If you use 2001 AOA status (Medical Honor Society) was a proxy then the top pay should go to . . . Dermatologist 32%, Orthopedics 26%, followed by General Surgery 16% the next 8 medical classifications are within several % points including Internal Medicine at 15%. The above is slightly misleading b/c several specialties participate in a separate application service than ERAS.
You cannot extrapolate from either of your sources how 'difficult' a residency program is to enter nor how 'rare' a particular specialty is RELATIVE TO DEMAND. Your argument is classic non-sequitur - what follows cannot possibly come logically or soundly from what came before.
Again, free market principles dictate that whoever possesses the rarest skills relevant to DEMAND gets the highest wages. We can agree that the fact
you don't personally agree a particular specialist's skills SHOULD be the most demanded because you don't personally believe they are as valuable is irrelevant. You have 'the way things are' on one hand, and then there is 'the way BabyDoc believes things should be' on the other. When you can separate the two, life gets much easier and your positions become more sound.
Most elite pediatricians and IM doctors spend more than 3 years as residents typically as Chief Residents and/or subspecialty training. Which means 4 years of medical school, 3 years of primary residency, 1-3 years in subspecialty fellowship and/or chief resident for a total of 8-10 years not the misleading 3 year residency you post.
Sure, just as we understand that your "elite" pediatrician and IM specialist still only matches the training of the 'average' neurosurgeon and orthopod. I'm sure you can find some "elite" family practice physicians who have an inordinate and unusual amount of training, too. I like your caveat..."elite". haha
Well documented you say. Well let's see it buddy. Only peer-reviewed journal articles or a review based on such info need apply...AHRQ (government clearinghouse for information on healthcare)
NOT ONE study or paper you cited can credibly conclude that minorities are somehow receiving a 'different standard' of care, BECAUSE they're minorities, in the discriminatory sense you assert. The issue is one of poverty, not race.
The disparity in survival rates, cancer rates, heart disease, and other factors is well known and SOLELY attributed to the explanations I've already noted:
Minorities are typically poorer, have less health care insurance, are more ignorant about health matters, less compliant with medical advice, have lifestyles that involve excessive smoking, drinking, and diets laden with animal fats, not to mention the rampant and disproportional drug abuse and criminality among minority populations which undeniably skews the morbidity and mortality statistics higher than whites.
This is the SOLE cause of our high infant mortality rates - drug addicted mothers - not women who merely do not get 'enough' prenatal care because they cannot afford it. When you're addicted to crack and heroin, you don't give a rat's ass about prenatal care and will not seek it even if it were free...and there is PLENTY of federal and state funding aimed at providing prenatal care for poor women, much of it goes unutilized for this reason. There isn't a women in the United States who does not receive adequate prenatal care because she can not afford it - period.
You're dealing with someone who worked for years exclusively in high minority, low income areas, at not-for-profit hospitals which service a disproportionate number of uninsured or indigent people. The ignorance among this population is nothing short of astounding, stupifying ignorance and misconceptions about health matters in general and the rate of non-compliance with medical advice is notorious. Ask any nurse or ER physician. I've had this conversation many times with BLACK DOCTORS who completely agree with me.
This is a population of people where conspiracy theories abound like the belief AIDS was created by the government to keep the black man down.
This is a population of people who are "too poor" to afford a doctor's office fee so they use the Emergency Room as a substitute, while they some how came up with the money for the $600 full-length leather coat, $100 for custom nails, $150 hair salon appointments, $300 leather boots or basketball shoes, two pagers, and the cellular phone they are sporting in the ER waiting room, to speak nothing of the $6000 in wheels, tires, stereo equipment and alarm system they have on the Olds Cutlass they drove in to the ER parking lot!
It is true that minorities cannot afford to access health care to the same extent as whites. The barriers to accessing quality health care are IDENTICAL for poor whites as they are for poor blacks - cost.
In addition, there are undeniable cultural differences which exacerbate this disparity in health, as well. Cultural differences which dictate to them that it is "reasonable" to own a $50,000 automobile while living in a house that is in nearly condemnable condition, appointed with Big Screen TV's and leather furniture they "got on credit" at Rent-A-Center, closets full of expensive fashions...but they "can't afford" to see a doctor or to pay $100 for a prescription.
You may be able to fool a lot of people who probably never saw a black person unless it was on TV by throwing out 'studies' but you ain't going to fool me, son. I've been to the ghetto, many many times, in places I wouldn't have been safe to go without someone from that neighborhood accompanying me. I know how these people live and where their priorities are, its the most disfunctional thing I've ever witnessed.
People with money can afford to seek care more often and have more options because they are able to pay for it, black or white, people without money cannot afford to seek care as often and have fewer options, black or white. What is the 'revelation' here?
you get through insurance medical care you couldn't afford otherwise in many cases. 
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