Nestle said:
this is similar to a question i had about cards ... but how hectic is a critical care fellowship? harder than the IM residency? just two years, right? what is the call schedule like, etc? impossible to have a family?
also what's a typical day like for a intensivist who is in practice? do they have really crappy lifestyles? has anyone ever heard of a intensivist who was able to work part-time or is that out of the question?
😕
It depends on where you go and what you want out of fellowship. Pure critical care fellowships can tend to be busy. My CC fellowship was busier than my residency (which was at a very busy inner-city Detroit hospital). We didn't have interns or residents and we managed the patients one-on-one with the CC attendings. Call was every 3-4th night, in house. We would cover 30-40 sick patients at one time on call.
Even though this was very busy, I had the time of my life. It was very rewarding. I didn't go into fellowship to sit on my butt and round from home. I didn't want to learn how to give orders over the phone to an intern taking call in the unit. But that's me. Others may have different expectations.
Can you find a cushy fellowship? Sure. But then you have to ask yourself why and what do you really want to accomplish with those extra 2-3 years that you'll never get back.
Post fellowship life is also very variable and depending on if you want to have another practice outside of critical care. "True intensivists" are just that. They don't dabble in critical care on the side. They round in the unit, usually working in shifts, much like the ER. A typical fulltime job is about 18-21 shifts/month.
Now if you want a pulmonary or IM practice on the side, this will obviously change your work load.
Just like anything in medicine, the life after residency/fellowship can be as easy or as hard as you want it to be. You may need to look around a little to find exactly what you want, but it's there.
KG
