The United States, like many other countries, is a capitalist society where success is measured by how much income an individual brings home. Children at a young age are taught to aspire careers that will bring home, big bucks. One of the most desired careers because of its large annual salary, as well as its benefit to others is that of a doctor.
In the U.S. a general practice doctor receives an annual average salary of $137,535, with the salary of specialists being significantly higher according to payscale.com. It is easy to see why many college students would spend over a decade of study to become a licensed doctor. Yet in other parts of the world this is not so. In Cuba the monthly salary of a doctor who is a specialist, not a generalist, is $67. Before 2014, when there was a 150 percent pay raise for specialized physicians, such doctors were making about $23 a month which is comparable to the average Cuban worker who makes about $20 a month. General practice doctors in Cuba still make a wage close to that of the average worker.
According to the capitalist rhetoric that the more income a position pays the more likely people will go into that field does not stand true for Cuba, which is not a capitalist country. Per capital, the island nation has more doctors than anywhere else in the world as well as a free healthcare system that is highly praised. If not money, what is the draw to becoming a doctor?
"When you study medicine here it's for love, not money. You become a doctor because you want to help people, that’s all”, said Cuban ophthalmologist Ileana Gonzalez.
There is a basic human yearning to help. Some experience it more than others. Unless an individual is extremely sadistic or indifferent and desensitized, watching others suffer is troubling especially when you can do nothing about it. With the grueling and stressful work practicing medicine entails as well as the many long years of schooling and training, you must truly be passionate about pursuing it. In places where achieving capital is the ultimate goal it is expected that large payouts would become an incentive for becoming a doctor, an incentive that often overshadows the more moralistic goal of alleviating human suffering and helping others. But where greed is not normalized, such work is less of a business and more calling.
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