I was in a similar boat. My partner is in the medical line too, and upon venturing into private practice (GP) for docs after serving the 5 years local bond, it's about 13-16k/month. Docs working in the Gov sector appear to be less handsomely paid in terms of monthly basic, but the bonuses (including sign-on bonus and other benefits like allowances) add up to a hefty amount, so total compensation for PP and G can be quite close, although i hear that things have changed for the worse for G docs. Nevertheless, hours still tend to be better in the G, for most practice areas.

That being said, local law firm salaries are a lot less than those of international law firms. After a number of years in practice, i am thinking this discrepancy may be due to hourly rates/size of deals/partners and type of work. Mid to large sized firms do have plenty of brand name clients, long hours in some firms, albeit seasonal, and fairly decent lawyers, just that clients seem to be sticky on the budget. Happy to hear anyone's thoughts on the above!

In fact, we prob know that if one were to work in a MC or US law firm as a mid level assoc (5-6 year local PQE scale/4 year international scale), the pay is likely to be (much) more than doctors in private, though longer hours.