What are the working conditions of a neurologist?

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mdbold

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What might a typical day or week look like? Are the neurologists out there happy with their careers? Pros and cons, perhaps?

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This is a big "it depends".

Want to go in to neurocritical care? Depending on the hospital system you're in, you can easily be working "resident hours" as a senior attending and be on call, all the time, or you could be in a big academic center with multiple attendings and a schedule reflective of that.

Want to go into private practice neurology? Hours will totally depend on your practice type. Go solo, and you can end up working your tail off depending on your patient base or, ahem, what your $$$tandard of living is. Join a ginormous group with lots of subspecialists and you can end up with a very cush schedule with infrequent calls.

Academics? A typical day might be morning conference, rounding with your team in the morning, noon conference, research and/or clinics in the afternoon, and checkout rounds. Call totally depends on the hospital, number of attendings, whether the residents are required to call you for every patient/ you stay in house/you only get called when all hell breaks loose, etc. Some may only work 4 day weeks depending on group size and seniority.

Hospitalist? Just about what you'd expect. Morning rounds, etc. In some rare cases, these guys are able to end up with really nice schedules. They may strike a deal where they provide coverage for a hospital 9 to 5 on weekdays. I've met one who provides nonstop weekend coverage. He takes over as attending at 3 PM on a Friday and basically lives at the hospital until checkout rounds Monday morning. He's off Monday a.m.-Friday in return for working 3 days straight.

All very variable, but it just goes to show you, it's a specialty that allows you to make it what you want it to be.
 
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