Facebook snuff movies... Page 4

Quote: Tim Walker @ October 20 2009, 2:43 AM BST

Really? They're certainly not over here.

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Median salary: $292,000 per year

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/moneymag/0910/gallery.bestjobs_highestpaid.moneymag/index.html

Perhaps they also have the highest medico-legal insurance premiums. Or maybe they're just incredibly lucky/greedy bastards.

'The high pay for anesthesiologists reflects inherent stress in a job that is literally about life and death. "Anesthesiologists get patients safely and intact through operations while surgeons do things that would otherwise kill them," says Roger Moore, president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. The big salaries are also a payback for the 12-plus years of training required before an anesthesiologist can start practicing.'

Well, yes, what Roger Moore (! aka James Bond) says is true, if a little dramatic-sounding. The 12-plus years is a hell of a lot compared with over here. After the basic 2 years post-qualification jobs as a doctor, then 5-6 years of specialist training, you can be a Consultant working in private practice. So only 7 or 8 years of total training before practicing in private medicine.

I can watch footage of operations and have seen images of my own surgeries and find them completely fascinating, however I have absolutely no wish to see the sort of videos mentioned and find it worrying that other people do.

I particularly find some news reporting very distressing; I'm still haunted by some images of children dying in the third world and, although they have an important message to carry to us, can't believe that they're shown sometimes.