Dr. Daisy Sanchez is a doctor but she is also a TikTok influencer with millions of followers.
According to an article in the Daily Dot, on December 30, 2022, Dr. Sanchez posted a video claiming that she was only making $12 per hour performing surgeries while a scrub tech (surgical technician) whose job involves setting up surgeries makes $80 per hour.
While some viewers could not believe that a doctor would only make $12 an hour, it is quite possible because Dr. Sanchez is actually a surgical resident.
Surgical residents care for patients under the guidance of a surgeon. They are doctors with medical degrees but they are in training to become surgeons.
According to Indeed, general surgery residents may make $61,000 a year. Once they finish their residency and become surgeons, the pay may be as high as $400,000. The median salary for a surgeon in the US is $208,000 in 2021.
Even with a pay that is about $60,000, Dr. Sanchez would have had to work about 98 hours a week for the pay to match $12 an hour. It is not clear if Dr. Sanchez was hinting that she was overworked as a surgical resident.
As for scrub techs making $80 an hour, this would be on the higher side as the average salary for a scrub tech is $48 per hour. And in some hospitals, the pay may be capped to even lower.
However, a TikTok viewer of Dr. Sanchez's channel also claimed that a scrub tech could make up to $90 an hour if they were a traveling tech.
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