HARLEY STREET INCOMES.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18367, 28 April 1925, Page 13

HARLEY STREET INCOMES.

NOT AS HIGH AS IS SUPPOSED. 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 Hhrlev street, states a student of medicine in the "Daily Chronicle." Sir Lauder's annual receipts from practice were estimated —popularly—at from £20,000 to £2-5,000 a year. The statement was current a few years ago that Sir James Maekenzio earned £30,000 a year "or more."

People who indulge in these estimates hare little knowledge of the roai fact 6. The professional fee- for a. consultation at the physician's house was, until recently (and still is in the majority of cases), £3 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 additional fees earned when a consultant leaves his 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 £3OOO a year in this "additional way." Even so, the total income does not reach £IO,OOO. \s compared with the earnings of famous surgeons, this figure is contemptible. . Nor does any reason appear to exist why phvsicians" should fare, relatively, so badly. Their work is more laborious tli3n that, of the surgeon, and demands usually, more care and thought. Surcrery is by no means the "hair-breacitb." business which laymen suppose it to be. The ordinary carpenter works to about l-100th of an inch; the ordinary surgeon to about l-10th. The truth apparentlv, is that the fiction of the "life or death" operation is firmlv rooted in the public mind A m»n 'about to face the ordeal of the operatiugrroom feels that he cannot afford to take any risks. He will pay the top orice, whatever it may be I <]o not sifggcst that this is a bad policy. But I do suggest that the eqnally hardworking, painstaking physician has a legitimate grievance.