Which specialty has the worst hours?
Started by Mesinan
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You should check the pre-allo forum. There was a thread a few days ago about the most time consuming specialities. If I recall correctly, Vascular Surgery was top of the list. Critical Care Medicine was second or third. I'll see if I can find it and edit my post in a few minutes.
EDIT: I can't find the original post, but I found a post from two years ago.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=841864
The following quote is based on a system where Family Medicine was the baseline at 0. Vascular Surgeons worked 888 more hours per year than the average Family Doc. Dermatology worked 346 hours less on average than a FM doc.
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Neurosurgery is bad as far as hours, but it's mainly the residents with the extremely horrible hours. Once the person becomes an attending in Neurosurgery, the hours decrease significantly. Sorry to reply to you. 😛 I know you aren't wanting to post since you have 999 posts. haha
Probably surgical specialties.
But your life isn't measured in your work hours
It's the experiences that you encounter in those hours... That's what makes it worthwhile. 70+ hours a week is daunting but it's just a number... You can't see how much passion goes into that work in those hours.
But your life isn't measured in your work hours
It's the experiences that you encounter in those hours... That's what makes it worthwhile. 70+ hours a week is daunting but it's just a number... You can't see how much passion goes into that work in those hours.
Exactly. I'm interested in specialties with terrible hours, but I'm willing to work hard to get there because I know I'll enjoy the work. As said in a thread somewhere on this forum, you could do your favorite hobby for 70-80 hours a week, so translate that into a job you would care a lot about and the hours will be nothing. For me that is surgery.... Specifically Vascular Surgery, which is the highest hour specialty according to the thread I posted above.
I have a Vascular Surgeon and an Anesthesiologist as neighbors.
The Anesthesiologist I see every single day, and he gets home and starts grilling on his barbecue and he's single.
I only see the surgeon on weekends and when i'm up late at around 12-1 A.M. I sometimes see him driving off on maybe saturday or sunday and see his car pull up at around 10-11 AM when I wake up.
The anesthesiologist makes a ton of money but he said he wished he matched into another specialty.
The surgeon loves what he does and he even told me that he hates when he comes home sometimes because he doesn't even know what to do... He just wants to get back in the O.R.
Even though he divorced with his first wife, he has a 2nd wife and they are extremely happy together.I was thinking about being a podiatrist so I don't have too many extremes... As I am inclined to not be a workaholic but i'm sure if I become a Pod, I would love to do surgery and I would probably work almost as hard minus the call because I would love to do my job.
I have a Vascular Surgeon and an Anesthesiologist as neighbors.
The Anesthesiologist I see every single day, and he gets home and starts grilling on his barbecue and he's single.
I only see the surgeon on weekends and when i'm up late at around 12-1 A.M. I sometimes see him driving off on maybe saturday or sunday and see his car pull up at around 10-11 AM when I wake up.
The anesthesiologist makes a ton of money but he said he wished he matched into another specialty.
The surgeon loves what he does and he even told me that he hates when he comes home sometimes because he doesn't even know what to do... He just wants to get back in the O.R.
I was thinking about being a podiatrist so I don't have too many extremes... As I am inclined to not be a workaholic but i'm sure if I become a Pod, I would love to do surgery and I would probably work almost as hard minus the call because I would love to do my job.
Your parents must be uber rich or something for you to live in the same neighborhood as two of the highest paying physician specialties. haha I don't live anywhere close to anyone who practices medicine. I wouldn't know any doctors if it wasn't for physician shadowing.
Alpine, NJ (as my location states) 🙄
Voila!
http://www.businessinsider.com/alpine-new-jersey-richest-zip-code-photos-mansions-2011-10?op=1
And not my parents, only my dad works. My mom stays home.
I wish I were as lucky as her. I go to a prep school so I only go there during summers, holidays, and weekends.
Lol. Why is Peds EM even a specialization? Providers don't get near enough critical care experience in that field. Kids just don't get as sick as grandma and grandpa.
Anyway, this seems pretty realistic. And you can make yourself as busy or as lax as you want to be. You can work 50 hours a week as a neurosurgeon at a level one trauma in NYC, or be on call 365 days a year at some level 2 hosp far away from level 1 care. It all depends what you wanna do and how you plan out your life with it. You can always take part time positions too. Only play doctor for a few days a week. 🙂
Just wanted to point out that most emergency medicine docs have very predictable hours because most work under a shift schedule.
Well by this reasoning we should have no pediatric sub-specialities. 🙄
Pediatric emergency medicine exists because children's bodies are different from the bodies of adults. Doing a lumbar puncture on a toddler is more difficult than doing one on an adult. They are going to know more about neonatology than regular emergency medicine physicians, among any number of additional things that are unique to pediatrics, such as a vast amount of possibilities for fevers of unknown origin.
Also critical care does not equal emergency medicine. Critical care fellowships refer to doctors who generally wish to be intensivists, eg. PICU, ICU.
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Really? My cousin must have a crappy job. She has shifts, but they are crazy shifts from like 3AM to like 11AM.
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EM has the most predictable hours. They will include nights, weekends and holidays, but you'll get a schedule weeks/months in advance that tell you when you will work. You might stay late if you're swamped, but that's about it.
Trauma surgery also follows a shift model at most places as well, so you'd work your scheduled shifts and leave. It's easier to get caught up in a long case that might keep you past your shift end than if you were in EM, but if you're off, you're off.
Those are highly irregular shifts. Most people don't wake up in the middle of the night to start working. Usual shifts are 7a-3p, 3p-11p, 11p-7a, with some 12 hour shifts thrown in, like 7a-7p, 12p-12a, 7p-7a.
Yes, they do have wacky hours. If you have a big enough group though, you might not be on call much, and you could just plan the next day off.
You obviously have never spent time in a children's hospital. While the overall number of critically ill children is smaller in pure population standpoint, as a Peds Critical Care fellow, I can assure you there are plenty of critically ill children. While Peds EM does have a large component that fits as "merely" outpatient medicine, the fact of the matter is that every study that's examined it has shown that the care delivered to kids by adult EM providers is on the whole substandard.
The big difference for pediatrics is that pediatric subspecialty care is regionalized, so patients get transferred to tertiary/quarternary care centers.
This is on the money on all points. Listen to this guy, he knows what he's talking about.
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