Couple of questions regarding work/life balance

[crpstudent]

Hey guys, I'm doing a research paper for a school project comparing work/life/pay balance and I just wanted to pick your brain with a couple of questions:

1) Hypothetically speaking, if it was possible to practice medicine from home, would you take a pay cut to do it?

2) Would you take a pay cut to work no more than 40 hrs per week?

3) If you could practice medicine from your home office, what would be the minimum hourly amount that you would need (again assuming the big perk is working out of the house)? Would $125hr be enough?

4) On a scale of 1 to 10, how important does working less and being at home with your family become as you get older? I know for women, with kids, etc., this is important earlier on (28-40 yrs old), but for you men, when you hit 45, 50, 55, do you start thinking about cutting back on the hours?

Thanks a lot, I appreciate all responses, I'm a long time lurker here and future doc hopefully.

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[NickNaylor]

I'm not a resident or attending, but I will provide my input. Work/life balance is hugely important to me and was a big reason for choosing psychiatry over other fields I had an interest in. As far as answers to the question:

1) Probably not - I don't like the idea of working from home unless the inconvenience of going somewhere becomes too great. I like the idea of physically separate spheres in my life as much as possible where home is home and work is work.

2) Probably, though this is very vague and it's difficult to answer without hard examples. Since the average psychiatrist works <40 hours weekly, the average psychiatrist is already actively making that choice.

3) Given my answer to #1 above, I would want to have a premium rather than a pay cut to work from home. Given that this doesn't really make sense from an economic perspective, I don't really think this is a viable path for me personally.

4) I'm not as old (wise) as others that post here, but as mentioned above having time for my family as well as for myself is of critical importance to me. I can see myself doing some heavy work for a few years fresh out of residency, but as my future kids get older I will likely cut back how much I work (if possible) in favor of spending more time with my family. I'm a man, if that matters. I don't know how to answer that question with a rating scale, so I'll say... 8.