Which specialty is best for living abroad?

[bonvoyage]

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Hey i am applying to med schools. and i know it's early to pick specialties(though some schools ask me and i put down some random choice). and i know it's important to enjoy what you're doing. but i came here to ask which specialties allow u to take huge vacations and to live abroad... like i might want to move to europe some time before retirement. i mean if u take a 6months vacation for a 50% pay cut(others take shorter vacations but they do not work 52wks/yr), it's great, but if it means a 90% pay cut, then i just couldnt afford it..

so i am interested in emergency medicine because they can do ship cruise medicine. could someone explain the salary and lifestyle for that? why is it not very popular as a career?

but if that job is too unstable, i would also be interested in working a normal job in usa.. if u wanted to do something like cardiology, would it be impossible to be a part of a group like this? i mean i know when my parents go to see any specialists, they would not be excited if their dr was on a 6month vacation. So am i left with pathology, radiology, and EM?

 

[BlondeDocteur]

You are left with specialties which engage in pure shift work-- namely, EM, anesthesia, perhaps radiology and pathology.

Cruise ship medicine is the most god-awful boring thing in the universe, hence its unpopularity.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Blonde Docteur is right...shift work specialties are your best bet. Cruise Ship medicine? Almost as bad as working in a College Health Service...boring, no real illnesses (generally), plus you have the downside to living on a cruise ship.

And don't count on "working half the year means a 50% pay cut". Some costs of employing you are fixed...malpractice and health insurance for example, other overhead costs. If you aren't bringing in what other full time workers are but the costs are the same, it wouldn't be fair to pay you 50%. This is mostly true in private and group practices rather than being a hospital employee (where costs are widely dispersed).

 

[dragonfly99]

Agree with shift work specialties, particularly ER.
If you want to WORK abroad, then I'd say ER and/or family practice would be the best. If you want to only work part of the year each year, but then travel (and not necessarily work) then any shift work specialty like ER, anesthesia, perhaps radiology would work and you could then work as a locum tenens (i.e. temporary or part time) doc. If you want to make a career out of working abroad, could consider a specialty like infectious diseases and/or peds, or even OB/gyn (though it doesn't seem many OB/gyns do this) and go the academic route. Some of these academic types spend several months/year abroad in places like Africa, etc. You'd have to work out/create a research niche to be able to do this though...i.e. studying pediatric nutritional needs in 3rd world countries, or malaria, AIDS or some other infectious disease, etc.

 

[Long Dong]

Rads read studies while on the beach, at home or in another country, so I've heard.

 

[UT_mikie]

If you want to vacation abroad, then any specialty where you are not bound to patients (rad, path, anesth, EM) will be a possibility. However actually working abroad as a physician is another story. If you want to work in the developing world as an aid worker then any specialty will do although doctors without borders is in need of more surgeons.

However if you want to go practice in Japan, Spain, Italy or other developed countries I wouldn't keep my hopes up. They don't need extra doctors (esp foreign ones), and you would likely need to pass their licensing exams in the language of that country and may also have to do a residency over there as well. You would also likely be discriminated against by patients b/c they want a "local" Doc (wouldn't you?)

For radiologists, Night Hawks is a teleradiology company that employs US licensed doctors living in places like Australia and Israel to read films during the US night time. But its not all that common of a practice.

Basically if you want to live abroad, medicine is a terrible option, your license is only good here (unless the country is Somalia) Banking (whats left of it), consulting, teaching English ... those will take you elsewhere.

 

[UT_mikie]

Rads read studies while on the beach, at home or in another country, so I've heard.

If I were going into rads I would only read at home in my underwear.

 

[BlondeDocteur]

Yeah... something tells me that when the OP mentions cruise ship medicine and living in Europe 6 months out of the year, he's not thinking of baking in a tent in Eastern Chad doing MUACs on kwash kids.

 

[buckley]

Just thought I would say--Anesthesiologists are in high demand for international aid operations. Group practice is also a good option if u wnt to stay in the clinics, and still get vacations.

 

[bonvoyage]

You are left with specialties which engage in pure shift work-- namely, EM, anesthesia, perhaps radiology and pathology.

Cruise ship medicine is the most god-awful boring thing in the universe, hence its unpopularity.

so what exactly is bad about cruise ship medicine? from what ive read, you work 4months on/ 2months off; you are treated like a colonel. your cabin is basically like a luxury hotel room. as for being boring, i dont know why anyone would wish to encounter gun shot trauma all day long. i mean i dont see anything glamorous about having people die on me. but even on a cruise ship people do get heart attacks or other conditions that they brought from home.

 

[bonvoyage]

Yeah... something tells me that when the OP mentions cruise ship medicine and living in Europe 6 months out of the year, he's not thinking of baking in a tent in Eastern Chad doing MUACs on kwash kids.

thats right. so i am really limited to 4 specialties. thanks.

 

[bonvoyage]

For radiologists, Night Hawks is a teleradiology company that employs US licensed doctors living in places like Australia and Israel to read films during .

i read on the radiology forum that you can only do preliminary reads from abroad. so basically they would pay you as much as any foreign (i.e. indian) dr they might hire for preliminary reads.

 

[Long Dong]

i read on the radiology forum that you can only do preliminary reads from abroad. so basically they would pay you as much as any foreign (i.e. indian) dr they might hire for preliminary reads.

You might want to research that a little more. It is my understanding that the U.S. trained and boarded rads guys who read from outside the U.S. get paid pretty well.

 

[AmoryBlaine]

I doubt you'd have any luck finding a job in EM that allowed you to do this with two exceptions:

1. Locum tenens aka "doc in a box." -- but when you'd be working for 6 months it would be in places like Nowhere, Idaho because level 1 trauma centers in cities don't need to hire locums to cover shifts.

2. Academics with a very serious international health/research focus. This would be hard for you to land unless you did a serious fellowship in international health and were funded by some organization for an ongoing international project that was going to lead to some sort of publishable result. People who want to do international work in medicine are a dime a dozen.

Most EM jobs are in varyingly democractic groups covering one or more hospitals. They are looking for stable, long term committments.

Everything above applies to anesthesiology as well.

 

[howelljolly]

i read on the radiology forum that you can only do preliminary reads from abroad. so basically they would pay you as much as any foreign (i.e. indian) dr they might hire for preliminary reads.

Nah, the local hospitals usually choose the 'prelim read only' package. They could choose to get a final read, but it will probably cost more.

"hmmmmm well, they are on the prelim read plan....I'll tell 'em about the AAA, and let them find the colon mass on their own...."