LOS ANGELES — Garbed in laboratory coats with stethoscopes dangling from their necks, about a dozen doctors Thursday marched outside County-USC Medical Center protesting their startling salaries of $10,000.
The doctors are podiatrists doing their one-year residencies at the medical center under a program with the California College of Podiatry in San Francisco. As such, they can be paid a stipend of $10,000, which on an hourly basis amounts to less than the minimum wage.
"It's just scandalous," said Gary Guthman of the Joint Council of Interns and Residents, which represents all non-attending doctors in the county's health system except the podiatry residents. "You just cannot accept having this kind of wage paid for anyone working on full-time patient care."
The college says it cannot afford to pay the residents more, and the county so far has been unwilling to take them onto its payroll, citing a lingering deficit in the health department and a perpetual shortage of funds.
But union officials are seeking to represent the residents and hope to boost their salaries in the future.
