Is Surgery an option for residents over forty years old?

[engr2dr]

I have been pondering about this over and over. I am pursing a mid career change. Starting in the medical field so late, I was wondering if there are any surgeons who took up surgery when they were around forty years old.... Or is this absolutely out of question?

Please enlighten me with your comments!

Sincerely,
bw

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[QofQuimica]

No, it is not absolutely out of the question, but it's not majorly common, either. Surgery is definitely a specialty best performed by the young - and the young at heart. Most older nontrads self-select out of surgery, both because the residency itself is physically grueling, and because it lasts 1-2 years longer than do the residencies for other common specialties like psych, peds, IM, FM, or EM. That being said, if you're a youthful 40 (in good physical shape), and you're willing and able to commit to the surgery lifestyle, your age is not an inherent barrier to you doing so.

 

[Nasrudin]

Not an inherent one, I agree. But not a realistic one either.

I'm 40. And an intern in a meat grinder medicine program. Full tilt 80 hours a week plus.

I can do it. But I'm feeling it. And I am solaced only by the notion that I can tap out in 4 and a half months and make my way to the more civilized environs of a decent psych program. Where 40-50 or so is a good week. And the day to day is itself more reasonable.

Surgery is similar hours with the physical torment of standing in one place and hunching forwards for hours and hours.

It's for the young. And in some sense the foolish at any age.

In my opinion.

 

[DarknightX]

This might answer your question:

http://www.psnextra.org/Articles/49-Year-Old-Resident.html

http://www.med.wisc.edu/news-events/49-year-old-future-physician-is-a-true-renaissance-man/26862

 

[Nasrudin]

Well...if you're that guy I guess. And you want to tie the worlds record for oldest newbie surgeon. Or something. I guess it's awesome in a I just drank a bucket of kool aid kind a way.

 

[Nasrudin]

Funny. I think the opinions on this sort of thing probably vary in the spectrum of workaholism. Some of us find doing one thing for ridiculous periods of time torture. Others find it engrossing, and wouldn't know what to do with themselves if given an abundance of free time.

So perhaps. If you're older. And like this dude, surgery appeals to you. And....stretching my imagination here...you like doing one thing incessantly way passed the point where other creatures would've thought it insane. Then...yeah...be an old @ss surgeon.

 

[Law2Doc]

1. Everything depends on your physical, not chronological age. I know 25 year old obese smokers who are too old for things like surgery. I know a few 50 year old jock/ mountain climber types who are going to be able to whip your butt in any athletic endeavor for the next decade or so, who wouldn't have any problem.
2. Some older people don't like to be bossed by 25 year olds. Surgery is much more regimented and military in structure, so you have to be able to see your senior as the boss even if s/he is half your age and only a year more experienced. This is true in all fields, but more so in surgery and for a Longer residency.
3. Sometimes if you are older the shorter residencies will be more appealing. You will hear a Lot of nontrads say, if I started at 25 I would probably have done X. You only have so many years to practice so most people like to get out there and be a doctor before they retire. Also you probably are able to practice well into your senior years in the fields where physicality and steady hands don't matter as much. You will see more 80 year old psychiatrists out there than orthopods.
4. At the end of it all, do what you enjoy. You usually don't know until 3rd year of med school when you see more things. But many people are influenced by the mentors you meet long the way and the various personalities each specialty has. No specialty is off the table, but doubtful you really know what each specialty entails until you get there.

 

[Nasrudin]

1. Everything depends on your physical, not chronological age. I know 25 year old obese smokers who are too old for things like surgery. I know a few 50 year old jock/ mountain climber types who are going to be able to whip your butt in any athletic endeavor for the next decade or so, who wouldn't have any problem.
2. Some older people don't like to be bossed by 25 year olds. Surgery is much more regimented and military in structure, so you have to be able to see your senior as the boss even if s/he is half your age and only a year more experienced. This is true in all fields, but more so in surgery and for a Longer residency.
3. Sometimes if you are older the shorter residencies will be more appealing. You will hear a Lot of nontrads say, if I started at 25 I would probably have done X. You only have so many years to practice so most people like to get out there and be a doctor before they retire. Also you probably are able to practice well into your senior years in the fields where physicality and steady ands don't matter as much. You will see more 80 year old psychiatrists out there than orthopods.
4. At the end of it all, do what you enjoy. You usually don't know until 3rd year of med school when you see more things. But mny people are influenced by the mentors you meet long the way and the various personalities each specialty has. No specialty is off the table, but doubtful you really know what each specialty entails until you get there.

Great points. All of them were and are true for me. Except that I don't have a problem with having a boss half my age. Medicine is a scary steep learning curve. I'm not even conscious of my age when facing what comes. I'm too worried about what I don't know to notice. If the teenaged looking kid knows what to do, s/he's the boss.

But the some total is where I notice it. At the end of the days and getting up for them. And you're so right. It's not the age it's the mileage. And the individual make of the creature that can withstand them to varying degrees.

But for an old premed deciding whether to do medicine based on what they imagine about a field like surgery is a proposition that is dangerously superimposing fantasy on a harsh reality.

Which is the source of my grump about the vague starry eyed extrapolations of those stories about that one guy on that thing, type of thing.

 

[Nasrudin]

Let me just go full neurotic with my domination of this thread with this additional image:

I've been a 40 year old intern for almost 2 months. I've lost 25 pounds. Because from go while most of you sleep I'm running and stressing to keep up. I don't even remember to eat. I inhale something quick in the afternoon. And keep going until dark and then some on call days. I used to have a little gray hair in my beard only. Now my hair is frosting with gray.

Dog years people. Forget what you heard. Dog years.

 

[jakeislove]

Let me just go full neurotic with my domination of this thread with this additional image:

I've been a 40 year old intern for almost 2 months. I've lost 25 pounds. Because from go while most of you sleep I'm running and stressing to keep up. I don't even remember to eat. I inhale something quick in the afternoon. And keep going until dark and then some on call days. I used to have a little gray hair in my beard only. Now my hair is frosting with gray.

Dog years people. Forget what you heard. Dog years.

How will things change after intern year?

 

[Law2Doc]

How will things change after intern year?

You have someone beneath you carrying the pager and running around trying to handle things if they can. If you have good interns working under you might actually get a few more hours of sleep at night.

Nurses have nothing to lose paging an intern at 3 am to come look at a patient or put in some non urgent order. The intern acts as the filter for those calls.

 

[jakeislove]

Thanks L2D!

 

[Nasrudin]

How will things change after intern year?

Well for me it's a new ball game. If you're in for the full business in a hardworking medicine program or surgery it can be even more demanding second year and onwards. More responsibility. If your intern misses something and you don't catch it, you don't have the luxury of blaming someone. So if each of your interns have ten patients like me, you have 20, and so on.

L2d could elaborate but my sense of it is that it doesn't get easier for residents in my program except as theey go forward they have less floor time and more electives and clinic. But the seniors do floors and something worse that involves controlling all the admits of the hospital and managing an observation unit simultaneously.

It's one thing to grind out a few busy rotations in third year but it's another to do it for months and months on end.

I only have to make it 6 months of this crap and I'm on to a more humane existence. With way less stress.

Specialty choice matters. In your 20's you can look at 5 years of this and think about what you'll do with your life when you're done. In your 40's you think about how much time you have left here period.

 

[Law2Doc]

... In your 20's you can look at 5 years of this and think about what you'll do with your life when you're done. In your 40's you think about how much time you have left here period.

Meh, there are worse ways to play out your hand than working on the wards. Everybody goes sometime, but if you spend what you've got left doing something you enjoy, you're a winner. There is no "what to do with your life after" but so what.

 

[Nasrudin]

Meh, there are worse ways to play out your hand than working on the wards. Everybody goes sometime, but if you spend what you've got left doing something you enjoy, you're a winner. There is no "what to do with your life after" but so what.

Medicine wards are total **** to me. So there's the difference between us, I suppose. To each their own.

 

[engr2dr]

This might answer your question:

http://www.psnextra.org/Articles/49-Year-Old-Resident.html

http://www.med.wisc.edu/news-events/49-year-old-future-physician-is-a-true-renaissance-man/26862

Awesome article! Thanks a lot DarknightX!!!

 

[engr2dr]

Let me just go full neurotic with my domination of this thread with this additional image:

I've been a 40 year old intern for almost 2 months. I've lost 25 pounds. Because from go while most of you sleep I'm running and stressing to keep up. I don't even remember to eat. I inhale something quick in the afternoon. And keep going until dark and then some on call days. I used to have a little gray hair in my beard only. Now my hair is frosting with gray.

Dog years people. Forget what you heard. Dog years.

Oh come on Nasrudin! You are looking towards bright happy days ahead of you and living your dreams!!!
I'm sorry for being the inexperienced optimist but medicine still sounds charming inspite your bickering (with all due respect).

 

[Nasrudin]

Oh come on Nasrudin! You are looking towards bright happy days ahead of you and living your dreams!!!
I'm sorry for being the inexperienced optimist but medicine still sounds charming inspite your bickering (with all due respect).

You used charming. And medicine. In the same sentence.

May it please the court, the defense rests.

 

[jl lin]

May it please the court. . .such BS. Whatever. Bicker and bitch. It matters not to me; but then again, I'm someone who doesn't give a **** about what they can't control. Sucky aspects of life is just life--just like sucky aspects of any field or specialization. Face the suck and move forward. Otherwise it's lame BS.

 

[Nasrudin]

Neither of you know anything about what is to come. If you get there we can talk about what it was worth. Until then, there's not a whole lot to discuss. Outside of being charmed. Or chasing dreams, or whathaveyou.

I'm not one to argue about Santa Clause.

Except when I am. Occasionally.