During my neurosurgery elective, I've had doctors say, "Everyone wants to do crani's, until they realize there's not enough volume to 'keep the lights on'", with regard to why he decided to pursue a spinal fellowship, due to better reimbursement and volume. Another said, "You better be prepared for 18 hour days for the rest of your life, and missing most of your family events, because that's what you're getting into if you decide you want to go down this road".
I think that statement's false about... yes, if you work in private practice, get ready to do >75% spine; but if you are at an academic institution, you'd still be previed to a bunch of crani cases, albeit mostly trauma and tumor. While tumors tend to be more do it at your own time, or scheduled.... trauma would tend to involve long hour calls that most residency grads dread once done with residency.
And also, 18hr days for the rest of your lives? common! that's also not accurate, if you work in a region where you are the only surgeon with 500miles, then it's a possibility. Or you work in a PP setting where everybody who complains with back pain get's fusion w/o you taking any sort of H&P... then you can spend 20hrs per day in the office... for most graduating physicians that I know - this is not true; but you are right, Neurosurgeons do work very hard.
But looking at what you said earlier... there's not enough crani case to go around, but then be prepared to work 18hrs/day... doing what twiddling your thumb?
I usually add: I'm a 3rd yr med student, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I'm wondering to what extent the general SDN neurosurgery populous thinks these statements are true? Personally, I'm located at a community hospital that serves quite a large area of the state. With that said, I still see some of the physician's put in ~10-12 hour days 5 days a week, which doesn't seem too bad. Is there more behind the scenes work that's done at home or is the second physician being cynical?
thanks for the feedback!
I think regardless of type of physician it is... most physicians (except for a few) put in about 60hrs a week..... incomes are mostly driven by RVU, or how much work you put in... so an anesthesiologist working 100hrs/wk will still pull in high six figures, while a neurosurgeon working 50hrs (yes some do, but jobs are rare for this type) a wk would a lil less than the anesthesiology. To pull in the high six figure as a neurosurg, you'd have to pull in a lot more spine cases and work like crazy - which is natural for a lot of neurosurgery types. On the other hand, from what I've gathered, academics neurosurgs tend to make some where in the 400k - 500k range and tend to work about 80hrs/wk. I personally know one who pulls in over 800k and definitely works less than 80hrs/wk - but he's one of the best in his particular aspect of neurosurg.
