my best friends are ortho docs...
they've got a good situation...
the key to 'lifestyle' in medicine is avoiding two things.
1. the ER
-what i mean is ortho cases from the ER are generally not going to need to be dealt with in the middle of the night...a lot of ortho can be splinted by a good ER doc and referred to the clinic the following day...the ER sucks, take it from a general surgeon...there is nothing good about it. low or no reimbursement, dumb ER docs that can't take care of patients, and getting your ass out of bed. it sucks...ortho docs don't spend a lot of time there, which proves, once again, that they are smarter than us all.
2. the wards
-ortho patients are generally 'post op' patients that leave the ward relatively quickly...when complications come up (pneumonia etc..) they hand em off to the medicine docs...problem solved. you don't want a big census of inpatients, trust me.
ortho docs are good in partnerships...they share patient care and call duties well, and are generally collegial amongst themselves
income is good, especially for the spine guys
they generate a lot of income for the hospital, so they get what they want from the hospital admin...they can threaten to walk out of the hospital, and take cases to a 'surgery center', and use this threat as an effective bargaining chip.
ortho is a great field, and you're making a great choice if you decide to do it.
TNS
