I agree with
@sluox that the drive to make money is not the causative agent of unhappiness, though I do agree that seeking happiness, fulfillment, etc. in material goods and success is likely to leave someone wanting. However, I do think that the drive to be materially successful above all else can be a risk factor for other issues that may crop up because of the cost of pursuing that drive.
I think it's interesting and appropriate that a factual question in a psychiatry forum gets this type of response, which is really a circuitous way to say okay this is weird people in psychiatry don't do this. Whereas if you go into cards or rads or what have you nobody would blink if you ask for moonlighting opportunities or the idea that you'd moonlight to make more money. A couple of further thoughts along those lines:
1) psychiatry is getting more lucrative and beginning to attract people who want to make more money (in an efficient way), whereas in the past it tends to attract mainly people who (for a variety of reasons) optimize for lifestyle.
2) you can "stack" jobs relatively easily in this field, mainly due to low overhead (i.e. not like surgery or other procedural specialties) and demand. a few thoughts here:
- call locum companies, that's probably the most efficient in getting the low hanging fruit
- negotiate aggressively on hourly rates
- telepsych jobs are plentiful, but pay remains poor (typically below $200 per hour, though exceptions exist) for very much equivalent services in my mind
- make sure your "day job" does not have a non-compete or similar (i.e. "all clinical services is carried out on behalf of X"). while such clauses may not be pursued (typically, they aren't), signing it puts you in a less powerful position, later on, should badness happen
- part-time private practice is a viable option in most parts of the country
3) It is not entirely crazy to say okay if you are working 50+ hours in psychiatry you are operating outside of professional norms, is there something going on, is it appropriate to oh hell I don't know, sit in a psychodynamic office for 6 months and see what transpires. That's an appropriate thought in this field. After all, this is not neurosurgery and the community doesn't have this kind of expectations. It obviously doesn't mean that something's definitely wrong, and I know people who work hard who are fine. Just thinking in terms of clinical practice, sitting in the therapist's spot, in my experience money and overwork is actually very rarely the issue in and of itself. Let me give you a concrete example: someone who gets sent to me by his wife because "overwork" (chief complaint), screening shows MDD + alcoholism. You do your standard CBT + meds, patient enters into remission, he tells me, hmm the thought that I *need* to make $X to make everyone and myself happy is distorted and depression talk, and now went away. He then goes to his boss and drops his hours. THIS SCENARIO is MUCH MORE COMMON in practice, and requires careful ruling out much more than some existential issue about the philosophical/spiritual value of material enjoyment and overworking causing the depression per se. Mental illness is undertreated and especially in physicians. I've even had *psychiatrists* (through physician wellness programs) in my practice who go improperly treated for standard depression/anxiety/adhd for *YEARS* for god know what.
The "miserly" overwork phenotype with distorted value system that leads to overwork (i.e. some kind of cluster C spectrum personality disorder trait) in my experience is a zebra. Garden variety MDD/anxiety about finance vastly more common, and therapeutically it's debatable whether some kind of spiritual debate on the legitimacy of their need of more money is helpful.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
