Originally posted by tum
...I'm so ignorant, I don't know where to begin.
You could begin with reading previous threads. Your questions regarding hours and burnout have been discussed at length before.
Emergency Medicine is definitely different than many other specialties. No matter where you practice Internal Medicine, you're going to have your share of HTN, DM, Cardiac disease, Flu-like symptoms, etc. The same with Family Practice, and OB/Gyn (pregnancy,vaginal bleeding, STDs, and the like). However, with Emed, much of patient diversity and problem presentation has to do with where you practice--academic vs community, rural vs urban, lower east side vs upper west side, etc. Depending on what area in a city you work in, you may treat more heart attacks and blunt trauma vs more gun shot wounds and other penetrating trauma. As doctim pointed out, he didn't see any trauma while rotating for a month in the bayou of LA. Yet, if he worked at Charity in the heart of Orleans Parish, he probably would have had his share of trauma.
As for attendings regretting their decision to do emergency medicine---there are likely some. Hell, there are some in every field of medicine. Interestingly, a poll done on physician satisfaction showed that Geriactric docs were the highest satisfied physicians followed by the very close Emergency Medicine docs. Dermatologist were at the bottom. The key is to find the field that you fit best into, and not necessarily go where the money may be.
In emergency medicine you'll find many adrenaline pushies, ie they work hard, and play just as hard. I've known emed attendings in rock bands, rapp groups, ski-divers club, bartenders--they're just fun all around people. I was just at Mardi Gras this past week, and bumped into an emed resident I worked with while in NYC. So trust me, they have fun too. Because of the free time at many locations, some attendings operate their own business outside of medicine, some moonlight to make even more money, and some take their kids to Disney World. Basically, they're still people.
And honestly, I don't know how much people burnout. I do know that I have seen a lot of older physicians manning the emergency department without a care in the world...
Good luck....