Orthopedic surgery questions
Started by PROBOSS
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Depends on your subspecialty, your group, and your willingness to work. Overall ortho has a pretty good lifestyle with the exception of certain traumatologists, spine surgeons that do trauma, and hand surgeons. That is not to say you can't have an excellent lifestyle in one of those subspecialties, especially if you have residents/fellows.
Again, depends. You can have a huge amount of variety in your practice if you want, or you can specialize all the way down to being a right lateral meniscus surgeon only. Most orthopods fit somewhere in the middle, doing total joints, scopes, carpal tunnels, fractures, etc...
Orthopaedic traumatologists will sometimes perform true "life-saving" interventions, but to be honest, most orthopods don't want to be in the "life-saving" business. We save lifestyles.
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What is it about hand that made you group it with the others that do trauma, skiz knot?
People tend to cut off their fingers at inconvenient times.
That depends on the group you join. That would be an atypical call schedule.
That depends on the group you join. That would be an atypical call schedule.
I do a lot of moonlighting. Inevitably its a f'ing hand consult in a prisoner that tried to cut his wrist with some blunt ass object. Never ****ing fails. I hate hand.
Im doing a peds fellowship. Tremendous variety. Great lifestyle.
Im doing a peds fellowship. Tremendous variety. Great lifestyle.
seems like there's never a good time to cut your finger off.
Ped's seems like an awesome fellowship option.
What's the lifestyle like in adult recon? I know its very high volume and clinic is brutal, I'm just curious what the day-day is like.
What about spine?
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Hey BuckEye(OH)... saw that you said peds ortho has a great lifestyle. I'm applying for ortho right now, with hopes to do a peds fellowship, as well. Can you please elaborate as to what kind of lifestyle we should expect? Thanks, I really appreciate it.
I agree with everything that's been said - what separates ortho from other surgical specialties is the relative lack of "true emergencies" - choosing ortho doesn't mean less call, but it may mean less work while on call. Again, it's very dependant on where you practice and what your specialty is. A lot of the more recent literature suggests that most clean, open fractures can wait until morning. In one sentence, I think orthopods have more control over how busy they are than, say, a general surgeon or neurosurgeon. It's not uncommon to find ortho guys that work all the time but you'll find (no matter what they say) that they do it by choice. Likewise, you'll find guys (usually older, senior partners) who don't take much call, have sweet chip-shot line-ups three days a week, and are on the golf course by 4pm.
As far as variety, I can't think of a field that offers more - we have to have a greater mastery of anatomy than any other specialty because we routinely operate on every part of the body. Ortho is following the lead of other surgical specialties and becoming more sub-specialized, but we're much more resistant to it and there are still many underserved areas in need of guys willing to do it all.
I'm a PGY-3 in Ohio, but when I'm done I plan to head back to my home state of GA and be a generalist. Or, I may do peds because it is the last sub-specialty that is truly "general" - those guys operate on everything.
For those of you considering your career - choose carefully. Make a choice based on what you love. Don't just look at the "cool" stuff we do - every specialty has it's sexy stuff. Look at what you're going to be doing on call at 2am and make sure you can tolerate it for five years (i.e. finger replants).
As far as variety, I can't think of a field that offers more - we have to have a greater mastery of anatomy than any other specialty because we routinely operate on every part of the body. Ortho is following the lead of other surgical specialties and becoming more sub-specialized, but we're much more resistant to it and there are still many underserved areas in need of guys willing to do it all.
I'm a PGY-3 in Ohio, but when I'm done I plan to head back to my home state of GA and be a generalist. Or, I may do peds because it is the last sub-specialty that is truly "general" - those guys operate on everything.
For those of you considering your career - choose carefully. Make a choice based on what you love. Don't just look at the "cool" stuff we do - every specialty has it's sexy stuff. Look at what you're going to be doing on call at 2am and make sure you can tolerate it for five years (i.e. finger replants).
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