Totally bored with hospital medicine

[tantacles]

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I feel like I'm not working towards anything special now that residency is over, and my job is honestly pretty darn easy. I'm not depressed about my life overall, but medicine itself is pretty dank. You mean I spent 8 years in training just so I could stop the ED from administering too much antibiotic and start telemetry for little old ladies who got dehydrated?

Thank god for hobbies.

 

[gutonc]

Work to live, don't live to work.

Medicine really is just a job. If you can find one you don't hate, that's a bonus, but either way it pays pretty well.

 

[tantacles]

Work to live, don't live to work.

Medicine really is just a job. If you can find one you don't hate, that's a bonus, but either way it pays pretty well.

I work 6 days per month locums and that's it! I took this advice as soon as it was possible.

 

[DrMetal]

You mean I spent 8 years in training just so I could stop the ED from administering too much antibiotic and start telemetry for little old ladies who got dehydrated?

You actually spent about 12 years: 4 years of pre-med (I count college, b/c we all busted ourselves as premeds, we did not have the normal college experience) + 4 years of med school + 3y years of training.

and now you can also dispo a meth-head to a SNF, who will bounce back in 2 weeks.

Get hobbies. Golf is a great one. The Masters was awesome this weekend. I'm sure one of my patients died b/c I wasn't paying attention, but Rory was on fire!

 

[Splenda88]

I feel like I'm not working towards anything special now that residency is over, and my job is honestly pretty darn easy. I'm not depressed about my life overall, but medicine itself is pretty dank. You mean I spent 8 years in training just so I could stop the ED from administering too much antibiotic and start telemetry for little old ladies who got dehydrated?

Thank god for hobbies.

Is that a bad thing?

 

[tantacles]

Is that a bad thing?

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I'm just complaining about being bored. It's not that serious. I count my blessings financially.

 

[anonperson]

I'm just complaining about being bored. It's not that serious. I count my blessings financially.

Boring is good.

Means predictable which is just fine in medicine.

When I do a boring hysterectomy, I'm thrilled.

Then I can go focus on other things like gardening and my lawn.

 

[shouldigomd]

I am a cardiologist a couple years out of training and I often feel the same way but like others say... appreciate the "boredom". The "thrills" of medicine typically comes with all the baggage as well. Todays healthcare it just isn't worth it imo.

 

[gutonc]

Boring is good.

Means predictable which is just fine in medicine.

When I do a boring hysterectomy, I'm thrilled.

Then I can go focus on other things like gardening and my lawn.

As a trainee and early in my career, I despised the "boring" cases. The mild anemias, MGUS, Stage IA breast cancer, etc. Nowadays, I see my schedule stacked with those cases and I'm like "F*** Yeah! I'm getting out of here early today!".

 

[tantacles]

Honestly, I think I'm just grappling hard with the stark contrast between the initial elation I felt getting into medical school and the dank, repetitive, and boring hole that the actual practice of hospital medicine is.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

I think much of the enjoyment in medicine comes from what you make of it. My career has been 1/2 primary care (15 years) and 1/2 hospital medicine (almost another 15). Primary care was mostly telling people that their minor problems were minor and nothing to worry about. Most of hospital medicine is managing the same 10 problems in one way or another, often with an icing layer of unfixable social / financial problems. The number of rare diseases, cool catches, or mindblowing unexpected findings has been very small.

What I find brings me joy is talking to people. Hearing their stories. Empathizing with their problems. Explaining things to them in a way they can understand. Being told that I'm "the only person who took the time to talk to them".

 

[DrMetal]

Only jobs I found to be enjoyable and exhilarating were scientific research (constantly thinking about and chasing new problems) and teaching (I used to teach chemistry, at a junior college level).

But even those jobs became 'work' and had their fair share of problems. Most notably, the pay was crap! Sad that we don't pay better those who make and teach, but that's the way it is.

I'm not saying I chose medicine for the money or lifestyle but . . . wait a minute, that's exactly what I'm saying.

 

[Splenda88]

Only jobs I found to be enjoyable and exhilarating were scientific research (constantly thinking about and chasing new problems) and teaching (I used to teach chemistry, at a junior college level).

But even those jobs became 'work' and had their fair share of problems. Most notably, the pay was crap! Sad that we don't pay better those who make and teach, but that's the way it is.

I'm not saying I chose medicine for the money or lifestyle but . . . wait a minute, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Lol...

 

[dozitgetchahi]

As a trainee and early in my career, I despised the "boring" cases. The mild anemias, MGUS, Stage IA breast cancer, etc. Nowadays, I see my schedule stacked with those cases and I'm like "F*** Yeah! I'm getting out of here early today!".

Exactly.

Look, bread and butter is great. As a rheumatologist, I’d be thrilled to have a full gout or osteoporosis clinic. I had a mentor in residency who said “you can’t really be a rheumatologist unless you enjoy a good case of gout”, and now I know exactly what they meant by that. It’s straightforward, you can actually help someone, and pts are grateful for you fixing them up. Win/win.

Now I still do like tackling complex cases to get my brain working, but with the volumes you generally have to see in the community, too many of those cases can get overwhelming.

Honestly, I think I'm just grappling hard with the stark contrast between the initial elation I felt getting into medical school and the dank, repetitive, and boring hole that the actual practice of hospital medicine is.

When we start medical school, everything is new and fresh and thrilling. There’s a lot of competition going on, too, which ups the ante for a lot of folks. And I think some young doctors envision their entire career as being this swashbuckling adventure where you puff up your chest every day like William Osler, swing your balls, make brilliant diagnoses and solve everyone’s problems perfectly every time. (And I think academic docs are, at least in part, people who couldn’t let that fantasy go and/or still identify with it.)

But this isn’t how medicine is - and more importantly, it’s not actually how you’d want it to be. Everything eventually becomes a job - with ups and downs and varying degrees of obligation, health insurance and a certain amount of pay for what you do. (And as pointed out above, academic medicine sucks because the pay isn’t nearly what it should be.)

Get a good job that pays you well for what you do. Go to work, do a good job, and then focus on everything else. Hobbies, your family, that thing called life.