Long Life, Good Pay

General practitioners generally get the short end of the stick, in pay and prestige. They also have shorter lives. The mortality rate of specialists is 30% lower than theirs, two Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. statisticians reported last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Looking for reasons, the statisticians guessed that specialists make more money, can afford longer vacations and get better medical care.

According to these statistics, the most long-lived specialists are pathologists. Shortest (at nine-tenths of the general practitioners' rate): dermatologists, who have a high death rate from cancer and leukemia, possibly the result of continual exposure to X rays. Specialists in tuberculosis also have a bad rate, probably because they often start off with the disease.

Six of the seven highest-paid physicians in the U.S. last year were specialists, the magazine Medical Economics reported this week. The seven had gross incomes up to $180,000, net incomes (after paying for offices, etc.) up to $96,000. From 1943 to 1947, net incomes of all physicians rose 14% (net income of all gainfully employed persons rose 32%). As a profession, medicine looked well paid: physicians were in the top 3% income bracket; 2.8% of them grossed $50,000 or more. Average income of all doctors was $18,500 gross, $11,300 net.

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