Financial future for surgery as a career...

[hemoccult]

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Just curious...I was speaking in the past few days with residents and attendings in both Emergency Medicine and Anesthesiology (two of the "lifestyle" specialties) who remarked about the poor financial compensation for surgeons currently.

They seemed to indicate that reimbursement is less than adequate and that salaries are essentially on a significant decline. Their thoughts were that because of poor financial remuneration, coupled with an oftentimes burdensome workload, that surgery is a less than profitable career choice.

Surely, I could never choose a specialty based solely on lifestyle or financial gain alone. If I love something (i.e. surgery) and enjoy doing it, as long as I'm getting paid something decent to support an adequate standard of living, it really wouldn't matter.

I guess I was interested in soliciting responses from residents who have recently secured employment, such as womansurg, and to see what their experiences were. I am not asking for salaries offered, but if you feel so inclined to comment on a relative basis, that would be appreciated.

Again, thanks to this forum for providing worthwhile and insightful information along with the humorous interjections throughout.

Peace. Beware of the prairie dog.😱

 

[womansurg]

Compensations are regional - positions in less popular destinations pay more in order to entice people to come and stay.

Starting salaries for graduating general surgeons seem to be starting at around 200K most places right now. That's net - not after taxes, but after expenses, insurance, overhead, so forth. From there it becomes a matter of building your own practice.

Our busy private surgeons seems to be making around 500K per year right now.

It's true that surgeons are dumb about protecting our compensation rights - we mostly just want to be in the OR operating, and we don't spend a lot of time or energy on other things. For instance, if at the start of a case the anesthesiologist puts in an arterial line, central venous cather, or even an IV, they often bill for and are paid for each separate procedure they perform. If we put those in, it's all part of the global fee of the case and we get nothing extra.

I tend to think of general surgery as one of the basic primary care provisions in medicine, and don't really want to see compensations which are excessive. I feel fairly compensated for the work that I do, and it's my opinion that some medical specialties are overcompensated.

 

[Celiac Plexus]

If you feel undercompensated for your work, just ask the hospital to pay you in Yen, or even better Lire!