Private neurosurg - how does it work?

[iwantneurosurg]

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I don't understand the procedure of private-practice neurosurgery. I mean, you have an office, you advertise, patients come to you...and then what?

Do you operate at a hospital they own, or a teaching hospital, or a private one? Do private neurosurgeons own their own neurosurgery-specialty hospital? Is that common?

i'd appreciate it if someone could tell me how private-practice neurosurgery works; i see them on the internet, but i never quite understood its inner-workings.

 

[mpp]

For most private practice surgery the surgeons get priveleges at a one or more hospitals at which they operate. Some general surgeons will have their own surgery center to do minor out-patient procedures like hernia repair.

 

[Chronic Student]

I work at a private neurosurgery practice and we work at two different hospitals (both take private patients and one is a teaching hospital) in the metro area and we take new patients, get referrals from many local doctors and get stopped by lots of hospital workers to refer themselves or family members. We have absolutely no trouble getting business and we also refer some patients out for unusual circumstances.

We also take trauma call, as there are only two local neurosurgeons.

-Mike

 

[Apollyon]

I work at a private neurosurgery practice and we work at two different hospitals (both take private patients and one is a teaching hospital) in the metro area and we take new patients, get referrals from many local doctors and get stopped by lots of hospital workers to refer themselves or family members. We have absolutely no trouble getting business and we also refer some patients out for unusual circumstances.

We also take trauma call, as there are only two local neurosurgeons.

-Mike

Do you ever take the call, fielding the calls, and calling the boss only when he's needed?

 

[Chronic Student]

Do you ever take the call, fielding the calls, and calling the boss only when he's needed?

I take a fair number of the routine calls, very few of the emergent ones and I call the boss whenever I am not 100% sure about something.

-Mike

 

[Apollyon]

I take a fair number of the routine calls, very few of the emergent ones and I call the boss whenever I am not 100% sure about something.

-Mike

Do you ever get any slack from the ED when they find out they're talking with the PA? I ask because, when I was a resident, during the day, there was a PA on call (because the NSx residents worked their asses off), and I thought it was fine, because the guy was GREAT - but my program director got a real case of the ass, because he wasn't a doc.

If you're doing it, though, it sounds like it works well, because you get the experience, and the boss gets to sleep.

 

[Chronic Student]

No, not really.

As I've stated previously, there are only two neurosurgeons in our area and they don't have much of a choice. Not meaning to be a butt, its just the truth.

There are one or two ER docs who don't care for PA's and they just do their best to talk to me as little as possible and we seem to have some sort of unspoken truce.

It helps that my boss is really well respected, that I know what I'm doing, that I don't usually have a chip on my shoulder and that I tend to get things going pretty quickly to get the patient in question out of the ER and into the OR or ICU/CCU and out of their hair pretty quickly.

In addition, if they call the other neurosurgeon in town, the will get a PA as well and they have a lot of PA's in the ER's here (including one that had my job, previously).

-Mike

 

[Apollyon]

Good to hear it. I'm of the mind of "the right person for the right job" - period. Thanks.