General Surgery in 40 hours a week

[dkwyler94]

OK thought that would get your attention.

I am an MSII. I have had the chance to be first or second assist or observe about 60 surgeries in the last couple of years and am becoming more convinced that this is what I want to do.

My concern is I have several other interests beyond medicine. I could handle the few years in residency, but I expect to have a family, enjoy many outdoor sports, and couldn't really have any career, no matter how much I enjoyed it, be my entire life.

I know there are those who believe a surgeon should want to work 80 hours a week throughout their career, but is it possible to work less? If money really isn't that important, can one limit their practice to enough patients to make an adequate living, but few enough hours to enjoy the other aspects of one's life? It doesn't have to be 40 hours a week, and I don't care about nights and weekends, but 3 days off each week would be great.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

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[OwlMyste]

I found a website that would be of interest to you...

http://www.facs.org/medicalstudents/lifestyle.html

also search http://www.facs.org keyword lifestyle, or even go to www.google.com and search it...
if you want to search it on google for the ezact phrase, then put the word or words in quotations...even just one quotation would do...
(example: u can search either "general surgery", or you can search "General Surgery) and it would come up the same way...if you don't want it in advanced search, just don't use the quotations...

hope this helps ya!😎

 

[ortho1]

from what i've seen and been told, if you want wed to be golf day or friday off for the 3 day weekend then that's what you do. I have a few docs in the family who have honed their office to accom. their lives and from what i've seen in clerkships that is the case for most fields. residency is gonna be hard no matter what and the first few yrs out but that's the price we pay. I've been told to plan, plan, and plan. Find the group that fits what you want. I'm an outdoor sports guy and won't sacrifice that for any job. I'll be more than willing to sacrifice money for time off but that's me. I'd rather be happy w/ my life and let that carry over to my work and vice versa. Who cares if you work half the hours in another specialty if your unhappy with what you do? Find what makes you happy and then worry about the hours you put in. search old posts too for lifestyle, specialty preferences and hours.

 

[Pilot Doc]

Can one limit their practice to enough patients to make an adequate living, but few enough hours to enjoy the other aspects of one's life?

Yes.

Lots of private practice groups do just that. They do mostly outpatient surgery 4 days a week and only take weekend call once a month.

 

[neo]

you can definitely work less if you're willing to do with less pay. of course, most people have huge debt burden when they are done with residency.. usually to the tune of almost 200K. your lender is gonna want you to fork over almost 2K a month for 10 years after you get done with residency.

If you want to work less and get paid lets say 100K a year that works out to about 60K a year after taxes and the 10K a year you put away into a 401k since i assume you'll want to retire eventually. That leaves you with a monthly income of 5K a month. minus 2K for loans, and 2K for just an average 200K house. This means you're going to try to support a family on 1K a month. So 1K to do car payments, food, entertainment, utility bills, daycare for your kids. do the math. Its hard. as much as you'll want to work less for less pay, unless you happen to have far less debt burden than most people, living on 100K a year, which seems easy, its actually pretty hard. sorry to depress you but that's just the way it works out 🙁 I know my wife and I had alot more free money when she was in residency than after she got done and her loan payments kicked in.

 

[Toadkiller Dog]

Two words for you, man: "VA", and "IHS".

They even have loan payback options.