Lifestyle question.

[Crookshanks]

Can you be a general pediatrician and have a decent lifestyle?

I love the idea of working with children....and the money isn't a real issue to me. I'm human, so I'm naturally somewhat greedy...but so long as I can make 100K I'll be extremely satisfied. Ideally, I'd make more....150K sounds nice, but in order for ME personally to be "happy" with what I make, it has to be atleast 100K. That's not asking for too much is it?

I said that just to clarify my question. I want to know if I can have a life being a pediatrician, in terms of time. I have a daughter, and by the time I start residency she would be about 9 years old. I also hope to have more children in the future, probably before residency. Plus, I've got her father who I've been with for 3 years. Anyways, I just want to know if it's still possible to be there for my family and pursue some of my personal interests/hobbies while practicing medicine, specifically as a pediatrician.

I read somewhere that the average pediatrician makes $65 an hour. Is that about right? Could I make 100K working "part time" (40 hours)? Is it really difficult to find part time work? What if I opened my own practice (a solo practice)? Would that make it easier to work close to 40 hours? I love the idea of being a pediatrician, I just hate the idea of not having a life. Any advice?

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[deleted87716]

You may find this link helpful: http://pediatrics.about.com/cs/pediatriccareers/a/pedi_interview_2.htm

 

[M. Platini]

I'm also very, very interested in the possibility of working part-time in the fields of pediatrics and family practice.

I've been told that in some specialties such as radiology, emergency medicine, and anesthesiology, it can be very easy to work only 3-4 days a week, with call maybe 1x/month at most. Obviously there will be less income, but the part-time was said to be possible due to you being able to join a group that contracts its services and therefore decide how much or how little work you want.

But, does anyone have any input as to one's ability to reduce your hours and reduce your call as a member of a private pediatrics or private family practice group?

Similar to the OP, drawing on my own upbringing it is a strong desire of mine to be home by 4-5 pm to make time for athletics that I want to do with my kids. Between when the kids are born and ages 6-7, I'd like to be home some days with them, even if my wife wants to be a stay at home mom. In the event that my wife worked, splitting the working week between the two of us would be absolutely fine by me, with the one of us working and one of us home with the kids.

Thanks for any input or conversation that anyone might have.

 

[edmadison]

If you look around and find the right group, you should be able to do anything you want to -- as long as you are willing to take less money.

Ed

 

[csmith1]

for what its worth, here's one example. my kid's pedi has tuesdays off. he works the saturday am sick clinic about once every 5 or 6 saturdays. "call" is once every 5 nights and consists of answering the pager to talk to parents, and he gets paged after a triage nurse has determined that the question/concern needs to be run by the doc. and he's only 1.5 years out of his chief year.

 

[Crookshanks]

for what its worth, here's one example. my kid's pedi has tuesdays off. he works the saturday am sick clinic about once every 5 or 6 saturdays. "call" is once every 5 nights and consists of answering the pager to talk to parents, and he gets paged after a triage nurse has determined that the question/concern needs to be run by the doc. and he's only 1.5 years out of his chief year.

Sorry to sound dumb, but...could you estimate his hours a week? You didn't mention his office hours...so I'm kinda left guessing...

If you look around and find the right group, you should be able to do anything you want to -- as long as you are willing to take less money.

I am willing to make less to an extent...average is 135K right? I don't want to make much less than 100K though. 95K is okay, maybe even 90K ...I mean, heck, it's part time work, so it's a trade off, obviously....but making less than 90K would be a bad thing, for me atleast.

Could you tell me if part time doctors get paid a different hourly wage than full time doctors? And, does anyone know what that wage might be?

Also, is it difficult to switch between part time and full time?

Thanks for the input.