To be a Clinician or a Doc.

[arc5005]

So, I'm not sure of which path to take. Lately, I've been leaning towards the clinician route such as AA or PA. I have no desire to be a RN. Part of me thinks going the DO route would be the most intellectually stimulating and best career & salary wise. However, part of me wants to have a family and work 40 hrs a week. I'm also nervous about decreasing salaries & high unemployment rates for AAs and/or PAs.

I'm taking the MCAT at the end of the summer regardless, and will have about about a 3.3 undergrad GPA.

What do you guys think?

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[deleted6669]

Part of me thinks going the DO route would be the most intellectually stimulating and best career & salary wise. However, part of me wants to have a family and work 40 hrs a week.
I'm taking the MCAT at the end of the summer regardless, and will have about about a 3.3 undergrad GPA.

Listen to the part saying go to med school. I wish I did. many docs actually have better schedules than the pas they work with. think about it, who do you think gets to work the nights/weekends/holidays/early am rounds/etc, the doc or the pa they are paying to make their life easier?
an easy month for me is 180 hrs. the docs I work with max out at 140 or so and many work a lot less than that. my family vacations last a week and involve travel to an adjacent state. their vacations last 2-4 weeks and involve international travel. I drive a honda. they drive bmws. my kids go to public school. their kids go to private schools, etc.

 

[arc5005]

Listen to the part saying go to med school. I wish I did. many docs actually have better schedules than the pas they work with. think about it, who do you think gets to work the nights/weekends/holidays/early am rounds/etc, the doc or the pa they are paying to make their life easier?
an easy month for me is 180 hrs. the docs I work with max out at 140 or so and many work a lot less than that. my family vacations last a week and involve travel to an adjacent state. their vacations last 2-4 weeks and involve international travel. I drive a honda. they drive bmws. my kids go to public school. their kids go to private schools, etc.

It that mainly Emergency Medicine physicians, though? Don't a lot of docs work much more often than 140 hrs/month?

 

[deleted6669]

It that mainly Emergency Medicine physicians, though? Don't a lot of docs work much more often than 140 hrs/month?

Sure, but I have heard similar stories from my colleagues in other fields.
practices with surgical pas often have the pa take 1st call to the er and do morning rounds, night call, and cover post-op clinic.
FP pas arrive at 7 am, open the clinic, docs strolls in at 9 and leaves at 5, pa there until 7 pm to close up and finish charting, etc.
docs hire pas to do the work they don't want to do at the times and places they don't want to do it. even day shift pas deal with the scut docs don't want to do. I don't know if a doc in my group has done a pelvic exam, incised a perirectal abscess or done any low level procedure in years because all those things get triaged to the pas so the docs can do the fun stuff. I got tired of scut and work nights, rural and/or solo now so I get my pick of cases and procedures. took me 15 years to get there. lots of crap jobs along the way. I currently commute hrs from a major metro area to be able to have jobs with good autonomy and scope of practice. the kind of jobs docs can do day 1 out of residency in any major metro area.

 

[arc5005]

Sure, but I have heard similar stories from my colleagues in other fields.
practices with surgical pas often have the pa take 1st call to the er and do morning rounds, night call, and cover post-op clinic.
FP pas arrive at 7 am, open the clinic, docs strolls in at 9 and leaves at 5, pa there until 7 pm to close up and finish charting, etc.
docs hire pas to do the work they don't want to do at the times and places they don't want to do it. even day shift pas deal with the scut docs don't want to do. I don't know if a doc in my group has done a pelvic exam, incised a perirectal abscess or done any low level procedure in years because all those things get triaged to the pas so the docs can do the fun stuff. I got tired of scut and work nights, rural and/or solo now so I get my pick of cases and procedures. took me 15 years to get there. lots of crap jobs along the way. I currently commute hrs from a major metro area to be able to have jobs with good autonomy and scope of practice. the kind of jobs docs can do day 1 out of residency in any major metro area.

Yeah. My stepdad is in Infectious Disease and my mom and him go on 4+ vacations a year and his NPs cover for him, so that makes sense. However, and this may just be his career-focused personality, but he was and still is much more often involved in his career than in his kid's lives, or so I've heard.

 

[deleted6669]

Yeah. My stepdad is in Infectious Disease and my mom and him go on 4+ vacations a year and his NPs cover for him, so that makes sense. However, and this may just be his career-focused personality, but he was and still is much more often involved in his career than in his kid's lives, or so I've heard.

docs I work with coach their kids games, help direct school plays, etc.
I am lucky if I can make a few/yr