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[JawlessPiano]

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[srirachamayonnaise]

Is this a sh@tpost?

 

[Dantes]

Not sure about the post you're referring to but sounds like sarcasm

 

[wholeheartedly]

A while back, I remember someone asking what the most laid back residencies and specialties were. Someone, who as far as I am concerned was a physician, replied that they should look into neurosurgery. This is because they heard neurosurgery is really laid back. Last time I checked, the comment had around 20-30 likes on it. I started to figure why this could be true. Yes, it probably has a large technical element to it and might require a lot of effort while actually practicing. However, outside of this, it could come with a better lifestyle, where one is not spending time answering calls or doing other activities. I’m thinking it was more along the lines of this as to why they heard it was laid back. With all of this considered,is neurosurgery one of the more laid back residencies?

The post was liked so many times because it was sarcastic and funny.

 

[wholeheartedly]

Also, you must be really bored.

I could use some help reorganizing my kitchen…

 

[NeuResurgens]

 

[annoyedpsychiatrist]

Yeah its super laid back, your patients are usually asleep. When they're awake, you just order the MRI and ask how much improvement post surgery, and done. Sure theres a lot of difficult stuff in between but thats ok. With psychiatry I have to occasionally worry about being attack, stalked, or a combination of both.

 

[annoyedpsychiatrist]

When you say “it’s super laid back” I assume you are being sarcastic. However, the stuff in between this about post-surgery, is where I am curious. Of course, the actual training and everything may be very hard as you say “there is a lot of difficult stuff in between”, but is there at least some element of an easier or less annoying schedule?

depends on how you view the idea of surgeries that can take 5-6 hours. If youre into that, then that could be great. If youre not into that, then maybe not so great.

 

[JawlessPiano]

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[AnonymousDoctorGuyPerson]

How many days a week would one be looking at doing this, and how many hours of work outside of it? If someone did not mind the idea of doing a 5-6 hr surgery a few days a week, the idea of it being relatively laid back outside of this becomes at least somewhat feasible.

Good luck finding a job where you tell your partners you're just going to do 3-4 cases a week, and only cases that are less than 6hrs.

And while in residency youll be working 100hrs+ a week, most attendings go on to further their skills considerably. At that workload, there'd be a ton of skill atrophy.


There's an excellent post somewhere about having short days as a surgeon and ultimately it came down to skill - being able to meet the expected workload in less time because they were excellent surgeons, and you become an excellent surgeon by working your ass off.

 

[Tenk]

 

[JawlessPiano]

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[voxveritatisetlucis]

Probably only for Ivy tower neurosurgeons who don’t do neurosurgery anymore but mainly just do research, admin stuff

 

[holdthemayo]

A while back, I remember someone asking what the most laid back residencies and specialties were. Someone, who as far as I am concerned was a physician, replied that they should look into neurosurgery. This is because they heard neurosurgery is really laid back. Last time I checked, the comment had around 20-30 likes on it. I started to figure why this could be true. Yes, it probably has a large technical element to it and might require a lot of effort while actually practicing. However, outside of this, it could come with a better lifestyle, where one is not spending time answering calls or doing other activities. I’m thinking it was more along the lines of this as to why they heard it was laid back. With all of this considered,is neurosurgery one of the more laid back residencies?

Go for neurosurg. You will LOVE the lifestyle.

There are 168 hours in a week. That's 170 hours you could spend operating and still have the rest of the time to yourself!

 

[operaman]

Workload in training in particular is a combo of program size versus patient volume, acuity of disease treated, overall health of patients, and overall program culture.

Neurosurg tends to be smaller programs relative to other fields yet with a massive patient volume at most bigger centers. Many of the disease processes are incredibly acute and often require emergent intervention, and patients can be super sick. None of this bodes well for a laid back lifestyle. Everyone from tern to chief is going to be busy.

Contrast with dermatology. Often the same or more residents per year as Neurosurg. Volume can be fairly high but almost none of it is acute. Outside SJS or TEN you can triage everything to the next morning or next month in the office. 99% of patient are fairly healthy. Very very different lifestyle.

Neurosurgeons can have a more laid back practice after training if they set it up right, though even then it won’t usually be anything near derm levels of laid back.

 

[longhaul3]

Neurosurgery is the least laid back specialty by a long shot. When we are not doing surgery we are constantly answering calls. A very high percentage of our pathology is acute compared to other specialties, and the rest are things we know are not emergencies but the ED and medicine doctors do not.

Plus our average case is much longer than most and requires much more intensive periop and postop care which bogs us down even further.

 

[mrbreakfast]

Just to echo what others have said: two big factors in how the lifestyle plays out for a specialty are how acute the pathology may be within the field, and equally importantly, the perception of how acute the pathology is in the minds of other physicians (PCPs, ED docs, etc).

You are going to get calls anytime any patient with a history any neurosurgical issue comes into the ED, and patients calling you saying that their arm is tingling and asking if they should go to the hospital. Etc.

I'm a neurologist, but it's still applicable in that many people - patients as well as other healthcare workers/physicians - view the nervous system as a mystery, and people who work with the nervous system will spend a lot of their time proving that symptoms - any symptoms you can think of - are not the manifestation of a neurological emergency. It wears on you.

 

[Future_Bone_Docta]

A while back, I remember someone asking what the most laid back residencies and specialties were. Someone, who as far as I am concerned was a physician, replied that they should look into neurosurgery. This is because they heard neurosurgery is really laid back. Last time I checked, the comment had around 20-30 likes on it. I started to figure why this could be true. Yes, it probably has a large technical element to it and might require a lot of effort while actually practicing. However, outside of this, it could come with a better lifestyle, where one is not spending time answering calls or doing other activities. I’m thinking it was more along the lines of this as to why they heard it was laid back. With all of this considered,is neurosurgery one of the more laid back residencies?

there are 3,500 practicing (board certified) neurosurgeons in the US and 330,000,000 people in the US.

You do the math