Medscape Article about doctors regretting their choice of specialty

[WEBB PINKERTON]

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/737531

A section from the article:

More than a few doctors regretted their choice of specialty; pathologists in particular seemed most likely to want a do-over.

"I regret pathology/laboratory medicine training because of the bad, bad job market for the field.... This bad job market was never pointed out to residents. It should have been," one pathologist lamented.

A colleague concurred: "I went into pathology because I love the science part (and no, I'm not a social idiot either, like many people think pathologists are).... The program turned out to be a disappointment.... Some nights I lie awake wondering how much longer I'll even have a job, with the future of healthcare so uncertain."

Another pathologist agreed and even had an idea of the route that should have been followed: "What would I do? Retool to be an internist, try to get a job in areas lacking medical care."

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[Johnny Sunshine]

Eh, grass is always greener.

Although patient care has some fun aspects, there is too little contact with the science to keep me satisfied, and there is much more paperwork and logistic nightmares. No re-training for me, thanks.

 

[jp123ok]

Pathology for all its faults still offers one of the best lifestyles in medicine with a very good salary and a challenging and interesting work environment. If pathology had not been an option for me then the only other medical specialty that I would have considered is EM. Failing that, I would not have wanted to be a physician.

As a dermpath fellow I attend derm clinic everyday and see what kind of lifestyle the derm residents and attendings "enjoy". This experience has been quite sobering. Derm is probably the most sought after specialty in medicine and yet the lifestyle absolutely sucks, both for the residents and for the attendings. When you think that most people want to do derm because of how much better the lifestyle and salary are as compared to most other medical specialties, it is pretty clear just how great things are for pathologists in this regard.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/737531"

I really don't understand why people feel compelled to incessantly post negative comments about pathology on this forum. If you are unhappy with your chosen career, go find some other way to earn a living and for goodness sake stop posting on this forum!.

 

[pathstudent]

Eh, grass is always greener.

Although patient care has some fun aspects, there is too little contact with the science to keep me satisfied, and there is much more paperwork and logistic nightmares. No re-training for me, thanks.

That's hardly true. Where I did residency, we had one of the top young sarcoma surgeons in the world and he would do like 20 complex surgeries a week and ran a molecular research lab on top of it. He was an amazing individual. He worked 20 hours a day, plus he had the hottest wife I have ever seen and he still had time to go to his kids games when they made it to the little league World Series. Pure winner.

 

[Euchromatin]

He worked 20 hours a day, plus he had the hottest wife I have ever seen and he still had time to go to his kids games when they made it to the little league World Series. Pure winner.

This sentence made no sense at all to me. How does he have time to regularly go to his kids sporting events (I guess his kids only get his attention if they make it to a national championship?) or spend time with his super-hot wife if he is working 20 HOURS A DAY?!? I found surgery really fascinating (and got honors in my rotations, was told I'd be a great surgeon, yadda, yadda) but there was no way I would be happy working the hours required as a surgery resident OR attending.

 

[KLPM]

This sentence made no sense at all to me. How does he have time to regularly go to his kids sporting events (I guess his kids only get his attention if they make it to a national championship?) or spend time with his super-hot wife if he is working 20 HOURS A DAY?!? I found surgery really fascinating (and got honors in my rotations, was told I'd be a great surgeon, yadda, yadda) but there was no way I would be happy working the hours required as a surgery resident OR attending.

Easy. Sims (or some variation of virtual worlds).

 

[icpshootyz]

As a dermpath fellow I attend derm clinic everyday and see what kind of lifestyle the derm residents and attendings "enjoy". This experience has been quite sobering. Derm is probably the most sought after specialty in medicine and yet the lifestyle absolutely sucks, both for the residents and for the attendings.

Hmm. Where I did my dermpath fellowship the derm residents didn't even work 40hrs a week, INCLUDING their "reading" mornings and other time off from clinical activities. They actually calculated once and they averaged 29hrs/week of actual work. All of the dermatologists I know do clinic 3-4 days a week, usually having at least 3 full days off every week. I don't know where you went, but every dermatologist I know has a fantastic lifestyle, certainly better than most pathologists. Not to mention they get a good amount of non-insurance cosmetic business that drastically increases their pay. Many open med-spas and rake in the money doing botox and laser treatments. Once you get out of academic dermatology you'll see how crazy good they have it.

 

[MOHS_01]

Hmm. Where I did my dermpath fellowship the derm residents didn't even work 40hrs a week, INCLUDING their "reading" mornings and other time off from clinical activities. They actually calculated once and they averaged 29hrs/week of actual work. All of the dermatologists I know do clinic 3-4 days a week, usually having at least 3 full days off every week. I don't know where you went, but every dermatologist I know has a fantastic lifestyle, certainly better than most pathologists. Not to mention they get a good amount of non-insurance cosmetic business that drastically increases their pay. Many open med-spas and rake in the money doing botox and laser treatments. Once you get out of academic dermatology you'll see how crazy good they have it.

Man, I don't know... where do your people practice? TX? Granted, I do not do much general dermatology these days -- but I promise you that the grass you're painting is much greener than that which I was familiar with... or any of my friends enjoy now. The margin on cosmetic procedures is lower than what people believe... and the technological half life of most lasers / machines is on the order of 18 months -- leaving a very narrow window within which to recoup your investment. Three busy clinical days, if that's all the patient care work they're doing, would be lucky to provide for better than a 40% margin. LUCKY. That's one of the things many don't understand -- the majority of the costs are not terribly variable in nature... and your margin does not improve until later in the curve.

Maybe we all are just doing it wrong.

 

[icpshootyz]

I'm in the Boston area. Out of all the derms/Mohs/etc that send to me, not one of them has clinic/surgery days 5 days a week. All of them are in either individual or small 2-5 person private practices. Maybe they are just doing something right, but they seem to be doing things very right.

 

[MOHS_01]

I'm in the Boston area. Out of all the derms/Mohs/etc that send to me, not one of them has clinic/surgery days 5 days a week. All of them are in either individual or small 2-5 person private practices. Maybe they are just doing something right, but they seem to be doing things very right.

Wow. Could be. It would be interesting to know where they fall in the distribution for MGMA benchmarks. I keep in touch with several now as, over the years, I am/was the attending who gave the business side talks and advice for the program I remain affiliated with. Most of them are scattered regionally throughout the southeast with a few ranging from CA to CO to just outside of DC; maybe my guys are just greedier, IDK.

It does not help much that the southeast has a high percentage of government payer mix and a low geographic adjustment..

I work 5d/week, take off early on Fridays randomly (mostly Jan-Mar when people refuse to pay their bills anyway)... and, FWIW, most of the guys I know see patients 4.5-6 days a week - several pull Saturday mornings. (F that lol)