Interesting read. I have done similar calculation as well, as I am interested in both professions.
Just to add a bit to the thread: as Bede works for an Alberta based company, shouldn't salaries be compared to Alberta doctors, as they are the highest paid in Canada? Going off the CIHI 2006 document (
http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/products/APP_2003_e.pdf), the average Fee-For-Service Surgical Specialist in Alberta would earn $430 000. Taking into account the 30% overhead, this number would translate into about $300 000. This document is from 2006 as well, so I would assume the salaries have risen a bit since then.
What doesn't seem to taken into account, however, is the benefits of being a physician. The job is extremely stable. depending on what you do you could get amazing hours, you will be making a competitieve salary, and you get to sleep in your own bed every night. There is also the underlying benefits such as the prestige of working in a widely respected profession. Most pilots wouldn't have these aforementioned benefits .
As noted by a previous poster, the difference between a doctor and a pilot, is that the former is paid by the hour, while the latter is paid by the credit hour. For example, Surgeons are paid for when they are at the hospital, not for being in the operating room. Conversely, pilots are only paid for when they are in the air, not for when they are away from home for work. The way the numbers work, it can be very deceiving, but at the end of the year the average physician will bring home more than a pilot.
Being a part-time swim instructor, it is a very similar situation; some pools pay you less but pay for the preparation time, while others don't pay for the prep time but pay you more for the actual instructing time. In the end, you'll be making about the same either way.
Something else that hasn't been taken into account, in terms of background and requirements, is the sheer difficulty of becoming a doctor. Getting into Medical School is pretty insane nowadays. For anybody interested, this has been a very helpful website for me:
http://www.premed101.com/forums/. You can see who has gotten into where, their GPAs, MCAT, ECs, etc. That being said, you could potentially get into Medical School with 4 years undergrad, spend 4 years in medical schools, then 2 years as a resident and you'll be a licensed GP. Some people can get in with less undergrad, but that's besides the point. It takes at least 8-10 years total to become a physician, with 4-6 being formal and 4 being in the job (as the final 2 years of medical school is done as an intern, not in class).
To put it into perspective however, as an aspiring pilot, by goal is to eventually get to a major airline. I know that at a recent AC hiring, the average age of the recently employed pilots was 36. To compare that to medicine, that's about age that a Neurosurgeon can become an attending physician. The work required to become a pilot is arguable just as hard in my mind. Many pilots first get undergraduate degrees or diplomas nowadays, then head up north or wherever to pay their dues. Doctors instead go to medical school to pay their dues. Which do you think is harder: freezing your @ss off up north stuffing bags for minimum wage, or sitting in a nice warm classroom while being extremely intellectually challenged? Honestly, I think its up to the individual.
Edit: Decided to rephrase the second last sentence where I said "extremely intellectually challenged" to "being in an extremely challenging academic environment", although I left the original in there because I thought it was pretty funny after re-reading it
