Favorite insane speciality

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Which would you choose (to work 70+ hrs as an attending)?

  • Neurosurgery

    Votes: 32 18.9%

  • Vascular Surgery

    Votes: 3 1.8%

  • Ortho trauma Surgery

    Votes: 18 10.7%

  • Trauma Surgery (non-ortho)

    Votes: 21 12.4%

  • Cardiothoracic Surgery

    Votes: 19 11.2%

  • Transplant Surgery

    Votes: 4 2.4%

  • Critical Care IM

    Votes: 8 4.7%

  • Neonatal Medicine

    Votes: 16 9.5%

  • Spine Surgery (ortho or neuro)

    Votes: 7 4.1%

  • I wanna work 45 hrs a week

    Votes: 41 24.3%
  • Total voters
    169
Cyberdyne 101

Cyberdyne 101

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So after derailing a "family friendly" specialty thread with a vascular surgery discussion (again thanks to @mimelim), I decided to create this survey. If you had to choose a heavy duty specialty, which would it be?!
Please answer the poll and/or provide your answer below. And imagine yourself having to work at least 70+ hrs a week as an attending. Please choose among the specialities towards the top of the above graph or feel free to derail this thread by saying that you want to work 39 hrs a week after residency as a pediatric ER doctor.

OR, you can look at it this way:

"You live in a nation that is governed by a repressive totalitarian regime and the powers that be are forcing you to work 70+ hrs a week as an attending physician. But you get to choose the speciality. Which would it be?"
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It was hard to pick. Critical care is what I picked but I think Neurosurgery would have some potential too.

Really though I am ok with not working 70+ hours a week. :)
 
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Cyberdyne 101 said:
View attachment 183174 So after derailing a "family friendly" specialty thread with a vascular surgery discussion (again thanks to @mimelim), I decided to create this survey. If you had to choose a heavy duty specialty, which would it be?!
Please answer the survey and/or provide your answer below. And imagine yourself having to work at least 70+ hrs a week as an attending. Please choose among the specialities towards the top of the above graph or feel free to derail this thread by saying that you want to work 39 hrs a week after residency as a pediatric ER doctor.
Click to expand...
You realize how much 70 hours per week is, right?
 
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Why are all answer choices surgical?
 
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.
 
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Cyberdyne 101 said:
You don't know what jobs I've held. No need to be presumptuous. It's just a harmless survey.
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Not being presumptuous and it's not really necessary to know what jobs you've had. Medicine is quite different. Most attendings will tell you that if you're counting the clock, their specialty and even medicine as a career, is not for you.
 
G_Marker said:
My dad works 90 hours/week. But he's a cardiologist, not a surgeon. Are we counting 'on call'?

Personally, I am staying far away from any specialty that requires that much time commitment. Maybe I should check out the "family friendly" thread. :)
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I've met a couple of cardiologists that work a ton of hours. Some PC physicians in NYC also work a ton to keep up with the cost of living.
 
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DermViser said:
Not being presumptuous and it's not really necessary to know what jobs you've had. Medicine is quite different. Most attendings will tell you that if you're counting the clock, their specialty and even medicine as a career, is not for you.
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Who said anything about counting a clock? Please relax. It's just a harmless survey on a pre-med forum.
 
I voted in this poll in a "if I had no other choice" kinda way. I don't have any desire to work 70 hours a week. However, I think neonatology would be interesting as a speciality.
 
ciestar said:
I voted in this poll in a "if I had no other choice" kinda way. I don't have any desire to work 70 hours a week. However, I think neonatology would be interesting as a speciality.
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Yeah, that was the purpose. I was gonna start the thread by saying:
"You live in a nation governed by a totalitarian regime and the powers that be are forcing you to work 70+ hrs as an attending physician. But you get to choose the speciality. Which would it be?"
But I decided against it-lol.
 
Cyberdyne 101 said:
Yeah, that was the purpose. I was gonna start the thread by saying:
"You live in a nation governed by a totalitarian regime and the powers that be are forcing you to work 70+ hrs as an attending physician. But you get to choose the speciality. Which would it be?"
But I decided against it-lol.
Click to expand...

Haha, well, there are better ways to phrase it! :p
Glad I got the point of it though!
 
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I would work in Derm 70 hours a week ... just saying :rolleyes:
 
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Oh man...this is no fair, I'm fascinated by like half of these! Plus a few other 70+'s which didn't make the cut on here...
Basically, I don't like Neuro. Other than that, my answer to this list is just 'Yes'.
 
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mehc012 said:
Oh man...this is no fair, I'm fascinated by like half of these! Plus a few other 70+'s which didn't make the cut on here...
Basically, I don't like Neuro. Other than that, my answer to this list is just 'Yes'.
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I attempted the poll list at least 3 times. I kept losing it while I was creating this thread:confused:. Other specialities I wanted to include were:
Surgical Oncology(any field)
Cardiology (I've met a few that work insane hrs)
Good ol' General Surgery
Ob-gyn
Overworked and underpaid PCP in a city with an insanely high cost of living.

Edit: pediatric surgery as well
 
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Cyberdyne 101 said:
I attempted the poll list at least 3 times. I kept losing it while I was creating this thread:confused:. Other specialities I wanted to include were:
Surgical Oncology(any field)
Cardiology (I've met a few that work insane hrs)
Good ol' General Surgery
Ob-gyn
Overworked and underpaid PCP in a city with an insanely high cost of living.

Edit: pediatric surgery as well
Click to expand...
Pretty much all of the crazy surgical ones make me go o_O:claps:
I know I won't really know until I get there, but at the moment I can't picture not going for something procedural.
 
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mehc012 said:
Pretty much all of the crazy surgical ones make me go o_O:claps:
I know I won't really know until I get there, but at the moment I can't picture not going for something procedural.
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o_O:claps:This is the best way to describe it!
I have yet to shadow a neurosurgeon because I know it'd be like this o_Oo_O:claps::claps::claps::claps:and I'll get lured in.
 
The human nervous system is fascinating. If I were ****oo for Cocoa Puffs, I would go straight for neurosurgery. Ortho trauma surgery is a very close second.
 
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Mad Jack said:
Psychiatry, obviously.
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Psych averages close to 80 hrs/week where I'm from, but we're super underserved and they make bank (starting $250-300K - not private practice either, and low cost of living) if they can put up with the ridiculous patient load and hours.
 
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Pulm/CCM is actually at the top of my list. If you're duel boarded (pulm is most common) it's pretty reasonable to negotiate a schedule where you're only on the unit one week a month, so overall your hours aren't too bad. But you have to love what you do, the burn out rate for CCM is pretty high.
 
WillburCobb said:
Psych averages close to 80 hrs/week where I'm from, but we're super underserved and they make bank (starting $250-300K - not private practice either) if they can put up with the ridiculous patient load and hours.
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Is this at community clinics and/or academic centers?

Edit: maybe I shouldn't have used the plural to ask about academic center(s). There are multiple academic centers where I live and I sometimes forget that it's uncommon.
 
Cyberdyne 101 said:
Is this at community clinics and/or academic centers?
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Community. We still have a state psych hospital and one hospital has a psych residency associated with our state's med school. But being largely underserved creates a huge workload, so they have to offer high compensation to keep psychiatrists around.
 
As I'm sure Cyberdyne 101 would know, I would choose ortho- specifically spine. I'm glad you made this into a survey/discussion.
 
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WillburCobb said:
There's a colorectal surgeon from my home town who has "CODTTUB" for a license plate.
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My Aunt is a colorectal surgeon. Her license plate says BLKHOLE. No joke.
 
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Fetal medicine/ fetal surgery :love:
 
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Cyberdyne 101 said:
Are you referring to the graph I posted?
If so, here's the actual study:
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/data/Journals/INTEMED/22518/ilt0711_1211_1213.pdf
The numbers included direct patient care, administrative tasks, and professional duties. Not sure where on call hours fit in.
(At least for my poll, I wasn't thinking about on call hours in which you are not called in to work).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the source. I was referring to your question, yes (the 70 hrs). That seems so high if it doesn't even include call hours (where you aren't called in like you said)!
 
Fabio Lanzoni said:
Thanks for the source. I was referring to your question, yes (the 70 hrs). That seems so high if it doesn't even include call hours!
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Yes, it is high. That's why I used "insane" in the thread post haha (and also why I provided the "totalitarian regime" scenario). Aside from hypotheticals, there are physicians that work a ton of hours (as evidenced in the graph). I'm not sure what the percentages are (i.e. those that work over 60 hrs a week vs. those that work <60 hrs) but I'm curious to know. Over in the "family friendly" thread (lol) @mimelim brought up the fact that well compensated physicians such as vascular surgeons have incentive ($$) to work more. And as @WillburCobb pointed out, some locations are underserved, so even specialists like psych's may end up working a ton of hours.
Also, certain high-risk specialities such as neurosurgery (and others) are in need of ppl that are willing to work more than most. So it's great to have workaholics that are interested in these fields.
 
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WillburCobb said:
Pulm/CCM is actually at the top of my list. If you're duel boarded (pulm is most common) it's pretty reasonable to negotiate a schedule where you're only on the unit one week a month, so overall your hours aren't too bad. But you have to love what you do, the burn out rate for CCM is pretty high.
Click to expand...
Wait, so would your other weeks be outpatient or what with a schedule like that? Around here pulm/CC tends to be a 7 on/7 off hospitalist type gig with no outpatient.
 
Mad Jack said:
Wait, so would your other weeks be outpatient or what with a schedule like that? Around here pulm/CC tends to be a 7 on/7 off hospitalist type gig with no outpatient.
Click to expand...

Plum/CCM around here is 7 on, 7 off, 7 pulm clinic and inpatient consult, wash rinse repeat. Though there are some variations. Some pulm/CCMs put more time on the unit for more compensation, some are mainly clinic and cover the unit PRN or on a weekend rotation. The straight CCMs are pretty much 7 on 7 off. There are also the sleep med docs who will do a rotation of CCM, pulm, and sleep med, but there aren't too many of them around here. Depending on where interventional pulm goes (and my board scores...) right now I think a mixture of pulm/interventional pulm and CCM would definitely be my thing; but that would also put me at 39/40 as an attending...
 
Cyberdyne 101 said:
There's also a lot of trauma in neuro. Traumatic brain injury, spine trauma, etc.
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Believe it or not, the specialties listed are actually among my favorite. The only off putting part is the hours. Neuro, cardiothoracic, ortho, trauma are my top 4.
 
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WestCoastNative said:
Believe it or not, the specialties listed are actually among my favorite. The only off putting part is the hours. Neuro, cardiothoracic, ortho, trauma are my top 4.
Click to expand...
The CT surgeons where I, thankfully, used to work (god that was a soul sucking job) usually only put in 40-50 hours a week; closer to 40 though.
 
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