The level of their salaries is equally striking: doctors earn $14 a month and nurses $10.

Reports that those doctors earn $90,000 are untrue, he said.

That was Benbow's province; the doctor would earn his keep this day, he thought.

In 1987, male doctors practicing 20 years or more earned an average of $127,200.

Polls show that while most Americans like their own doctor, they believe doctors in general earn far too much.

At other times, the doctor has earned lodging by painting cabins.

But both bills would help doctors do battle with managed care organizations and earn money in new ways.

Salaries are often less than half the $100,000 that many established doctors of science earn in the top universities.

Even before the laws took effect, the state's doctors were earning less than their peers nationally.

Black doctors, teachers and engineers earn 20 to 25 percent less than whites.