HARLEY STREET INCOMES

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4847, 1 July 1925, Page 1

HARLEY STREET INCOMES

■„ ix . .. . ... ■/1...... >., * M NOI’ AS HIGH AS IS SUPPOSED.” VIEWS OF A STUDENT. Until Sir James Mackenzie appeared in the field it was supposed that the late Sir Lauder Brunton had earned the largest income ever obtained by ( a consulting physician in. Harley Street (states a student of medicine in the “Daily Chronicle ). Sir Lauder’s annual receipts from practice were estimated— -popjularly—at from £20,000 to £25,000 a year. The statement was current a few years ago that Sir James Mackenzie earned £30,000 a year “or more.” People who indulge in. these estimates have little knowledge of tne real factis. The professional fee for a consultation at the physician’s house was, until recently (and still !-• in.,the ma jority of .eases),,£B 3s. Each consultation occupies three-quarters of an hour, and some six hours are available for work each day—excluding Saturday. This, ; allowing for six weeks’ vacation each year, gives a total of £5520. But there remains to be added' the large addiitonal feeis earned when a consultant leaves iiis house and goes to pay visits in the country. The usual fee is £1 Is per mile. It is reasonable to suppose that most well-known physicians earn at least £JMO a year in this “additional way.” Even sb, the total income does, not reach £lO,OOO. As compared with’ the earnings of famous surgeons this, figure is contemptible.

Nor does any reason appear to exist why physicians should fare, relatively, so badly. Their work is more laborious than that of the surgeon, and demands, usually, more care and thought. Surgery is by no means the “hair-breadth” business which laymen suppose it to be. The ordinary carpenter works to about l-100th part of an inch ; the ordinary surgeon to about l-10th. The truth, apparently, is that the fiction of the "life or death” operation is firmly rooted in the public mind. A man about to face the ordeal of the operating room feels that he cannot afford to take any risks. He will pay the top price, whatever it may be. I do not suggest that thfe is a bad policy. But I do. suggest that the equally hardworking, painstaking physician has a legitimate grievance.