Does anyone have any idea if this would be similar to becoming a doctor in Canada? My girlfriend is doing her undergrad and plans to do med school, I'm not sure if I should show her this article or not... If this really only pertains to becoming a doctor in the USA, then there isn't a point in shower her this. Any advice/info is appreciated :)

That post should go straight to the top.

This is also why residents have to suffer ridiculous hours. With the severe limitations on the number of people who can become doctors, the profession is characterized by an extreme workload.

It's seriously wrong. I, for one, would not want to be operated on by a surgeon who'd been working for 21 hours straight. Commercial pilots are limited to 40 flight hours per month, and what they do is a lot less complex than what doctors have to do.

There are commercial pilots and there are commercial pilots.

The senior staff can pretty freely pick the longest and easiest flights with the most turnover time, and thus they can enjoy eating and sleeping, and probably some shopping or exercising as well. On the other hand, if you're a young co-pilot you are likely to get the shittiest flights and the worst possible schedule, and you will probably find yourself in situations where you've flown more than your fair share of hours straight and you still have to haul one last plane home. And wake up next morning at 6am to begin a new shift.

I must say that planes have autopilot but operations don't. That might not be of much consolence, however.

So, effectively pilots are only working 1/4th of the time that I work? Or is there non-flight-time work that eats up 120 more hours a month?

There's a fair amount of non-flight work. It'd say that it averages 120 hours of work time total per month. Less than we work, but with worse hours.

If you fly international with the majors, you're in good shape. Those guys make $200k easily, but those jobs are essentially inaccessible because the people who get them never retire. The rest make very little, and work a lot harder.

What sort of non-flight work do they do? I'm honestly curious, and I don't know any professional pilots. I imagine there's paperwork to fill out before and after every flight, and maybe mandatory training...

Walking around airports, going through customs, switching planes, waiting for matinee, paperwork, hotels, etc.