What is difference between a doctor and teacher?
Answers
Perception
Both doctors and teachers serve a vital role in our society, but the outcomes of this belief are vastly different for each profession. Salient looks at the disparity in education, regulation, salary, and societal expectations.
Let’s face it: teachers’ training is often negligible. The standard training for a teacher in New Zealand is a Bachelor’s degree, and a one-year Graduate Diploma on top of that. The New Zealand Graduate School of Education, for example, requires a BA minimum for entry, and provides a ‘nominal’ study length of 12 months, with around two-thirds of that time spent teaching in a classroom.
So, little Jimmy graduates in 2014 and begins his first teaching job in 2015, provisionally registered as a teacher until 2018. Jimmy is qualified to teach any subject he received 12 points for at University. So, Jimmy’s BA/BSci major is likely to be the subject he can teach at high school level, while he would still teach every subject at primary school. Teachers are re-registered every three years, with any other monitoring conducted by the school, usually on an annual basis.
Were Jimmy aiming to become a doctor, beginning study in 2011, his study would end six years later in 2016, and he’d spend 2017 working under full supervision before he became a registered doctor. For doctors, roughly 50 per cent of each is spent shadowing qualified professionals in hospitals and clinics. Once he becomes a fully qualified doctor, Jimmy would be allowed to work as a general practitioner (GP). It would take him a further four or five years of on-the-job training to specialise in a field such as oncology, plastic surgery, pediatrics. If Jimmy has a clear idea of where he wants to go in medicine, he will probably be qualified to work in that area in 2022—11 years after beginning his study. Doctors are also required to hold an Annual Practice Certificate, which is only granted if the doctor continues training and updating their skills.
Closer to home, in September 2007, a well-known Wellington orthopedic surgeon performed a double hip transplant which did not provide ideal results, and the patient contracted a superbug. The patient sued; the surgeon dropped his personal fees; and, although the superbug infected the patient at Wakefield Hospital, as it was not as a result of the surgery, the patient was left to foot a hefty post-operation bill and ongoing medical problems. That’s right: neither the hospital, nor the surgeon were held liable for the post-operative environment, and the continuing hip problems of the patient were largely put down to the patient wanting both hips operated on at once.
Paradoxically, a teacher is responsible for holistic results. Teachers are measured on how they interact in the classroom, because their manner directly affects student’s willingness to learn, happiness in the classroom, and future success in learning. Teachers are measured on a student’s direct results—that is, how well their students grasp the subject they have been taught. Directly and annually, another teacher from the same school sits in on classes and analyses a teacher’s personality, so school politics play a part in the reported skill of a teacher.
Teachers’ salaries and wages are set by the government (with the exception of the private sector, although private schools’ salaries are comparable), and their pay increases with their time in the profession. Estimates of the length of teaching careers vary widely worldwide, but teaching graduates can be put into three camps: roughly 30 per cent of teaching graduates do not become primary or secondary teachers, while the remainder either leave teaching after five years, or 20+ (i.e., most leave early or continue until retirement). Evidence suggests that after around five years, a teacher has tired of their low pay rate remaining stable as their living expenses (for example, mortgages to pay off) increase.
Almost 60% of all teachers start on about $45,000 a year, with the maximum base salary going up to $68,980, which around 3% of teachers reach in the first five years of their career. In fact, only 8% of teachers in public schools have a base salary above $45,653 (while additional responsibilities generally bring more pay). Most doctors, on the other hand, continue in the profession until at least retirement age, so assuming one begins training straight after high school at 18, they have 40 years of a salary beginning at a minimum of $60,000 and topping out at $230,000 (all before overtime, of course, which can increase income by $30k annually). The average salary of a doctor in New Zealand is between $128,000-$195,000. Once a doctor is registered (unregistered doctors receieve a wage as low as $30,000) a doctor’s average wage is around double that of the highest paid teachers, and triple that of the average teacher.
Firstly, how did you treat your teachers when you were at school? And secondly, how do you treat your doctor?
Explanation: