Let me explain my last comment so it doesn't sound rude. It seems that when people plug in a real life scenario to a situation, it frequently changes their perspective on things. I am suggesting that in order to insure that we have the very best qualified people performing such things as thoracic surgery, managing a complex multiple system medical crisis, etc. it is important that the rewards for this type of work (monitary) be high enough so that the right folks get attracted to even aspire to become specialists in teses type medical areas. I know if I need disc surgery (which I recently underwent,) I take comfort in knowing that the surgeon has been chosen from a fairly large pool of folks who for whatever reason didn't make the cut to become a neurosurgeon. I would not take comfort in knowing that my cutter didn't get in to garbage man training school and has decided to take a go at becoming a surgeon.