New study - physician happiness

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souperjim14

souperjim14

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souperjim14 said:
New study says that physicians in geriatrics and pediatric emergency medicine are happiest, neurosurgery ranks last.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-tc-nw-happy-doctors-1126-112nov27,0,5121121.story
Click to expand...

Not surprised by pediatrics EM. Pediatricians in general seem rather jolly. EM even more so perhaps because compared to, say, pediatric oncology, it's not quite as depressing.

But geriatrics is kinda surprising, don't you think? You develop relationships with patients and then they pass away...

Neurosurg is another surprise: it's one of the most competitive specialties to get into, yet they are the least satisfied.
 
ishchayill said:
Neurosurg is another surprise: it's one of the most competitive specialties to get into, yet they are the least satisfied.
Click to expand...
It's competitive due to its prestige. The lifestyle sucks though.
 
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Well if I spent all day worrying about the guy with a herniating brain injury or how to pay this months massive insurance bill, i might be less happy too. On a side note, I wonder where pathologists rank into that study?
 
ishchayill said:
Not surprised by pediatrics EM. Pediatricians in general seem rather jolly. EM even more so perhaps because compared to, say, pediatric oncology, it's not quite as depressing.

But geriatrics is kinda surprising, don't you think? You develop relationships with patients and then they pass away...

Neurosurg is another surprise: it's one of the most competitive specialties to get into, yet they are the least satisfied.
Click to expand...

It might seem surprising at first, but I think part of the reason geriatric physicians are the happiest may be partly due to self-selection--there just aren't too many reasons to go into geriatrics if you don't love the field. Neurosurgery on the other hand, has a lot of prestige, good pay, and is generally seen as the "toughest" specialty; a lot of the super-competetive types like to do things just because they're the hardest.

Most physicians practice medicine for 30/40 years or so, and eventually money and prestige loses its appeal. But if you love what you do, and the people you work with, then you'll be happy through old age. :)
 
txprodigal said:
Here's the original paper.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/9/166

Here's their table for happiness by specialty.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/9/166/table/T5
Click to expand...

Beat me to it -- I didn't read all the way to the end of the thread and was just about to post the same.

Not to thread hijack, but am I the only person who actually looks forward to the workaholic lifestyle? I guess I've always had my work as the most important thing in my life, and since I don't intend to have a family, I see that trend continuing. How many hours a week do you see yourself working in the future?
 
I quite surprised to see cardiologists ranked highly. I thought the lifestyle was miserable(midnight calls and weekends)?
 
job_statisfaction.gif


This study on physician satisfaction across specialties is also interesting. Here is the whole thing if you want to read it http://www.semmelweis.org/ref/8c2.pdf
 
ishchayill said:
Not surprised by pediatrics EM. Pediatricians in general seem rather jolly. EM even more so perhaps because compared to, say, pediatric oncology, it's not quite as depressing.

But geriatrics is kinda surprising, don't you think? You develop relationships with patients and then they pass away...

Neurosurg is another surprise: it's one of the most competitive specialties to get into, yet they are the least satisfied.
Click to expand...


i volunteered in cardiac rehabilitaion section of the hospital and most of the patients were old people. and i loved it because old people are so happy it makes me silly for stressing the small stuff. Especially when they start telling you stories of their youth and asking you about your love life
 
I wish they included Radiology and Anesthesiology.
 
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Interestingly, if you look outside the top two, No. 3-6 are also pediatric-y things: "other pediatric subspecialty," "neonatal and perinatal medicine," "IM and pediatrics," "pediatrics."

This doesn't really surprise me that much; the leader of my PBL class is a geriatrician, and he's one of the most satisfied people with his place in life I've ever met. He describes his work as "helping people write the last chapter in their life with dignity." Similarly, a neonatologist I've spoken to said that all the people that are unhappy with medicine should come see all of the pediatricians with happy families and strong marriages on the pediatric floor. As for what it is about these specialties that makes them "happier" than others, who can say, but my experience has definitely been that people in these specialties are very content with their place in life relative to some other specialties.
 
casillas said:
i volunteered in cardiac rehabilitaion section of the hospital and most of the patients were old people. and i loved it because old people are so happy it makes me silly for stressing the small stuff. Especially when they start telling you stories of their youth and asking you about your love life
Click to expand...

+1... I work in derm and it's the older patients that makes work worth going to. The middle age group just adds to the stress level.
 
I shadowed an emergency medicine physician who was originally a neurosurgeon but hated it, so I'm not surprised by neurosurgery being ranked low.
 
Am I the only one who's worried about the small sample sizes?

The 95% confidence intervals are like... "0.150 to 0.667" and "-0.529 to 0.370." By the way, why do some of these confidence intervals not include the mean?! Ie: Dermatology's mean is 0.55 and the confidence interval is from 0.144 to 0.480.

Also:
White non-Hispanic
4850
73.6
0.30

African-American non-Hispanic
275
4.2
0.13
I can see why this would be considered not "statistically significant," but there does seem to be a clear difference between these scores.
 
Last edited:
I'm honestly not surprised in the least bit by this study, and it's a bit refreshing to finally hear.
 
ishchayill said:
But geriatrics is kinda surprising, don't you think? You develop relationships with patients and then they pass away...
Click to expand...

I think geriatrics starts at 65. The average US life expectancy is ~78. While it may seem crude, having an older person pass is more tolerable than a 4 yr old who had a rare cancer, birth defect, or worse, a 5 month old who died from shaken baby syndrome. Geriatric patients have lived a full-ish life.

I shadowed a geriatrician who worked in a nursing home. A lot of the patients had dementia, alzheimers, stroke, or something else that affected their cognition to the extent that they did not understand what was wrong with them. A lot of the patients who were mentally comprimised were happy. I think it's almost a good thing they don't realize what is wrong with them. They spend their days living, versus worrying/what ifs.
 
I've heard neurosurgery can be interesting, but way less than rewarding. I've heard they're often massively understaffed and have to work crazy hours... but this might be true for a lot of surgeons. A neurosurgeon I shadowed told me he loves how he can do several different procedures (spinal cord work, wrist work, ... (anywhere there are neurons)), but that his job gets really depressing when he has to move from case to case of especially risky, low success rate brain surgery, trying to remove malignant tumors but knowing that the patient will almost definitely leave the hospital really messed up mentally.
 
randombetch said:
Am I the only one who's worried about the small sample sizes?

The 95% confidence intervals are like... "0.150 to 0.667" and "-0.529 to 0.370." By the way, why do some of these confidence intervals not include the mean?! Ie: Dermatology's mean is 0.55 and the confidence interval is from 0.144 to 0.480.

Also:
White non-Hispanic
4850
73.6
0.30

African-American non-Hispanic
275
4.2
0.13
I can see why this would be considered not "statistically significant," but there does seem to be a clear difference between these scores.
Click to expand...

Are we reading the same paper? Where did you get those numbers? (which table or page in the text?)
 
LizzyM said:
Are we reading the same paper? Where did you get those numbers? (which table or page in the text?)
Click to expand...

Oops, I was comparing the "mean satisfaction score" with the confidence intervals instead of the regression coefficient. The confidence intervals are still huge though...

As for the white vs African American satisfaction comparison, I was looking at this table:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/9/166/table/T1
 
I don't think this study can really say that these two specialties bring the most happiness to doctors. How happy and content with life were these people before they chose to go into pediatrics and geriatrics. Maybe they were already mellow and easy going people to begin with. Then again, dealing with silly kids (with a few bratty ones in there :laugh:) and generally content older adults (with a few grumpy one in there :laugh:) would be very relaxing and non-stressful.
 
randombetch said:
Oops, I was comparing the "mean satisfaction score" with the confidence intervals instead of the regression coefficient. The confidence intervals are still huge though...

As for the white vs African American satisfaction comparison, I was looking at this table:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/9/166/table/T1
Click to expand...

It is statistically significant when considering all 5 race groups. Do note that 74% of the sample was white,non-hispanic.
 
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