Questions about Pain as a career

[Ignatius J]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hey guys,

PGY-1 (starting July 1) here doing a transitional year away from my home program.

I was curious to get feedback on Pain as a career. Here are a few pointed questions I was wondering:

Do you ever get in the OR to due just clinical anesthesia and keep up those skills, or are you limited to an outpatient setting?

I understand a lot of residents hate pain month because it is clinic, but do y'all find that it could be a rewarding profession provided one doesn't mind clinic?

Is it intellectually stimulating and challenging given all the pain research being done, technology coming out, and multidisciplinary approaches to pain or is it more of a 'cut and dry' type practice where there are well-defined standards of care for different presentations?

I'll do a pain rotation during my intern year and I look forward to it. I just wanted to get some feedback from good ol' Studentdoctor as well.

Thanks in advance.

 

[urge]

Pain is painful.

 

[sevoflurane]

With falling reimbursements, I would think hard about why you want to do pain medicine. There is a lot more h&p's, dictations, office visits and of course the time wasting drug seekers. As urge said... it is a pain.

Anesthesiology IMO, is so much more fun and rewarding. Peds, regional, OB, cardiac, trauma, vascular/thoracic, etc.. are far more stimulating to me than a 8-5 clinic day with occasional OR days of LESI's, SNRB's, facet joints, spinal cord stimulators etc.. That is just me though. Do a rotation or 2 and decide for yourself.

 

[geauxg8rs]

Gas puts me to sleep.

Just kidding. Who knows what pain will be like by the time you are ready to start applying for fellowships. By then we could be fighting for pennies on the dollar for epidurals or not getting reimbursed for things that are "non evidence based" (everything we do). You got a lotta time to worry about such things and survey the landscape. Good luck.