"part time" neurology

[snowys435]

Don't hate on me but haven't been able to find any recent new threads on this. Is neurology a field that is amenable to working maybe 3/days a week or something like that ( people interested in child rearing whatever etc etc). For instance, FM, psych, PMR seem quite amenable to this.

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[Thama]

That's always going to depend on the specifics of your practice. If you want benefits and malpractice covered then you have to bill enough to cover that part first, then there's overhead for the practice. In reality I've never met a physician who managed to keep a job working 3 days a week. The few "part time" physicians I know work 4.5 clinic days and well over 40 hours in the end. Nobody makes it work without family or paid help with child care.

 

[snowys435]

Do

That's always going to depend on the specifics of your practice. If you want benefits and malpractice covered then you have to bill enough to cover that part first, then there's overhead for the practice. In reality I've never met a physician who managed to keep a job working 3 days a week. The few "part time" physicians I know work 4.5 clinic days and well over 40 hours in the end. Nobody makes it work without family or paid help with child care.

Do you feel that this is specific to neurology or there are other fields where this is possible?
Thanks

 

[deathmerchant]

Don't hate on me but haven't been able to find any recent new threads on this. Is neurology a field that is amenable to working maybe 3/days a week or something like that ( people interested in child rearing whatever etc etc). For instance, FM, psych, PMR seem quite amenable to this.

Its actually possible. I know several neurologists who 'work' 1-2 days a week.(They have some days for admin work) But essentially all of them are professors in academic institutions in tenure tracks etc. Every other neurologist in our program works 4 days a week and some work 2.5 - 3 days with 1 day as "research/academic". People in fields like Dementias/Movement disorders commonly work like that. You could be an inpatient epileptologist and read EEGs from home most days with resident support. OR you could easily take a 7On & 7off gig as a neurohospitalist.

 

[snowys435]

Its actually possible. I know several neurologists who 'work' 1-2 days a week.(They have some days for admin work) But essentially all of them are professors in academic institutions in tenure tracks etc. Every other neurologist in our program works 4 days a week and some work 2.5 - 3 days with 1 day as "research/academic". People in fields like Dementias/Movement disorders commonly work like that. You could be an inpatient epileptologist and read EEGs from home most days with resident support. OR you could easily take a 7On & 7off gig as a neurohospitalist.

Would you say that this is really possible only later career-wise and would be pretty difficulty to get a position like this as a new/early attending? Would this be something that could be possible in private practice? I guess if I am being honest here I am looking to have kids soon after residency and it would really be nice to be around some more.

 

[deathmerchant]

Would you say that this is really possible only later career-wise and would be pretty difficulty to get a position like this as a new/early attending? Would this be something that could be possible in private practice? I guess if I am being honest here I am looking to have kids soon after residency and it would really be nice to be around some more.

If you work at a decent sized academic place, in a predominantly outpatient subspecialty; 3.5- 4 days a week is pretty much the norm. Less than that is very much possible if u are actively involved in research activities and u can get a contract with dedicated research days in a week and then those days can be flexible. I doubt this will be possible in private practice without a significant pay cut. You have to work harder to pay the overhead etc. Again, neuro-hospitalist gigs can be pretty flexible and if u pick up a 7-7 job, it will technically be 3.5 full days/week !

 

[snowys435]

If you work at a decent sized academic place, in a predominantly outpatient subspecialty; 3.5- 4 days a week is pretty much the norm. Less than that is very much possible if u are actively involved in research activities and u can get a contract with dedicated research days in a week and then those days can be flexible. I doubt this will be possible in private practice without a significant pay cut. You have to work harder to pay the overhead etc. Again, neuro-hospitalist gigs can be pretty flexible and if u pick up a 7-7 job, it will technically be 3.5 full days/week !

great, thank you so much for the serious response and not crapping on me for asking about part time. It's so nice to see how the new generation has gotten more understanding of work life balance and women needing to take care of children and stuff. I absolutely love neurology but I was a little put off this week by talking to a bunch of female attendings in their 40's and 50's who all echoed that they were never around for their kids and its pretty hard to find part time in neuro. I only found one that was like well i think 5 years from now things will be a little different because of your generation.

Also i absolutely Move outpatient and I'm not really a fan of inpatient kind of hate it so in the long run I'd definitely want to be a full time clinic person, and it seems like maybe there are options for that.

 

[Acherona]

Um, the time not spent seeing patients in an academic setting is spent doing research or writing grants so you can continue to do research. Yes those days or half-days may be more "flexible" but the total amount of time required is probably more, not less, than just seeing patients all week. Producing research is very time-consuming. There are also many obligations including countless administrative and research meetings, teaching duties etc. The OP should understand that is NOT a part-time job.

 

[Hellothere111]

I agree. Academic jobs frequently require more time and effort. The expectation from the limited "protected" time includes publishing and ideally, obtaining funding, apart from teaching responsibilities.
While purely clinical responsibilities are perhaps lesser, the ground responsibilities are not.

Post training, you might be able to pick a job that requires less "on-site" time commitment. Please keep in mind that depending on the field you choose, training might range from 3-7 years at minimum.

I'm not sure if this should be a primary criteria while choosing a field.


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[Doctor-S]

Do you feel that this is specific to neurology or there are other fields where this is possible?
Thanks

I am aware of 2 dermatologists (one male and one female) who work 3 days per week - mainly providing cosmetic fillers to patients and billing accordingly. I am also aware of 3 psychiatrists (one male and two females) who work 3 days per week - mainly outpatient medication management services. Emergency medicine MDs work different shifts (and some shifts might be slow and tedious; and other shifts might be crazy-wild busy and mind-numbing) - I know one older EM who joined a concierge service because he grew weary of ER shifts. Now, he has much more control over his weekly schedule, and no longer deals with slow shifts or crazy-wild shifts in the ED.

Everyone else I know - in all specialties - work 5 days per week, plus on-call ... and often well in excess of 40 hours/week (especially given the mounds of paperwork required nowadays).

 

[snowys435]

I am aware of 2 dermatologists (one male and one female) who work 3 days per week - mainly providing cosmetic fillers to patients and billing accordingly. I am also aware of 3 psychiatrists (one male and two females) who work 3 days per week - mainly outpatient medication management services. Emergency medicine MDs work different shifts (and some shifts might be slow and tedious; and other shifts might be crazy-wild busy and mind-numbing) - I know one older EM who joined a concierge service because he grew weary of ER shifts. Now, he has much more control over his weekly schedule, and no longer deals with slow shifts or crazy-wild shifts in the ED.

Everyone else I know - in all specialties - work 5 days per week, plus on-call ... and often well in excess of 40 hours/week (especially given the mounds of paperwork required nowadays).

ok thank you so much for the specific advice. Have you heard of this being possible in family medicine? It is also another speciality i'm very interested in. Thank you for the examples you gave though! Really appreciate it!

 

[snowys435]

I agree. Academic jobs frequently require more time and effort. The expectation from the limited "protected" time includes publishing and ideally, obtaining funding, apart from teaching responsibilities.
While purely clinical responsibilities are perhaps lesser, the ground responsibilities are not.

Post training, you might be able to pick a job that requires less "on-site" time commitment. Please keep in mind that depending on the field you choose, training might range from 3-7 years at minimum.

I'm not sure if this should be a primary criteria while choosing a field.


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What's wrong with using this as a main criteria? I guess speaking with a lot of women in medicine it seems like not being around is a pretty big regret and so I was trying to see if that's something I can address with my future career.

 

[Hellothere111]

What's wrong with using this as a main criteria? I guess speaking with a lot of women in medicine it seems like not being around is a pretty big regret and so I was trying to see if that's something I can address with my future career.

From my point of view, it is not just the amount of time put in but the kind of work done in that time that matters. And you would never know what side of medicine you love if you exclude most fields based on a job criteria, that you won't have for years. I think a work-life balance is important of course. But I wouldn't use that as the screening criterion. My 2 cents.

Best of luck with what you decide!

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[Doctor-S]

ok thank you so much for the specific advice. Have you heard of this being possible in family medicine? It is also another speciality i'm very interested in. Thank you for the examples you gave though! Really appreciate it!

I provided more detail in a PM. Feel free to read it your spare time.

 

[typhoonegator]

What's wrong with using this as a main criteria? I guess speaking with a lot of women in medicine it seems like not being around is a pretty big regret and so I was trying to see if that's something I can address with my future career.

What makes you think men don't regret the lack of time they get to spend with their families?

 

[kchan99]

In an academic career discussion group for women, I have heard that working part time isn't necessarily advantageous in terms of work life balance. The job will end up being full time because of other commitments, such as admin duties and phone calls, but the salary will be much lower and promotions will occur very slowly. Instead, I have heard women pursuing full time careers in which more time can be spent at home, either clinician-scientist (writing papers and grants) or clinician-educator tracks (preparing lectures). This info was presented by a pathologist and ?pediatrician.

 

[Elipsis]

In one of the hospital employed practices in my area a friend's wife recently started as a rheumatologist working outpatient only 4 days a week seeing a pretty reasonable number of patients. I know this group is on an RVU based model so obviously the take home pay would be less than the MGMA average but I definitely think you could work 3-4 days a week doing outpatient neurology as long as you're ok with less take home pay. There was an interview posted on SDN before with a woman who was doing part time neurology. Link is below.

http://www.studentdoctor.net/2013/03/20-questions-sara-g-austin-md/

 

[freelow_per7]

Agree with the above statements. Part time in Neurology is tricky. I am not sure about the academic world, but in private practice this may prove to be difficult to pull off. Most jobs I interviewed at set a baseline RVU goal you were expected to reach before you could even claim that base salary of 250K. Personally, working 3 days/week consistently would be difficult for me to reach my production goal. I would have to either accept a significant pay cut (and I mean significant) or find creative ways to increase my billings (ie, maxing out the # of clinic patients on those 3 days, taking more hospital/stroke call, or billing more EMG/EEG studies). The problem with working 3days/week is (1) you are either cutting deeply into your take home pay when you include loss bonuses or (2) you would paradoxically have to work harder to reach your base salary with everything equal. This being said, I have no doubt that if I had settled for 125k or so they would have found a way to leave me alone to work my 3days/week.

 

[neurochica]

Don't hate on me but haven't been able to find any recent new threads on this. Is neurology a field that is amenable to working maybe 3/days a week or something like that ( people interested in child rearing whatever etc etc). For instance, FM, psych, PMR seem quite amenable to this.

Yes, I know a place that is hiring that is offering $200,000 for 3 days a week (full benefits plus 4 weeks vacations---8-3pm..

I work 20 weeks a year and earning a little over $400k doing locum work...(working 15 weeks during the summer)

it is possible to work "part-time" and have a family.

 

[Postictal Raiden]

Yes, I know a place that is hiring that is offering $200,000 for 3 days a week (full benefits plus 4 weeks vacations---8-3pm..

I work 20 weeks a year and earning a little over $400k doing locum work...(working 15 weeks during the summer)

it is possible to work "part-time" and have a family.

Is this a neurohospitalist type of work? How many days/week and how long each shift?

Thank you,

 

[neurochica]

Is this a neurohospitalist type of work? How many days/week and how long each shift?

Thank you,

No. if you are business savvy, you can create a similar schedule/pay structure of mine. I could make a killkng if I would to work more than 20 weeks but I am not interested in working more then that.

Neurohospitalist model varies. I.e. Monday to Friday 8-5, 7 on 7 off with 8,10 or 12 hours shifts. The neurohospitalist model is young and what I found is that hospitals are open to a variety of schedules.

 

[Postictal Raiden]

No. if you are business savvy, you can create a similar schedule/pay structure of mine. I could make a killkng if I would to work more than 20 weeks but I am not interested in working more then that.

Neurohospitalist model varies. I.e. Monday to Friday 8-5, 7 on 7 off with 8,10 or 12 hours shifts. The neurohospitalist model is young and what I found is that hospitals are open to a variety of schedules.

I pray our paths cross in the near future