OK. Final go-around and we're done.
It is misleading to say that doctor's work is somehow more important than other fields, it is like comparing apples and oranges.
This is the central misunderstanding. NO ONE IS SAYING THAT DOCTORS' WORK IS MORE IMPORTANT. That's a subjective value judgment. What we are saying is that doctors often FEEL THEIR WORK HAS INTRINSIC VALUE (another subjective value judgment)-- and, as Doowai excellently pointed out, that many doctors subsequently become disillusioned and decide that their work does not, in fact, have intrinsic value, but instead is "like any other job." This provokes a crisis of identity as illustrated by the original poster in this thread.
People in other jobs often (but not always! No generalizations here!) FEEL THEIR WORK HAS INSTRUMENTAL VALUE ONLY. The OP has come to feel this way about anesthesia. However, they do not feel that their work is
unimportant. They do not become
disillusioned (as Doowai said) because they never held
illusions of intrinsic worth. But they still have pride in doing a good job, faith that their work is important to the proper functioning of society, and technical, difficult-to-acquire skills and expertise not shared by the rest of the population.
Bottom line: no subjective, moral judgements here of relative importance. None. Just talking about the general perception that doctors feel their work is intrinsically valuable (i.e. "a calling") in a way many other jobs are not.
So who is doing more instrinsically valuable work the below-average plastic surgeon or the business executive who runs the business well to provide healthcare for all his workers and donates to charity?
Here you are describing the instrumental value of money, which is irrelevant.
We have all seen poor attendings and medical students who are focused on their bottom-line or who don't take the time to listen to patients or don't stay current with the literature or are just plain bad physicians. I am sure they feel they are doing "instrinsically important" work, but are actually not doing as good a job as someone else would be able to do in their shoes.
Here you are describing people who are doing work deemed intrinsically valuable, but not doing it maximally well. Are you arguing that doing sub-par, intrinsically valuable work somehow negates its value? I don't see the connection, myself.
But I know people in these fields and they are overall nice people.
Yes, they are nice people. Which is a subjective character judgment that has no bearing on the
instrinsic value of their work, which is what is being debated here.
Most lawyers aren't making millions of dollars a year, many do rather mundane work, which is however essential to the running of a democratic society believe it or not.
Remuneration is not relevant to the
intrinsic value of one's work. It is practically the definition of the
instrumental value, however.
Being rich does not mean one's work is less valuable and purely instrumental, or vice versa. Being non-rich does not mean one is more noble, or less important, or more valuable, or less anything. Intrinsic and instrumental value are completely separate concepts.
And I do indeed believe that justice is, in fact, important. I'm quite happy that contracts are enforcable, tax loopholes are closed, etc.
However, even though I wouldn't want to become a business person, I realize that generalizing and saying that most/all business people worship money is a misleading generalization.
Now I'm getting irritated. I did not say "all," or "most," business people worship money. I said I dislike those who do, but I did not claim to know the percentage of all people thus employed are venal to an off-putting degree.
Innovations invested in by business people make our present day conveniences a reality.
Here you are describing capitalism. Hooray, capitalism! Instrumental value for all!
I think that working internationally doing plastic surgery work has value and I didn't mean to denigrate that hope to do that work. Just that modern global health workers do more than parachute into a country to provide medical care, but actually economists and business people are doing a lot to help developing countries, maybe even more than doctors without borders and similar relief organizations could do.
I completely agree. This is a great point that I hope many MDs intersted overseas work take to heart. Which is why I hope to use my "MD toolbox" in terms of plastic surgery, and my "global health toolbox" in terms of addressing underlying health disparities, making long-term investments into health infrastructure, tranferring technology, knowledge, techniques, expertise, etc.
You are exactly right, the difference is between pre- and post- assessment of the value of one's job. People go into civil service (police, fire, teaching, etc) because they are passionate about the work. People sell insurance, tar roads and sweep floors because it puts food on the table. The real question is, why is it that physicians tend to be the ones who lose that "passion?" 
