It isn’t a lucrative and respected career everywhere, by any means. Most of Europe (and for that matter most of the world), it’s a job that requires a lot of education, but if a doc works for many of the government-run health systems, the amount you are paid is based on the government scale of salaries. The US is sort of the exception to the rule, but even then, there are plenty of doctors in rural or poor economic areas that don’t (and can’t) pay a good salary to the local doctors. If you go to many small towns in Mississippi, Alabama, and other less wealthy states, you will see plenty of doctors of Asian, Indian, or African background who have come to the US for med school (or to find a job) but can only find lower paying positions in poorer areas.