golf early in the afternoon, it must be perpetrated by people who don't actually know many doctors.

[ray hampton]

Ray.....I worked in radiology departments across this country for 34 years.

Doctors often put in more than 40 hours a week and extreme hours too!

Using your philosophy....since I have never seen you work, would it be fair for me to say you are shiftless or have never worked? No? I would suggest it's just as unfair for you to suggest doctors don't work or put in long hours.

Secondly, the doctor has patients other than you that require his services so he doesn't have the luxury to see you every hour. I have a sister that is a nurse practitioner who runs a clinic in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky. She often has to see 20-28 patients per day in that clinic. There are often much more that goes on in the background in a patient's treatment that the patient doesn't observe.

BTW Ray....I'm not a doctor.....I installed and serviced CT and MR scanners professionally for 34 years for 2 different, well recognized corporations.

I saw a report about MRI that said that the tech got pay close to 100 grand for service call on one machine, will you sent me a PM and tell where your sister work, I do not have the time to check on the doctors hours which is why that I ask that question about doctors hours total

[Rich Riddle]

Ray,

I am not sure where you get your information. As an administrator, I had command of medical staff and all others. Reports indicated approximate time in the hospital and indicated physicians average between approximately fifty five and one hundred hours weekly. Of course specialties demonstrate significant differences. Dermatology is at one end of the extreme and Ob/Gyn the other for hours. Even though many people believe physicians work for the hospitals, most attending physicians belong to professional groups that contract work in hospitals. St. Elizabeth widely functions this way. All family practice doctors in Northern Kentucky belong to one group the contracts with St. Elizabeth. The advantage of this system is it allows them to get a higher percentage of billing. The partners pay the physicians who have more billable time more money. Many work 40 hours in two days when on-call. I am unsure of why the number of hours a physician works concerns you unless you believe the physician works too many hours to safely perform procedures. Nonetheless, here is what the Bureau of Labor Statistics says about the hours physicians work:

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/physicians-and-surgeons.htm#tab-3

No medical tech earns one hundred thousand dollars for repairing one machine. Perhaps you saw a report that indicated a machine cost one hundred thousand dollars to repair, but that too would be quite unusual. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average medical technology repair technician earns approximately $45,000 per year, not machine.

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/installation-maintenance-and-repair/medical-equipment-repairers.htm

[ray hampton]

Ray,

I am not sure where you get your information. As an administrator, I had command of medical staff and all others. Reports indicated approximate time in the hospital and indicated physicians average between approximately fifty five and one hundred hours weekly. Of course specialties demonstrate significant differences. Dermatology is at one end of the extreme and Ob/Gyn the other for hours. Even though many people believe physicians work for the hospitals, most attending physicians belong to professional groups that contract work in hospitals. St. Elizabeth widely functions this way. All family practice doctors in Northern Kentucky belong to one group the contracts with St. Elizabeth. The advantage of this system is it allows them to get a higher percentage of billing. The partners pay the physicians who have more billable time more money. Many work 40 hours in two days when on-call. I am unsure of why the number of hours a physician works concerns you unless you believe the physician works too many hours to safely perform procedures. Nonetheless, here is what the Bureau of Labor Statistics says about the hours physicians work:

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/physicians-and-surgeons.htm#tab-3

No medical tech earns one hundred thousand dollars for repairing one machine. Perhaps you saw a report that indicated a machine cost one hundred thousand dollars to repair, but that too would be quite unusual. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average medical technology repair technician earns approximately $45,000 per year, not machine.

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/installation-maintenance-and-repair/medical-equipment-repairers.htm

The statement about MRI tech earning were from a guide about the highly pay jobs,maybe the tech made more money when MRI were a new toy or maybe someone were bragging or lying, my comments about the hours that the doctors WORK WERE A STUPID QUESTION , I AM REPEATING IT WAS A QUESTION
do you wear a suit and tie when you are at your computer

[Rich Riddle]

The statement about MRI tech earning were from a guide about the highly pay jobs,maybe the tech made more money when MRI were a new toy or maybe someone were bragging or lying, my comments about the hours that the doctors WORK WERE A STUPID QUESTION , I AM REPEATING IT WAS A QUESTION
do you wear a suit and tie when you are at your computer
The Bureau of Labor Statistics pulls reported income levels from the previous years' IRS tax returns. The statisticians then program everyone's income in a particular job category and come up with what is called the mean, median, and mode statistics. What most people call average is the "mean" number. All the wages are added together and then divided by the number of people performing that job. Some people in any job category earn much higher or much lower wages but those are called outliers and don't actually weigh in much. Examples would be doctors who work for five million a year of those who work for nothing. Very few of either category exist. The odds are that someone was significantly embellishing salaries for MRI technicians. Even though they might feel better trained, they are still medical equipment repairers. The bottom ten percent of those people earn about $26,000 while the top ten percent earn $68,000; most average in the middle at $45,000. It's not like a job a barber or waiter has where one can hide income from the government.

I rarely wear a suit and tie, but I tend to type at the computer no matter what the attire. Most times I wear business casual and in the past a military uniform. When attending business functions, I frequently wear a jacket, slacks, and tie, but rarely a suit.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I would suggest the BLS must have different categories of medical repairers or my former coworkers and I are all outliers.

And yet, I am unaware of anybody making $100,000 for servicing one machine.

In 1976, I left the US Navy after 8 years and was employed by a company as a CT field service engineer. That company was bought by a recognized major corporation. In 1986, that corporation sold us to one of the largest, most recognized global corporations. For 34 years I held various engineering positions and for a period of time a management position. Both companies paid FEs a base salary and overtime. The figure of $45,000 might be average for today's base salary alone but I can attest base salaries go above that and one can easily make $10,000-$15,000 or more annually in overtime.

In 34 years, I had my annual planned elk hunting vacation with my friends canceled because of an intermittent problem with a MR scanner; I got paged out of my oldest son's graduation because of a down CT scanner; I have had vacations delayed when I was asked to travel to fix equipment in areas outside my normal work area. These types of situations are not that unusual.... Something to consider.

Most diagnostic imaging (radiology) FEs have a college degree in some form of engineering or engineering technology. Daily they work alone, unsupervised on everything from high voltage DC power supplies that can exceed 150,000 VDC output to the latest servers used for image storage....to cryogenic pumps pumping, compressing gaseous helium or liquid helium. They may be aligning in 3 planes, an x-ray tube on a new spiral CT scanner and the tolerance is a few thousands of a mm. Imagine a magnetic field (3T) which is 50,000 times the earth's magnetic field strength. Now imagine "shimming" that magnetic field to make it homogeneous to a level of say 1 part per 60,000,000. Everything they do is heavily monitored by state and federal regulatory officials (FDA). In some cases, failure to file appropriate paperwork with the FDA or falsification of data on the same forms can result in fines of several thousands of dollars and or jail time.....the regulations used to say your employer couldn't pay the fine for you. FEs are responsible for adjusting and verifying safe radiation or RF output levels from different types of equipment. Hospitals hire independent health physicists to check these levels and state health physicists verify this too. In short, it's a heavily regulated industry with emphasis on patient safety.

It's not an unusual occurrence to hand a customer a bill for an amount over $100,000. I have done it periodically. The x-ray tubes on the newest spiral CT scanners can cost more than that and then if the hospital doesn't have a contract you can add labor costs to the cost of the parts. Will a cheaper tube meet the same specifications as the more expensive one and allow the machine to perform as well? No. It's just cheaper. And all I got was my regular salary from 8-5 M-F and overtime when I worked it.....the $100,000 bill didn't effect my personal income.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I saw a report about MRI that said that the tech got pay close to 100 grand for service call on one machine
The sales commission on some medical equipment can easily be that high - and - higher.
I had an opportunity to get into the biomedical engineering field over twenty years ago.
The guy that headed up the program (he had a doctors degree in electronics - very smart guy) actually mentioned that during his presentation to us candidates.
One of his medical equipment suppliers had been bugging him to go to work for them.
He asked the supplier how many $3 million dollar machines he could sell in a year, and the supplier told him maybe one every two years or so...then quickly added ,,,,,w/a 10% sales commission on each one, that's not bad money.

[Rich Riddle]

The sales commission on some medical equipment can easily be that high - and - higher.
I had an opportunity to get into the biomedical engineering field over twenty years ago.
The guy that headed up the program (he had a doctors degree in electronics - very smart guy) actually mentioned that during his presentation to us candidates.
One of his medical equipment suppliers had been bugging him to go to work for them.
He asked the supplier how many $3 million dollar machines he could sell in a year, and the supplier told him maybe one every two years or so...then quickly added ,,,,,w/a 10% sales commission on each one, that's not bad money.
Sales are one thing but repairman are another thing. If salaries for repairman were that high, he IRS and hence the BLS would know. What one states during a presentation is frequently speculation or embellishment. What one garners from unbiased resources is more statistically accurate. Many of these technicians work for large medical groups (hospitals owned by one corporation). I can guarantee you they aren't earning one hundred thousand dollars for one service call.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Rich,

I would respectfully suggest significantly more of us work for the equipment manufacturers than work for hospitals or hospital groups.

Again, I agree and know of nobody who is or has been personally paid $100,000 for a single service call.

A hospital being billed greater than $100,000 (parts and labor) on a single service call for an MR or CT scanner is not an unusual occurrence. The cost of an CT x-ray tube or a gradient coil in the MRI magnet can cost more than $100,000 and then add labor and shipping. The shipping costs alone on a gradient coil which weighs a couple tons can run several thousands of dollars if air freighted over night and then trucked from the nearest large airport. The alternative shipping is by truck with 2 drivers, can take 3 days or longer and the shipping costs are still expensive.

Spiral CT scanners use x-ray tubes that are used under techniques that are much more severe than x-ray tubes used in regular x-ray rooms. There is no comparison. To provide the higher image quality the electrical and mechanical tolerances on CT tubes are much more critical too. The latest tubes weigh in excess of 350 lbs in the wooden crate and shipping costs aren't cheap.

I would also suggest that a 10% sales commission is probably higher than today's reality.

The business has changed a lot since I got involved in 1976. In 1974 the first CT scanner for use on humans was invented by a British company EMI. Getting into the business in 1976, it was in the infant stage. The small company who employed me had over 80% of the world's CT scanner market. Siemens, a well recognized European company, sold our products overseas as they didn't manufacture a product then. I attended several 13 week classes and had classmates from Siemens.

Once the certificate of need legislation passed, around 1978, the market dropped like a falling star. It was about this time, MR scanners were first approved by the FDA for diagnostic use on human patients here in the US. My same employer at the time had the first FDA approved MR scanner.

As increased pressure has come to reduce the cost of medical care, the costs and profits have decreased even further. This was instituted over a decade ago by hospitals joining buying groups, agreeing to standardized equipment specifications and purchasing in a group.

What was extremely lucrative over 30 years ago, has changed. So have I.

While I wish my retirement hadn't been caused by my sudden deafness, I am glad I am retired. I miss some of the people but not the business.

[ray hampton]

Sales are one thing but repairman are another thing. If salaries for repairman were that high, he IRS and hence the BLS would know. What one states during a presentation is frequently speculation or embellishment. What one garners from unbiased resources is more statistically accurate. Many of these technicians work for large medical groups (hospitals owned by one corporation). I can guarantee you they aren't earning one hundred thousand dollars for one service call.

what if your hospital had the only MRI in this nation and need it fix yesterday because the president of the USA were sick and need tests that MRI PERFORM, how much will they pay you then to work 24/7 on the MRI
what year were the MRI first use on a patient

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Ray,

The type of service you described is often performed today at local hospitals across the nation.

In major metropolitan areas, FEs may be on shift work and thus the guy or gal working at midnight is just working their normal shift and is strictly paid their salary.

In remote areas a person may work all night and be on overtime. The conditions vary depending on the locality and availability of other service personnel.

Understand, that if a CT scanner or MR scanner malfunctions on the last patient at 9:00 p.m., for example, the hospital will often want it functioning before their first scheduled patient the next morning. This is for reasons of patient convenience and hospital income.

It gets even more complex when you consider a hospital's trauma center level changes when certain pieces of equipment go down. Suddenly patients have to be taken elsewhere for treatment rather than to the closest hospital.


MRIs were used for chemical analysis in labs for decades before they were used to scan patients. Those MRIs didn't produce an image rather just an indication of a resonant frequency indicative of chemical makeup.

According to Wikipedia, the first human MRI body scan was performed on July 3, 1977.

[ray hampton]

are MRI and CT scan use to develop new medicines

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Ray,

CT and MRI are used to produce images of a patient. They aren't used to develop new medicines directly. They may use the images to determine how a patients treatment is progressing. If that patient is undergoing experimental treatment, the images may help show whether or not the treatment is having a positive effect.

[Jerry Thompson]

They work much more than 40 hrs per week. Doctors their patients daily or more often if needed. They also are in telephone communication with Nurses and giving orders to care of thier patients.
I have several physician friends and the ones who are surgeons look, for the mosy part, 10 years older than they are.

[Tom Leftley]

When I had cataracts removed last year, I had a choice:
a) "Normal surgery" which meant two operations about a month apart - No cost (Government pays)
b) Laser surgery which meant both eyes done at the same time. Had to pay $100 premium per eye.

I chose b) and didn't regret it. Could have driven home except for the local sedative administered at the hospital.
Doctor said to get reading glasses at any dollar store if I needed them. (I didn't).

I too wear sun glasses but have not had any further problems.