MD Part Time as a career?

[deleted1068453]

This is gonna catch flak. Oh well.

I'm not in love with medicine. But here I am, in medical school. I won't bore you with my story. But if you'll give me the benefit of the doubt and just assume that I'm reasonable, that I've conducted a thorough risk-benefit analysis and I've come to the conclusion that finishing school is my best opportunity to provide for my future family and do something positive with my life.

Can I reasonably anticipate that I could, after residency/fellowship, find part time employment as a primary care and take home at least $50-70K per year? I do not have ambitions in medicine. I've realized that my family is my #1 priority. 50-70k is plenty of money for me to live a happy life. Sooo..... you'd make me a real happy camper if you had seen something like this happen in a situation that is generalizable to others...?? Thanks.

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[deleted480308]

Absolutely and you could make much more than 75k working 3 days a week

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

Absolutely and you could make much more than 75k working 3 days a week

My internist wife worked 3 days per week for a little over a year and made around 150k/year.

 

[deleted1068453]

My internist wife worked 3 days per week for a little over a year and made around 150k/year.

Absolutely and you could make much more than 75k working 3 days a week

This is magnificent. Thank you.

 

[IMGASMD]

Why are doing a fellowship?
Do IM and get it done. If you’re at one of those states still allowing GP to get a license after a year of internship, you may even just do that. Urgent care physician can certainly make 75K a year, now even telemedicine. There are plenty of threads out there with people asking the same question. There are options for people with DO/MD degrees who doesn’t want to practice medicine.

If you don’t have any loans, 75K is probably fine or live off. When you’re out in the “real world”, it’s not much to support a family.

 

[ACSurgeon]

Why are doing a fellowship?
Do IM and get it done. If you’re at one of those states still allowing GP to get a license after a year of internship, you may even just do that. Urgent care physician can certainly make 75K a year, now even telemedicine. There are plenty of threads out there with people asking the same question. There are options for people with DO/MD degrees who doesn’t want to practice medicine.

If you don’t have any loans, 75K is probably fine or live off. When you’re out in the “real world”, it’s not much to support a family.

GP is a risky plan.

Finish any residency and get a part time job. These exist indifferent forms and sometimes it means not having benefits, but nonetheless an IM/FM/EM doc could get a shift-work type of job and work 20-40 hours a wake and make more than the average American household.

Not everyone in medicine is trying to change the world. Many just want to take good care of their patients and their family.

 

[sloh]

Check out this thread:


Working 2 days per week

Working 2 days per week

What specialties can mantain a private practice by working 2 days per week? I would gladly sacrifice half of my income to work 2 days per week. I know a derm that did this. She scheduled patients on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10am to around 4pm. Between her income and her husband's they had...

forums.studentdoctor.net

 

[IMGASMD]

GP is a risky plan.

Finish any residency and get a part time job. These exist indifferent forms and sometimes it means not having benefits, but nonetheless an IM/FM/EM doc could get a shift-work type of job and work 20-40 hours a wake and make more than the average American household.

Not everyone in medicine is trying to change the world. Many just want to take good care of their patients and their family.

If the op is THAT desperate to get out and happy enough to make 60-75K a year from minimum work from medicine.... there is certainly risk going after GP route, but it’s also two years saved if OPs expectation and satisfaction is THAT low..... For those people who want job security, expecting to pay off huge amount of loans and/or wanting to do administrative jobs, I would steer them away from GP.

Ps. Op expecting only 50K.....

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

If the op is THAT desperate to get out and happy enough to make 60-75K a year from minimum work from medicine.... there is certainly risk going after GP route, but it’s also two years saved if OPs expectation and satisfaction is THAT low..... For those people who want job security, expecting to pay off huge amount of loans and/or wanting to do administrative jobs, I would steer them away from GP.

Ps. Op expecting only 50K.....

Trouble is, GP may require moving possible often and the income is usually less. Those extra 2 years to get BC in FM or IM will let him/her find a job almost literally anywhere and make better money.

 

[Dave1980]

What are your loans like @protrash92? Paying back 6 figure loans on 100k gross a year with a family will be really hard.

 

[deleted1068453]

Thanks. I'll graduate with around $80-90K in debt. I am not stuck on a field but I assumed I would do family medicine and work for a group or a hospital. Don't need a fellowship I was just trying to generalize.

Thank you for all the advice. The way you explain it seems like it should be obvious. But I was fully unaware of the availability of part time work, and what someone could expect to earn.

There's a lot of good concerns you bring up. Thankfully, I am not concerned with the opportunity loss associated with raising a family on less than $100K a year.
Greatly appreciate your insights.

 

[Tenk]

Yeah, FM/IM would be fine for a reduced work week. Another great specialty for this is EM. A couple of things to consider are health insurance for your family, education, and retirement. You’re going to start behind on most of these things compared to the average upper middle class worker so while you might work less, you will have to work for far longer. In addition, a lot of part time work/independent contractor work is without benefits so you have to factor that in as well. Trust me, I wish I could go to part time atm but for my family I’ve worked harder early on to build up a financial base and am now on cruise control. I was working about 150 hr/month and am now down to 120. I’ll probably hover around here for 1-2 decades and then go down to about 60-70/month. 120 isn’t bad, it’s 30 hr/week for EM and is full time at a lot of places. Good luck, families are important.