Specialty with a 30 hour work week?

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sliceofbread136

Full Member
10+ Year Member
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I really want to go into something with very light hours... however no gen peds clinic or urgent care, I detest both of these. I’m thinking maybe sleep medicine? Any other options you can think of?

Current a pgy2 so I need to think of something soon...
 
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So you want to spend 80 hour work weeks in fellowship training for 3 years at reduced pay so you can work part time? That doesn't really make much financial sense you know...

I’m kind of spoiled and don’t have any debt. Honestly I’d be pretty comfortable on 50k a year...
 
Can you work part time crit care? How about pulm? I do like both of these and could do a tough fellowship if I had a light at the end of the tunnel
There probably are parttime positions. Your options would be quite limited though since many subspecialites cluster around children’s hospitals which typically aren’t looking for parttime workers who aren’t contributing to the greater academic mission, but I suppose it’s a limited possibly. I mean I have a colleague in my group who has reduced effort mostly because he is burned out and his wife is a neurosurgeon so he doesn’t have to work as much. He still comes in everyday almost, he just chooses to do less clinical time. There’s also skill attrition if you don’t do something enough, especially for procedures. I suppose you could do a fellowship if you want and roll the dice on the back end as far as jobs.
 
To answer the question that you asked, critical care fields such as NICU, PICU and cards are difficult to get that type of position. You would be better off in some fields like rheum or allergy/immunology which are clinic based more than inpatient and you could control the number of clinics a bit. Likely you'd have trouble finding a starting job at 3-4 days/week, but it's not that uncommon later on. Could consider endo, GI, etc but these are heavier inpatient. Also recognize that in many areas you may have times when you need to do more hours as you are covering an inpatient service, but in many settings that may not be all the time and there would be easier months.
 
Could always consider the tele-health industry. More shift work, is more giving reassurance and counseling than anything else. Insurance companies are using this option to have families be able to speak with a provider overnight etc. Growing business model that is in the early stages.

Not to say if it is right to have this, but that is not the question asked. It is a job that likely could be part time......
 
Agree with PEM. 3-4 eight hour shifts per week. You'll have to be OK with very fast paced and sometimes very sick kids as well as some "urgent care" type kids, and night shifts... but it would get you to your hours goal.
 
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