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Can they have 3months vacations? And can they have a lab completely unrelated to surgery (i.e. cell biology)?
Academic Surgeons
- Thread starter birkenbeiner
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135892
I don't know what you mean by "unrelated", but they can certainly run a basic science lab, if that's what you're getting at.
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This guy reminds me of testingpig, the poster from Eastern Europe who popped up here recently. He wanted to make a lot of money (!) as an EM physician in the US, then go back home and spend most of his time on "travel, fishing and sex."
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Haha, I would do this if it were possible
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Why is it not possible? And no, I am not from Eastern Europe.
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Haha, "travel, fishing and sex." I remember that one. Hilarious.
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Most docs have a private practice. If they're absent for 6months they may lose all the patients. In a group practice it is possible if every doctor in your group decides to take 3months off and take a bit of a pay cut (because you're still paying the same overhead). The major impediment is that if you're a surgeon then some FP may refer a patient to you and he will not like it if you're absent. And it would be hard to find a group where doctors are "lazy". They would rather fire the lazy guy than do something that is so logical. So outside of specialties where you dont deal with patients continuously I think only the university might allow this. But perhaps the university also expect you to put in hard labor..
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Well it is possible, but it would take quite a while to, first earn good money, and then save enough of it to go live the life in Europe.
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Vacation? unlikely.... how would they get into a practice, or get research funding?
a lab unrelated to surgery (aka 'basic science') - Absolutely. actually, it might be more common. There are many well known examples. Often, there is a loose association between the research and the clinical practice.
A surgical oncologist might research cell biology to understand cancer on the cellular/molecular/genetic level, ...which ultimately can lead to better treatment options.
A transplant surgeon might research immunology on the cellular/molecular level, ....which might lead to better understanding of the management of graft vs. host disease, or immunocompromised states.
(and yes those actually are pretty distant connections)
Hope that helps
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I was not implying that you and testingpig are the same person. It just seemed to me that both of you are unusually interested in maximizing your leisure time, which is not something the medical profession is known for.
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We have an orthopedic surgeon working with us right now. We are a cancer research lab (a lot of work regarding cell biology) and he is doing research on sarcomas (a type of cancer that affects tissue like bone).
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Thanks for the clarification regarding basic sciences. That part of the problem is clear. But is vacation really really impossible? I thought at the university, since you are part of a large system they might allow you to take breaks from clinical practice as you wish. After all some physician scientists do 80/20 research/clinics. I don't know anything about research. I just know that most professors teach (like 1 class/semester) 9months/yr. They obviously do research in the summer also. But I don't know if it's mandatory or if they just want to? What is stopping them from keeping the graduate students running the experiments when they're on vacation and producing not quite as many papers per year? So what if you don't get as much funding as a basic science professor, you can make up for it with your clinical revenue or not?
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Ok. I did not mean to imitate anybody. But you got my motto right on.
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That's cool. So how often does the ortho surgeon come in to the lab? Can he come in at 8 to discuss things and to read an article or 2 and then go back to his clinic while you do all the work in the lab?
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I really dont have an answer that i can back up.... because i dont know anyone who tried to get a vacation....
but what I do know is that 80/20 research:clinical is actually less clinical than it sounds. It really means that you are an academic research faculty, and you have to cover your clinical service (usually clinic duty), one day per week. And apparently 90/10 is pretty common too. Point is, you are seeing service patients, not private.... FWIW....
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OH. That is far from ideal.
How about the following model: do some hospitals/groups allow their physicians to start a lab but without actually becoming a professional researcher? I.e. the group or hospital would fund a lab so the physicians could play around whenever they want, have access to all the chemicals, animals, but they would not expect much publishing/funding if any? Perhaps it is possible in some really competitive specialties like radiology? Anything to attract a doctor to work in their hospital? And with regards to money, of course it would be at least partly funded by a cut in the physician's salary. Or is the most realistic way to get that is to get a 2nd job as a "consultant" for some private sector biotech company? In that case the company wouldnt pay you and you wouldn't do much, but you would still have the potential to contribute if you really wanted to.
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Reaistically no doctor is going to get 3 months vacation until they are semi-retired. 3-4 weeks is going to be more the norm. Practices can't afford the revenue loss when their employee is gone a quarter of the year. And surgeons are known for working too many hours, not taking huge blocks of time off.
As for research, what you can research is generally grant/proposal driven. But realistically you are going to pick something for which you have meaningful credentials. So surgeons research things at least tangentially related to surgery. Having the credibility to get grants and get published is important. A surgeon is going to get a lot further strutting his stuff at the annual surgeon meetings, and get published in the journals that his colleagues preside over than he will at a biology meeting or trying to get his stuff published in biology pubs.
I think you probably don't want to be a surgeon if lots of time off and cell biology research are important criteria.
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Um no. The hospital/group isn't going to fund the lab for you to play around in. The grant you obtain is going to fund the lab, and you are going to be obligated to do the kind of research described in the terms of the grant. The hospital makes money off you getting a big research grant, not the other way round. They don't offer up labs to attract people -- they try to attract people who have the grants and clout to set up labs. You have it backwards. (And yes, you do often end up with some cut in salary because most academic places limit the amount you can have between your salary and grant stipend.)
