a similer (sic) level of effort and intelligence required to get either job
I'm not sure I agree with that. Becoming a doctor requires a huge amount of dilligence, application, self discipline and intelligence.
Conversely, training and gaining employment as a pilot requires little other than a very large wallet, particularly nowadays. Academic qualifications are almost an irrelevance. When I see the written word from pilots, I am sometimes amazed at their inability to construct anything other than child like gobbledegook.