Part-time medicine?

[drfunktacular]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I'm sure this has been done to death, but I can't find much by searching... Anyhoo:

I am interested in finding out what fields of medicine lend themselves best to part-time practice. I am an MS3, and I still harbor dreams of working on a graduate degree in philosophy and doing some writing (I was a phil major in college). However, I would love to be able to practice medicine part-time and pay my way through grad school someday. This is by no means the sole factor I am considering in my choice of specialty--but my main problem is that I like everything I have tried so far, to the point that my friends make fun of me for saying "this is what I want to do!" after every rotation I finish.

It always baffles me to talk about this with physicians who feel like they have to work their butts off to stay in practice, but at the same time are making like $250k; they act like it's all or nothing, with no middle ground. Maybe there is some sort of economy of scale, but the impression I get is that many docs feel like they have to work full time plus, or not at all. I hear this especially from those in surgical subspecialties.

Logically, it stands to reason that if 60 hr/wk=$250k in a job, then 25-30 hr/wk=$100-125k. Is that not the case simply because of the overhead involved in being in practice at all? Or are many of these docs just workaholics? In any case, are there any fields or practice venues that would lend themselves to this?

Thanks!

 

[docB]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=455822

 

[drfunktacular]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=455822

That's what I was looking for. Thanks!

 

[mlw03]

see the other thread, but i would think that any group practice would lend itself to "part-time" status. however i think your assumption about half-time status equaling half-time pay may be false. i bet it's less.

 

[mdjobexchange]

Some states have much lower malpractice rates, such as California, so working part-time is much more feasible. Other states with higher malpractice risk do not have part-time rates for malpractice, so if you work half time, you overhead goes up significantly.

The VA offers part-time positions in all specialties. We have a general surgeon who works 3 days a week and is very happy. Kaiser is a big enough system where you could possibly work part time. Try other large systems such as Sheridan Healthcare and Pediatrix. If you are limited on your geographic choices, Anesthesia, ER, radiology, and pathology are good choices. Working part-time in primary care is possible, but your income will be quite low.

To be able to offer part time spots, a practice has to be able to spread the overhead out among a large group of people, so that all the resources are utilized.

 

[Winged Scapula]

As noted above, the large group practice or VA is the way you want to go.

I was recently speaking to a Radiation Oncologist in a very large group and we got to talking about some of the partners who don't work much. Everything is split evenly, even though the part timers don't bring in much dough. Not much bitterness was expressed but it was probably because these guys didn't come in as part timers but had rather transitioned their hours down as they got older. I think it would be harder to do right out of the box.

A surgeon in a large group practice in a state with high med mal rates expressed some dissatisfaction with her group's part-timers because they cost as much in malpractice as the full timers did, but brought in much less money to the kitty. Surgery obviously is much less conducive to p/t work, if only because the others in the group are less tolerant of it.