Will 80 hour workweeks become the norm for doctors?

[pancakesyrup]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Now I'm talking about their main careers, not just residencies. Will typical doctors in the future be forced to work these hours?

 

[franniemeow07]

Maybe for surgeons, probably not if you are a family practice doctor. My friend's sister is a pediatrician and she works only 4 days a week, from 9-5, and making $150k. I'm sure many other SDNers have anecdotal evidence as well.

 

[DrYoda]

No one can be forced to work 80 hour weeks. And with lifestyle being of increasing importance to the newer generation of doctors, I doubt you're going to see an increase in the number of people choosing to work 80 hours.

 

[Law2Doc]

No one can be forced to work 80 hour weeks.

If you go into surgery, you probably will be working more than this -- it's just the nature of the beast. As for the other fields, as reimbursements go down, you see hours go up in certain fields to maintain the prior year's salary. This is what is happening in FP -- folks are working longer hours each year just to not lose ground on last year's salary as reimbursements get slashed. So no, you can't get "forced" to work 80 hours/week after residency, but your choice of specialty or desire to have comfortable earnings might get to that result.

 

[njbmd]

Eighty hours? That's a vacation for me. Of course, work doesn't seem like "work" when you love what you do and I love what I do.

 

[rocketbooster]

you'll only have 80-hour-work weeks when you are on call on weekends. no doctor is on call every weekend. the non-oncall weekend weeks will probably be ~65 hours/week.

even for surgeons, you can't tell me they are on call every weekend. definitely not true. you can always do that much if you want, though! physicians are paid based on productivity. the more procedures you do and more patients you see, the more money you make.

 

[mfrizzo3]

No

 

[searun]

Eighty hours? That's a vacation for me. Of course, work doesn't seem like "work" when you love what you do and I love what I do.

Do you have children? If so, where do the kids fit into your 80 plus hour work weeks?

 

[Trismegistus4]

Do you have children? If so, where do the kids fit into your 80 plus hour work weeks?

She didn't say she works 80 hours per week, she said 80 hours per week is a vacation for her. Now, if we take the standard 40-hour work week that is generally assumed for most wage slaves, a vacation is a week off, which means 40 hours less than usual. So a normal work week for njbmd is 80 + 40, or 120 hours per week. That's an average of over 17 hours per day, assuming she works 7 days a week. A pretty amazing feat, considering there are only 168 hours in a week. That leaves less than 7 hours per night to drive home, catch a few hours of sleep, and drive back to work, maybe eat something somewhere in there. Only getting 5 hours of sleep a night, with no respite from this schedule, must be starting to take a toll on her.

According to this survey from 2003, general surgeons worked an average of 60 hours per week. I think one is justified in being skeptical of people claiming to work more than 80 hours a week, unless they are including as "work" time being on home-call when they don't actually get called in most of the time.

 

[searun]

If a doctor is so obsessed with his or her work that 80 hours per week is a vacation, then I would recommend against having children. It would not be fair to the kids. However, if the physician does not have children, and is single or has a supportive spouse who is also a workaholic, then go ahead and work 80-120 hours per week if that is what floats your boat.

I am willing to work 65 hours or so per week (not counting oncall weekends), but I want a family, and therefore some balance in my life. A career is not everything. I do not believe that a doctor has to sacrifice any semblance of a normal life for medicine.

 

[Law2Doc]

even for surgeons, you can't tell me they are on call every weekend. definitely not true. you can always do that much if you want, though! physicians are paid based on productivity. the more procedures you do and more patients you see, the more money you make.

I know quite a few post-residency surgeons who regularly average well above 80 hours per week. you have to realize that when you come in before 5 and don't leave until the early evening (ie 14 hour days) regularly, that on its own ends up being 70 hours. So when you add in some late nights (cases don't end when they are supposed to) each week, and a few weekend days every month, that breaks the 80 hours average pretty handily. When surgical residents got capped at 80 hour work weeks, the number of hours of some young attendings ended up going up well over 80 to make up the slack. This wasn't so much a choice or for more money as a function of their job -- if hospitals have to make residents leave, somebody has to see to the patients.