Doctors can read medical journals and call it "working time"
Where did you get that idea? I grew up in a family of doctors. If they aren't seeing patients, they aren't billing. They go to school an unthinkably long number of years and then they're put into a sleep depravation nightmare called "interning" for years before they get to have a career that normally includes "on call time" where they're woken up at all hours of the night to go save someone's life.
Sitting around reading journals is what they do on their off time. Everything in your analogy is wrong.
Correct. I probably should not have invoked medicine, because (a) the doctor shortage has produced a culture of very long hours, (b) high fixed costs (e.g. malpractice insurance) skew the relationship between hours worked and payoff, and (c) there is a well-known and long period of intense professional hazing.
The ideal of professionalism is a good one. It has been under attack over the past 30 years.
Incidentally, both the medical and legal profession have suffered in opposite ways. The AMA imposed tight limits on medical school admissions in order to create a doctor shortage, and that has generated a huge per-doctor workload. On the other hand, the lack of control (and declining standards) in law has created a surplus of attorneys that has destroyed the professional culture in traditionally "white shoe" firms.
Doctors suffer very long hours (especially as residents) because there is too much work. Lawyers live in an imploded culture because there is so little desirable work (per attorney) that the partners hold all the cards.
This is irrelevant to software engineers, who should (by any standard or moral calculus) have the autonomy accorded a profession but, currently, do not. It's up to our generation to change that.
Perhaps I shouldn't have picked medicine as an example. The principle of professionalism is sound, but many of the traditional professions have departed from it. Law has outright imploded, while medicine has seen very long hours on account of the doctor shortage.
If they aren't seeing patients, they aren't billing.
Right, but 2000 hours per year wasn't traditionally the requirement. That may have changed. The professions have declined over the past 30 years.
For example, before the legal profession went to hell, 1200 billable hours was the requirement. Remaining time was for networking, keeping current, attending conferences, etc. If you billed 1500 hours, you were a rock star and guaranteed to make partner. Enough money was made in the billed hours to pay for the off-meter stuff.
They go to school an unthinkably long number of years and then they're put into a sleep depravation nightmare called "interning" for years
That is true. Medical school and residency are extremely difficult.
before they get to have a career that normally includes "on call time" where they're woken up at all hours of the night to go save someone's life.
Obviously, medicine can't be limited to the 9-to-5 hours, because people get sick all the time.
Regarding the very long work weeks, this problem was at least partially created by the AMA. They've been limiting medical school admissions to keep an artificial shortage of doctors. That has created an environment in which working hours are much more than they used to be.
For example, before the legal profession went to hell, 1200 billable hours was the requirement. Remaining time was for networking, keeping current, attending conferences, etc. If you billed 1500 hours, you were a rock star and guaranteed to make partner. Enough money was made in the billed hours to pay for the off-meter stuff.
I don't know who told you this, but this is inaccurate. 1600 was the normal billable hour standard prior to the legal boom among large law firms; 1500 was the standard among smaller law firms. Government lawyers were expected to spend 1800 hours or more on legal tasks (36 hours/week accounting for 2 weeks vacation). 1200 was only ever the requirement for partners, since their time by necessity include a lot of unbillable time spent with clients or potential clients.
Enough money was made in the billed hours to pay for the off-meter stuff
Lawyers used to bill their clients for everything, including the paper drafts were printed on. When the state bar associations and clients clamped down on these practices in the late 1990s, billing rates started going up, and kept going up when firms realized that clients were willing to pay.
I don't think your point about the AMA is entirely accurate; I know people that have been practicing medicine for 40 years and they would disagree about the increase in hours per week; in fact, residents now have a cap on the number of hours per week they can work, something that didn't exist in the past.
A bigger problem with the AMA is that it's made up almost entirely of academics and yet wields a massive amount of power over the government's decisions regarding clinical practice.
The thing you might not realize is that in order to maintain board certification, doctors HAVE to read periodicals and go to conferences. There's a continuing education requirement so that they stay current.
"A bigger problem with the AMA is that it's made up almost entirely of academics" followed by "There's a continuing education requirement so that they stay current."
Which is the the fox guarding the hen house. The academics controlling the AMA guarantee their own paychecks. And as you said this, academics controlling the AMA, is the bigger problem. It leads to a huge conflict of interests.
Where did you get that idea? I grew up in a family of doctors. If they aren't seeing patients, they aren't billing. They go to school an unthinkably long number of years and then they're put into a sleep depravation nightmare called "interning" for years before they get to have a career that normally includes "on call time" where they're woken up at all hours of the night to go save someone's life.
Sitting around reading journals is what they do on their off time. Everything in your analogy is wrong.