Possible to take a paycut for less hours in ortho?

[throwaway01564]

Hello everyone. I'm a student most interested in ortho right now, but have been thinking I'm not sure if I'm cut out for 60 hour weeks as an attending. How feasible is it to get a job where you take a paycut in return for less hours?

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[Miles Gloriosus]

Hello everyone. I'm a student most interested in ortho right now, but have been thinking I'm not sure if I'm cut out for 60 hour weeks as an attending. How feasible is it to get a job where you take a paycut in return for less hours?

Usually doing clinic or doing electives cases are pretty standard 8 hr days. If you have more block time to do more cases on an or day, sure, might work longer than 8 hrs. For you to work 60 hrs, would be to work at a place that requires you to take a lot of call. Also how busy you would need to be while on call. Less call/less busy call = less need to work outside standard business hours.

For a private group, as long as you cover overhead, most won’t care how much or little you work. Depends on what kind of pay cut you willing you take. With that being said, less you are available, less likely to get referrals.
If working for hospital/corporate group, then can negotiate in a contract.
I work between 40-45hrs a week.

 

[throwaway01564]

Usually doing clinic or doing electives cases are pretty standard 8 hr days. If you have more block time to do more cases on an or day, sure, might work longer than 8 hrs. For you to work 60 days, would be to work at a place that require you to take a lot of call and how busy you would need to be on call. Less call/less busy call = less need to work outside standard business hours.

For a private group, as long as you cover overhead, most won’t care how much or little you work. Depends on what kind of pay cut you willing you take. With that being said, less you are available, less likely to get referrals.
If working for hospital/corporate group, then can negotiate in a contract.
I work between 40-45hrs a week.

Can you PM me so I can ask a few questions?

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

You can join Kaiser Permanente and work 24-40 hrs/week with full benefits.

 

[operaman]

Very feasible, but as with anything expect to make some sacrifices to get it (ie salary, location, etc).

It’s harder to do in the beginning more for logistical reasons - you’re inefficient, you may not have good OR blocks or you may not have blocks at all, your staff won’t know your style yet, and your OR staff won’t know you well yet either. So expect some longer days and weeks early on even in the best situations. Once you get things dialed in, you stand a much better chance. There’s also the reputation building aspect as well as building your operative skills. Only way to do that is to work hard and often. You’ll have a hard time getting well known and developing your own skills if you’re working much less.

Essentially all docs are basically trading our time for money at a very favorable rate. You should be able to find something that works for you. I’m ENT and 2 years out of fellowship and my average weeks are 40h with call weeks probably being more like 50-60, mostly due to 3-4h per day on weekends rounding and taking care of consults. Most days I’m out the door by 4 with all notes done.

 

[collegestud2013]

Hello everyone. I'm a student most interested in ortho right now, but have been thinking I'm not sure if I'm cut out for 60 hour weeks as an attending. How feasible is it to get a job where you take a paycut in return for less hours?

This is easiest to do for any shift-based specialty (eg EM, hospitalist, CC, radiology, anesthesiology) where you would go PRN or locums and essentially be par-time. Probably harder to do in ortho since most will have some continuity in clinic and there are often hospital call responsibilities, but there are locums positions as well where you only cover hospitals. In some of the larger health system or academic positions, you could probably still decrease your patient volume and clinical hours for less pay and be full time, though as a young attending it will still be hard to get out of your share of call responsibilities. Might be harder to cut back in a small PP setting since you need enough volume just to stay ahead of overhead costs.

Besides less money, being par time also means little to no benefits in many cases. And if you are PRN or locums, the work is not guarantied (eg if they're fully staffed with full time physicians, they won't need someone who is par time).