Well, residency is a life-consuming job. I'm PGY-2 in general surgery, so that doesn't help either. When I look at the life of surgery attendings, it gets a little bit better but for many it could be even worse.
Free time is so precious for me. Every hour I spend in my own home goes by quickly and I want it back. In my program we get "gold weekends", but a Friday 6pm is followed by Monday morning alarm clock ringing like two seconds later.
This idea starts to invade my mind on a daily basis: would I be a happier person with a 40 hours/week job NO MATTER how much money I make?
I'm not going to quit, and everything is in fact going pretty well. I'm just wondering if anyone else thought about this.
you only say this because you have not worked in real life jobs before.
i am going to be honest with you, there is no such thing as a 40 hour a week job in this country anymore. if you are working in a job that isnt low paying with minimal skills, your job will demand you stay late, work weekends, with no additional pay.
you will be salaried and taken advantage of, playing the email game, the "reports" game, etc. do you know how miserable office life is? how ****ing sad it is to go to work every single ****ing day to hear the same repetitive stories day in and day out "you see that on tv last night????". to work a job with zero meaning just so you can collect a paycheck.
how is that a ****ing life? where you go in 5 days a week (or more) and just pray for the time to go by? you go in wishing that somehow you would just die to be put out of your misery. to not have to see the fat bastards you work with every single day who get pissed off, combative, jealous, etc if they see you doing something better than them at work or in life in general. "did you see John's new car? what kind of an ******* spends his money on that? oh he must be doing something shady, oh he must think he is better than us" you have no idea how insecure people are about money and such. "oh nice car john, clearly we are paying you too much....." your boss sees your new car, hears about your nice trip, etc GETS JEALOUS, gives you hell just because the sole fact that you REMIND HIM/HER that their life sucks because you are out trying to enjoy yours.
you sure you want to go to that 40 hour a week job now? you know, the one that just got downsized and left you unemployed without being able to feed your kids? nice car you had.... its gone now.. how's your house? oh it is foreclosed....
when you work, no matter what job, THEY OWN YOU. they own you on those days you work, you get up early, iron your work uniform/suit etc. get in there, get energized, fake the entire week that you are happy doing mindless garbage work. you get out, maybe you can go for a run but that is about it. or perhaps on your way home, you can stop at the grocery bc your wife just called and wants you to pick up some **** even though you are tired as balls and can only think about getting the hell out of your work uniform.
THEY OWN YOU, they give you just enough money to make you think about quitting. they LOVE when you buy a home/car/etc because it locks you into needing their paycheck even more so they can dump all over you by knowing you are not going anywhere.
YOU DO NOT WANT THIS JOB. you do not want this life. trust me, you wanna get as far away from that life as ****ing possible. that is your "40 hour a week job" that you are fantasizing about when you think the grass is always greener. you know, when your resident friends say "we should have done dentistry, we could work 3 days a week, make 200k a year, have a good life" but have ZERO perspective in that dentistry is not like that and you are only thinking of people who got into dentistry in the right place at the right time.
when you work that 40 hour a week job, all you can fantasize about is the weekend. when sunday hits, you freak out how the next 5 days you are doing it again. a boss breathing down your neck, the hardcore politics bc you didnt ask someone "how was your weekend" and that fat bitch is upset and being cold to you because of it. THIS IS REAL LIFE. REAL LIFE SUCKS ASS. The USA has the poorest quality of life in terms of work-life balance.
you got only a couple of years left and then you can get out and make money. not only that, as a physician you can do so much more. you can think outside the box and get into cosmetics if you like. earn good money doing that. there is quite a bit you can do. you just need to stop thinking from the cookie cutter medicine cookbook. think like a business person. you have such good skills as a physician.
****, start a non-profit that travels to some 3rd world country to do surgeries on those dying. collect donations, have it pay your salary, fly down to this country doing surgery. you get to make money, feel good, have better schedule. you just haven't thought much about the way you can do things.
just one last thing, i know you are thinking "i should have got an MBA, went into a hedge fund, made 5 million a year, etc etc etc". fact is, all medicine people think they have all skills necessary to succeed to the highest degree of all fields in life. some sort of ego thing that is perpetuated by the culture of everyone stroking each other's ego. fact is you could have gone the business route and any other BUT the liklihood of you being wealthy from that is INCREDIBLY LOW.
be greatful for what you have right now. there are MILLIONS of people in this country, and billions in this world that would trade spots with you in a heartbeat. there are so many people out of work WITHOUT unemployment. unemployment is denying claims A LOT these days because they are cracking down to prevent as much spending out as possible. a lot of labor attorneys are fighting all the time for their clients in unemployment hearings.
