Specialty for slackers?

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Didierdrogba

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Sorry for starting so many threads lately, I'm in an SDN mood i guess

Let's say, I want a good specialty/ job for slackers while still doing clinical medicine. I am NOT huge on big name programs, research, competition, intelectual stimulation or high salaries, whatever. If I just want something with a good lifestyle, awesome hours, non-sweatshop pay (>$120,000), minimal commitment to the job, low liability, and time for travelling/ medical mission trips, am I looking at urgent care??
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Didierdrogba said:
Sorry for starting so many threads lately, I'm in an SDN mood i guess

Let's say, I want a good specialty/ job for slackers while still doing clinical medicine. I am NOT huge on big name programs, research, competition, intelectual stimulation or high salaries, whatever. If I just want something with a good lifestyle, awesome hours, non-sweatshop pay (>$120,000), minimal commitment to the job, low liability, and time for travelling/ medical mission trips, am I looking at urgent care??
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Shhhh..............

..........................(PM&R)
 
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Didierdrogba said:
Sorry for starting so many threads lately, I'm in an SDN mood i guess

Let's say, I want a good specialty/ job for slackers while still doing clinical medicine. I am NOT huge on big name programs, research, competition, intelectual stimulation or high salaries, whatever. If I just want something with a good lifestyle, awesome hours, non-sweatshop pay (>$120,000), minimal commitment to the job, low liability, and time for travelling/ medical mission trips, am I looking at urgent care??
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Allergy and Immunology. Only (somewhat) difficult part is getting in. Allergy is "competitive" because of the relative dearth of spots, but in truth the people who apply to it in general (and compared to GI, Cards, and Onc) are not the most "competitive" people (at least from what I've heard.
 
Didierdrogba said:
With this whole mid level creep thing going on, is it a legitimate concern that PM&R's might eventually be replaced by DPT's?
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I'd say it's highly unlikely--physiatrists and physical therapists do different things. A physiatrist diagnoses and manages people with disabling conditions--prescribing medicine, performing injections, in addition to prescribing PT (and being about the only physicians for which a PT will actually read the prescription written... otherwise most PT's ignore the Rx and do their own evaluation)

Physical therapists are expects in physical modalities. In general, they really don't want to do any medication prescribing, injections, etc. The move to a doctorate-level degree seems to be more to encourage more research and make the field a bit more academic, and maybe give a little bit more prestige to the field. I know a lot of PT's have different opinions on whether the DPT makes sense for your average PT.

I'd also add PM&R really isn't for slackers. It's definitely a much more easy-going specialty than others (maybe all others...), but while our scores are rather low, if you're not really passionate about the field, it'll be difficult to match at a quality program. Most programs really look for people that want to be physiatrists, so I'd recommend shadowing first to see if it's the field for you, and if so, doing at least one rotation.
 
tantacles said:
Emergency. 13 shifts per month is full time.
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I just got done shadowing an em doc at a level 1 trauma that also supervises residents. He loved it. Said you had a varying schedule but no "call" and while you had shifts with very little down time you didn't work as many hours at all as some of the other specialties.
 
I've heard from many people that PM&R is the way to go.
 
PrideNeverDie said:
psych
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+1 for psych. From what I know (and remember: I'm not an attending), the most chill, clinic-based specialties are: psych, PMR, allergy, neuro, rheum, endocrinology, pain, derm, sleep, and FM.
 
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What is PM&R? Not trolling. I'm super cereal.
 
Family Medicine can be awesome. Short days where you see a bunch of patients in the outpatient clinic making 120-150k per year, no call, no admitting to hospitals if you let hospitalists do all the work, and lots of clinical medicine.

Would also say the same for IM if you want to practice purely outpatient primary care or open up a spa clinic type thing.

Psych, Neuro, PM&R, A&I, Rheum can all be like this if you practice largely as an outpatient as well.
 
Silent Cool said:
+1 for psych. From what I know (and remember: I'm not an attending), the most chill, clinic-based specialties are: psych, PMR, allergy, neuro, rheum, endocrinology, pain, derm, sleep, and FM.
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How would you compare PMR vs Pain vs Rheum in terms of job stability/demand and ability to work with patients who are NOT DYING, but instead temporarily sick?
 
yesno said:
How would you compare PMR vs Pain vs Rheum in terms of job stability/demand and ability to work with patients who are NOT DYING, but instead temporarily sick?
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I'm by no means an expert but from the research I've done I would say that most patients in those fields are chronically sick. All three fields tend to deal with chronic issues. I think that PMR is probably your best bet, though, because a good number of their patients do get better, but just need management of their rehabilitation.

Also, many pain patients are probably cancer patients as well, which means that many will be dying.
 
wait.. back to my original question, can anybody comment on urgent care? It seems to be something that elderly semi-retired doctors do, so it can't be too tough, right?
 
Didierdrogba said:
wait.. back to my original question, can anybody comment on urgent care? It seems to be something that elderly semi-retired doctors do, so it can't be too tough, right?
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Urgent care is for nurses, PA's, moonlighting residents, and doc's that can't hack it anymore. Not a career path.
 
Agreed. You'll probably be correcting misdiagnoses all day.

PM&R is probably a good prospect considering the aging population.
 
I think Allergy requires a chief (4th year) year or else you have to have already passed your IM boards befor applying. There is something weird there. Seems like a good gig though.
 
John 117 said:
hahaha :laugh:

Do you care about location? If not, many other doors open for you.
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Yes. I care about having an urban location, low liability, low hours, lots of vacation. As a result, I think it is necessary to take a huge pay cut lol
 
Preventive/Occupational Med. Do an intern year, 1-2 yrs of clinic, then 1-2 yrs of MPH classes. Mostly do pre-employment physicals, vaccines, TB checks, some pain mgmt every now and then. Very chill.
 
myhandsarecold said:
Preventive/Occupational Med. Do an intern year, 1-2 yrs of clinic, then 1-2 yrs of MPH classes. Mostly do pre-employment physicals, vaccines, TB checks, some pain mgmt every now and then. Very chill.
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Is this a subspecialty of family med?
 
Didierdrogba said:
Is this a subspecialty of family med?
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It's not a specialty at all. Just get the general medical license after 1 year of residency and do whatever your employer and/or insurance company lets you get away with.

Very popular option for FMG / IMG. You could also do urgent care or prison medicine without board certification from any specialty board, but those are less chill.
 
sazerac said:
It's not a specialty at all. Just get the general medical license after 1 year of residency and do whatever your employer and/or insurance company lets you get away with.

Very popular option for FMG / IMG. You could also do urgent care or prison medicine without board certification from any specialty board, but those are less chill.
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I heard prison medicine pays pretty well, and it's really not "unchill" to a point of other specialties. Out of curiosity do you guys know how much Preventative medicine or urgent care pay?
 
Didierdrogba said:
I heard prison medicine pays pretty well, and it's really not "unchill" to a point of other specialties. Out of curiosity do you guys know how much Preventative medicine or urgent care pay?
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Yeah, prison medicine from what I understand is a good gig. low-stress, chill, great pay, benefits. Not a bad deal at all. In fact, it's a great deal.
 
EM? not very low liability at all, quite stressful with high burnout rate, it might be low number of shifts but night shift kinda takes 2 days out of your schedule, lotsa patients wanting to assault you for their roxies/vicodins; so OP look at other specialties
 
I am concerned that if I do something like PMR I might not get a job at some cool outpatient practice with a physical therapy center attached, I might be forced into working at nursing homes:( Also how come PMR has one of the lowest step1 scores and radiology has one of the highest? If radiology job market is bad, then it follows that all these easy specialties are also not doing too well. Or else why would the people with high steps go into something like radiology?
 
yesno said:
I am concerned that if I do something like PMR I might not get a job at some cool outpatient practice with a physical therapy center attached, I might be forced into working at nursing homes:( Also how come PMR has one of the lowest step1 scores and radiology has one of the highest? If radiology job market is bad, then it follows that all these easy specialties are also not doing too well. Or else why would the people with high steps go into something like radiology?
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Right now the trend in pm&r is outpatient and pain medicine (both interventional or non-interventional). Also because of this trend the job market to cover rehab floors in the hospital is pretty "hot" now. Although nursing homes hire rehab docs it isn't a big part of most PMR practices. If you cover the rehab floors, you follow stroke patients, spinal cord, trauma, amputees, and brain injury patients for generally 1-2 years (sometimes much more) in your clinic. So unless people stop having strokes or getting hurt, you have a supply of patients for your practice. The outpatient only practice requires you to market yourself for referrals from pcp's or working for a group of Ortho docs and seeing their non-surgical patients, doing their emg/ncs for surgery approval, or acting as a gate-keeper to keep them in the OR as much as possible. It's a diverse field with a lot of options.
 
Are pathology and radiology "slacker" fields?
 
In terms of chill residency, path is supposed to be the best.
(coming from a rads resident who chose rads because it was chill and told me the only one better would be path).
 
thefritz said:
In terms of chill residency, path is supposed to be the best.
(coming from a rads resident who chose rads because it was chill and told me the only one better would be path).
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easier than psych or pm&r? count me in.
 
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