Mike, tell us more about microeco..
1. where does the productivity fall into the equation?
2. does it have something to do with the reduction/increase in the take home amount $?
3. from the physician/patient ratios you had provided, it's not clear where such significant variation in, let's say elective surgery US vs Canada, wait time comes from? does it have something to do with the physicians' productivity?

Talking about surgeons: soon there will be no more highly qualified specialists left in certain fields because Medicare pays the same amount for a very complicated surgery, involving a lot of inpatient time and care, and for a simple 1-2 hours outpatient surgery. So, many residents chose to go to the outpatient field Better money, easier living. That's the motto these days among the majority of medical residents.
Will be interesting to see what the Obamacare brings to the future of these best and the brightest.

LT: My comment was sarcastic, there is no other profession that requires as much training as MD
Alexey: clearly those professors are overpaid if there are so many candidates for each spot, politics dictate those salaries, if it was market dictating them
the salaries would be much lower, thus reducing the cost of education
Svetlana: i know all about matching, how do you think we ended up in Syracuse??
Maria: many (most) MDs don't chose specialty on how much it pays/lifestyle, they chose it because this is what they love doing.

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

Svetlana, i would love to discuss more on econ, however i don't think it falls within a scope of this topic

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

Mike, it's both - it's what they love to do AND lifestyle..I heard it from too many actual MDs - people choose ER and avoid OB exactly because of these reasons..

Our friend is a PGY7 neurosurgery resident.. ( finishing it up this year ). He's going into Pediatric Neurosurgery fellowship for another year, even though he can have a better lifestyle and make more money doing spine surgeries starting now ( without extra fellowship training ). The reason is he ( and many others, as pediatric neurosurgery programs are very competitive ) want to do that is because it more interesting and more rewarding field.

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

many (most) MDs don't chose specialty on how much it pays/lifestyle, they chose it because this is what they love doing.
Same with those PhD's in my example -- they pay is low, but you get to do what you love.
Also, I don't think they are overpaid. In general, to become a professor of physics in a research university you have to do 4 years of college, 5-6 years of grad school and 2-6 years of postdoctoral fellowships before people will take you seriously. Not very different fro MDs, maybe even more.

Alexey, my roommate was a PhD student in mathematics and it's like the most chilling lifestyle come on you really can't compare it.
but the reason i know they are overpaid is because there are 200 people per spot.

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

It all depends on what you want to do. Where is your roommate now? People I know (who made it to a faculty job) -- work 25 hours a day -- and not flipping burgers.
Overpaid? Ha! When I graduated and got my first job at Johns Hopkins, I was offered low 30K -- the doing rate for the postdocs at that time. When a friend of mine heard about it, he talked to his boss and said -- look, we'll give you 80K right away if you join our company (financial/banking). Where do you think I went? And why?
People line up for those jobs because: (1) they get to do what they love -- and in most cases, set up their own scientific goals (2) tenure -- some job security. Industry pays way more, but people use it as a "last resort"...

Aleksey, he's teaching math at Northwestern now. That's still not the point, they are overpaid based on oversupply.
Would there still be 200 applications/spot if they were paid $10,000 a year and had to work 80 hours/week?

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу