Lifestyle of a Urologist

[bigfrank]

Hello all, I just wanted to pose the following question and see if we could get some meaningful responses and insight:

What is the lifestyle of a Urologist? How does it compare to other surgical and non-surgical fields?

Thanks, bigfrank

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[Barton]

My girlfriend's dad is a urologist and faculty member at prestigious medical school. He operates every other day and sees patients in the hospital and clinic on the other days. He's not on call that much (every 6-7 days? plus one weekend a month, all of this from home). That's, of course, only when he's around. He travels about 150 days/year lecturing at other med schools and conferences all over the world. I think he works maybe 40 hrs/wk. I've seen him home at noon (he goes in about 7) on non-surgery days. Hope this helps.

 

[proffit]

would you enjoy looking at penises all day?

 

[dingiswayo]

•••quote:••• would you enjoy looking at penises all day? ••••Urologists are reputed to be some of the happiest docs in the hospital. That said, the do spend of lot of time making premptive, self-depricating "dinky doc" jokes.

 

[dwstranger]

What kind of comment is that? Would you say the same thing about ob/gyns (but obviously with a different part of the anatomy)? As a friend who is considering ob/gyn pointed out to me today, it's just another body part, and if you're not --how shall we say this?-- fixated on that part (his word was horny), what's the big deal?

Just want to make the point that although most urologists do deal in men's problems, urology runs the gamut from your typical men's problems (prostate, etc.) to gender reassignment surgery to repairing congenital problems (hypo/epispadias, etc.) to women's problems (incontinence).

Okay, down off the soapbox...

 

[dingiswayo]

Hey, I'm not cricizing the specialty. I'm actually thinking seriously about going into Uro.

But every urology resident or attending I've met has made at least one joke about being a "dinky doc" to me... It reminds me of when I was a high school and college wrestler. I had no choice but to make jokes about enjoying "rolling around with sweaty men in tights." It's a defense mechanism (and a rather healthy/mature one, if I do say so myself!) to protect oneself from ridicule by poking fun at one's self... same dynamic exists with the urologists telling Uro jokes.

 

[dingiswayo]

um, oops, i think your comments were directed at the guy who wrote "would you enjoy looking at penises all day?" my bad.

 

[TheThroat]

At the hospital where I am in residency, the Uro residents have a sweet lifestyle. All Uro residents are on call about Q5, they get THREE weekends off per month, and are the happiest residents in the hospital. If you like the subject matter, I would definitely consider Uro as a career.

 

[med student]

It sounds like a good specialty I mean come on how many penis emergencies are there that can't wait until the morning. If only the trauma surgeon could say that.

 

[bigfrank]

What was the US-MD unmatch rate for the most recent match? I've heard it's coming down, but that's merely heresay.

 

[mpp]

57 PGY-1 offered with 6 unfilled.
1 PGY-2 offered and it went unfilled.

According to <a href="http://www.scutwork.com/match2002/regionalmatch02.htm" target="_blank">scutwork.com</a>

 

[dingiswayo]

those stats obviously have some problems... there are about 220 categorical spots in urology every year. the percentage of US seniors successfully matching in urology has ranged from low 70s to high 80s in recent years.

See the American Urologic Association web page. They run the Urology match:

<a href="http://www.auanet.org/students_residents/residency_match/index.cfm?categoryid=8" target="_blank">http://www.auanet.org/students_residents/residency_match/index.cfm?categoryid=8</a>

(follow the "statistics" link)

 

[mpp]

<a href="http://www.nrmp.org/res_match/tables/table5_2002.pdf" target="_blank">NRMP</a> publishes the same stats. Perhaps there are other urology spots not filled by NRMP. Or perhaps you are counting total urology spots (all years), not just PGY-1 and PGY-2.

 

[dingiswayo]

i edited my post to add the link to the AUA website. i cannot explain the dramatic difference between what the NRMP and the AUA report. but the stats reported by the AUA seem to make more sense. there are definitely more than 58 urology spots in the country.

 

[mpp]

Any thoughts on why the unmatch rate shot up after 1996?

 

[dingiswayo]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by mpp:
•Any thoughts on why the unmatch rate shot up after 1996?•••••i don't know; that's a good question. it would be nice if that site showed the stats for 1994 and 1995. we could see whether 1996 was a unusually small applicant pool or if there is some sort of long term trend at work here...