How are you being trained?

[TTSD]

In response to another thread on this board about people doing volunteer work/community service only to pad their resume.

For those of you who were fortunate enough to have been taken under the wing of a doctor or PI, how are they training to you to SERVICE the community that you will practice in?

If there's one thing I love about the doctor I work under is his fire and drive to do what he can for his patients. He's a neurosurgeon pulling in less than $100k a year (after overhead), yet he has patients coming in to see him from all over the world. I've seen him on occasions loan the patients the money to cover the hospital fees and waives his own fee. He'll treat more than just what the patient came in for since he believes you can't treat a patient unless you're dedicated to making them fully well.

It's that type of practice that one day I hope to open up and emulate. Of course, I'll want to marry a wife that makes money too then.. but I don't know about you people, but it's definately not the money that's motivating me.

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[jlee9531]

nice man...

i defintely want to open up a practice like that too.

i remember an interviewer asking me a question of what i would do if a patient came to me without any type of insurance or payment...would i still help that person?

yeah i think i too would take the cut and help out the person if it was in reasonable means. just as long as i could pay the rent and bill and food stuffs...im good.

we should partner up man.

 

[bigdan]

Guys-
Great little thread.
I have concern that the vast majority of people that are looking for a big payday in medicine are either missing the boat or working too hard.
I have no experience whatsoever in what MDs are getting paid for their procedures, but I know the PTs and OTs at my clinic see patients whose insurance pays us 2.00 per visit. Really...if you're looking to get rich, and MBA or JD would do it much quicker.
Great to hear that there are people out there that are doing medicine/looking into medicine for the purpose of helping people...novel concept.
Good luck to all.

dc

 

[Kashue]

Which makes me wonder why neurosurg is one of the most difficult residencies to get into. I thought the long hours, years of training, and high overhead would make less people choose it.

And yea, if medicine wasn't a lucrative and secure field as it is today, why is it so hard to get into medical school? People who have medical degrees overseas are aching to come into the states because they know the big bucks are here. My cousin is one of them. He married a U.S. citizen - had kids immediately, and landed a cardiology fellowship: Cardiology is one of the highest paid specialties out there. He has no intention of even going back, not even to do charity work.

It's sad.

For me, whatever field I'm going to enter, I hope to do some charity work overseas, especially in my home country.

 

[Samoa]

I just wanna pay off my loans and not have to worry about whether I can afford to live a nice, middle class lifestyle. After that, it's ALL ABOUT THE HEALING, DUDE.

 

[TTSD]

Originally posted by jlee9531


we should partner up man.

..are you female and good looking? If not, there will be no "partnering" up as you put it

 

[musiclink213]

i know a neurologist who will literally spend hours with one patient, even if there are 10 other patients in the waiting room. she has this sixth sense, and she just knows when something is wrong with a person, and won't stop until they've found the source. and i speak from experience. after going from neurologist to neurologist, my dad was able to pull a favor and get me an appointment with her, for 9:30 at night. she was able to identify my problem and found something that everyone else had missed. when i walked out an hour later, there were still peopl,e in the waiting room, and she didn;t even think about telling people to come back the next day. if a person doesn't have insurance, she's been known to waive fees, gives huge supplies of meds to patients who can't afford it. i really hope to be able to one day work like this, without regard to a person's status and be able to find otu what's wrong with a person when nobody else can.

 

[missbonnie]

Wow, this is pretty much what I am looking to do too - not have to worry about what a patient can pay .. and make sure my expenses are covered as well. I'd love to have my money sitch handled separate from medicine so that I can really give the care a patient needs. I'm definately not interested in seeing a zillion patients a day for 15 min each so that I can get enough $$ from insurance - which is what a lot of internists seem to have to succumb to these days. I think with the right planning and business sense, this can be easily done.

 

[jlee9531]

Originally posted by TTSD
..are you female and good looking? If not, there will be no "partnering" up as you put it

sorry bro haha...

 

[snowbear]

I mentioned this in the other thread, but I worked at an OCD clinic that used cognitive behavioral therapy to treat OCD and other anxiety disorders. I learned sooooooo much at that clinic I could go on forever. I worked mostly with the psychologists at the clinic because they were more involved with the patients--the psychiatrists would see the patients for very short periods of time solely to prescribe meds.

I learned all about cognitive behavioral therapy in a clinical setting, which was awesome because I had learned about it earlier in abnormal psych classes (BTW, I strongly reccomend anyone with anxiety problems to look into cognitive behavioral therapy). I got to work 1 on 1 with patients every day during their whole time at the clinic--which lasted usually for 6 weeks. I met so many awesome people. People from all over the world would come to this UCLA clinic. Patients were from all facets of life. One patient was getting her PsyD at Berkeley and she was teaching me tons about psych meds. Another patient was a construction worker, and he saw me studying one morning for my neuroanatomy final and was all "Is that the basal ganglia? Isn't that one of the brain structure involved with OCD?" My mouth dropped--it was so cool that he had taken the time to try to learn about his illness. It was the most awesome experience. I could go on and on.

 

[coldchemist]

Not to belittle the topic, but I'm truly curious...

TTSD--

How does a neurosurgeon go about treating more than the patient came in for?

"While were getting rid of this tumor we might as well take care of those psychotic tendencies by slicing off a little of your frontal lobe..."

Sorry...I couldn't resist.

 

[TTSD]

Originally posted by coldchemist
Not to belittle the topic, but I'm truly curious...

TTSD--

How does a neurosurgeon go about treating more than the patient came in for?

"While were getting rid of this tumor we might as well take care of those psychotic tendencies by slicing off a little of your frontal lobe..."

Sorry...I couldn't resist.

LOL, no. He actually works more like a neurologist/primary care as opposed to a neurosurgeon.