Surgery with a decent lifestyle

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SocialistMD said:
It's like rootbeer or ginger beer (i.e. sweet and nonalcoholic). Osterweis is the only brand I've ever had; they sell it at a microbrewery here in town. I don't really know where to look; possibly Whole Foods or Central Market?
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Cool...there's a Whole Foods a couple of blocks away.

Cost Plus Word Market also carries a lot of unusual stuff.
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252lorescanwithshaddcd4.jpg


/thread
 
Tired said:
You are a Chief in a field that has a subspecialty devoted to a$$. In a way, that makes you an A$$ Chief, or as I'm sure your residents affectionately call you, Rear Admiral.

:D
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Does that mean you have a foot-fettish?
 
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smq123 said:
Does your hospital also stock jars of peanut butter? Peanut butter on graham crackers were great after a long case.
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Yes, I agree! :thumbup: There have been days where all I ate was the free peanut butter, graham crackers and box juices that were in the nurses' station.

Winged Scapula said:
I like a *lot* of variety obviously.:p
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Plus the attending paycheck, no? We'll all equip our fridges that way, one day, once we start getting paid! ;)

Tired said:
You are a Chief in a field that has a subspecialty devoted to a$$. In a way, that makes you an A$$ Chief, or as I'm sure your residents affectionately call you, Rear Admiral.
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Oh snap!
 
Tired said:
You are a Chief in a field that has a subspecialty devoted to a$$. In a way, that makes you an A$$ Chief, or as I'm sure your residents affectionately call you, Rear Admiral.
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I prefer Butt Pirate...Oh wait, that is not PC.
 
Winged Scapula said:
Peach Fresca
Diet Sunkist
Diet Pepsi
Diet Dr Pepper
Diet Red Bull (or the occasional Rock Star, whichever is on sale)
Diet A & W
Diet Code Red
Diet Sprite
Water
Limeade
Non-Fat Milk
some juice boxes left over frm my nephew's visit
Ginger Beer
various wine
Tequeza
Peach Hard Cider

I like a *lot* of variety obviously.:p
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Holy crap. In my fridge I've got two bottles of water left over from lunch a couple of days ago, some juice boxes from the hospital, and the Diet Cokes I housed from my Chairman's fridge. :)
 
Tired said:
You are a Chief in a field that has a subspecialty devoted to a$$. In a way, that makes you an A$$ Chief, or as I'm sure your residents affectionately call you, Rear Admiral.

:D
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Does that mean you like boners?

Does that mean you like shafts?

Ha ha. You like dudes.

:laugh:
 
Tired said:
Weak dude. :thumbdown:

That was the perfect setup to make a joke about how much I like "bone". :D
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Word up! :thumbup:

And, just for the record, my post regarding your penchant for "bones" came up before I saw your reply to SocMD. :)

It's like we're connected. :love:
 
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Tired said:
You are a Chief in a field that has a subspecialty devoted to a$$. In a way, that makes you an A$$ Chief, or as I'm sure your residents affectionately call you, Rear Admiral.

:D
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this is quite possibly the best thread i've read in a long, long time :laugh:
 
Tired said:
You are a Chief in a field that has a subspecialty devoted to a$$. In a way, that makes you an A$$ Chief, or as I'm sure your residents affectionately call you, Rear Admiral.

:D
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I'm sorry I don't normally post over here, but what about Commodore Sphincter? haha
 
i think psychiatry's becoming an increasingly surgical field. ect and tcms are just some of the treatments currently in use that forbode more of a surgical aspect in the future. it's also very lifestyle friendly. 40 hours/week as an attending is quite realistic.
 
Mmmmm....

All you folks who like that Coke Zero garbage..... That crap is disgusting. At least the splenda pepsi/coke and the diet sunkist got some tastes in them.


I am soooo immune to butt jokes now that I near the end of this colorectal fellowship. I learned 3 things this year:

1) Never leave the OR without Lube.
2) Don't forget to wear a glove before you do a rectal post a rigid proctoscopy.
3) For God's sake.....even if prepping the colon doesn't improve the rate of infection... write the order for a fleet enema anyway!

And to all you bitchy patients out there.... when I come in at 9 pm Friday night to do your rectal exam cause we are being consulted at 6 pm for your "rectal bleeding" that happens to be from some fissure you had for 20 years but never bothered to go to a clinic for it... I am not there because I enjoy checking asses at 9 pm.... So bend over and shut the F*** up, you are lucky I carry lube with me cause the damn floor sure avoids carrying it.

*bah had to get some of that out:laugh:*
 
Tired said:
I still have fantasies of getting out of surgery and switching to psychiatry. My order of specialty preference as an MSIV was:

1) Ortho
2) Gen Surg
3) Psych

I would have done it too, if there wasn't so much counseling, CBT, outpatient stuff. If they had exclusively inpatient psychiatry (and I'm not talking about that PCLS nonsense, but real inpatient work) I probably would have done it.
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Believe it or not, that's where most people who leave surgery go to.
 
Tired said:
I still have fantasies of getting out of surgery and switching to psychiatry. My order of specialty preference as an MSIV was:

1) Ortho
2) Gen Surg
3) Psych

I would have done it too, if there wasn't so much counseling, CBT, outpatient stuff. If they had exclusively inpatient psychiatry (and I'm not talking about that PCLS nonsense, but real inpatient work) I probably would have done it.
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I looked into it a little bit, and apparently people with interest in psychiatry or surgery are more often than not interested in the other field. I am also interested in both, and originally thought that this was an odd occurrence until I spoke to several people and looked it up (nothing official obviously, just a lot of anecdotes).
 
Blade28 said:
Really? I always thought it was Gas, Path or Rads.
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GAS is close second and path is not too far... but my understanding Psych is the first. I think it's the patient interaction. If you end up hating the OR and long hours then you are more likely to favor psych over GAS. Neither GAS nor Pathology give the patient interaction satisfaction that Psych. Patients are more grateful to their psychiatrists than their GAS or their Pathologist.

Also Psych is more accepting of transferring folks than Path, Gas and Rads.
 
Tired said:
I still have fantasies of getting out of surgery and switching to psychiatry. My order of specialty preference as an MSIV was:

1) Ortho
2) Gen Surg
3) Psych
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How interesting.

I, too, toyed with the idea of doing a psychiatry residency. I'm not much the talker and I don't really like to listen to people whine, but for whatever reason, I find the crazies really interesting to listen to and their whining is great!

And, plus, how much of a hit at parties would you be armed with all your stories that could potentially violate HIPAA?
 
Ok, I'll concede (if only because I was interested in psychiatry before medical school).

My response was to the poster who seemed to be championing psychiatry to the OP not because its interesting but because of the procedures. And while many of us do find psychiatry interesting, its NOT because of the "procedures".
 
What the hell kind of procedures are there in psychiatry? ECT? That's NOT a procedure. Playing Rock Band is more difficult than zapping a fruitcake.
 
josehernandez94 said:
i think psychiatry's becoming an increasingly surgical field. ect and tcms are just some of the treatments currently in use that forbode more of a surgical aspect in the future. it's also very lifestyle friendly. 40 hours/week as an attending is quite realistic.
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How interesting. A psychiatrist who's out of his frickin' mind.
 
Castro Viejo said:
How interesting. A psychiatrist who's out of his frickin' mind.
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I think he's joking? I mean the only thing "surgical" about ECT is that u need an Anesthesiologist to sedate the patient.
 
Just wait, interventional psych is going to be the next hot field! I forsee a combination of phrenology and trans-sphenoidal acupuncture.

(Only kidding guys, I think psych is interesting, but certainly not because of procedures)
 
Dakota said:
Just wait, interventional psych is going to be the next hot field!
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Interventional psychiatry already exists. It's called neurosurgery. They are the ones who implant the nerve stimulators and all that stuff. The psych people then just monitor the aftermath.

I could potentially consider psych, if there was no inpatient component. Hospital consults and crisit interventions are fun. Monitoring valproate levels and checking to see if they still hear voices is incredibly mind numbing.
 
Didn't mean to hijack. All I was saying was that it is quite possible to lead a happy life in a surg setting. You just have to give a little.. And for what it is worth, the neuro guy is only 42. The ortho guy is in his late 50's. And golf is a sport, bowling is not.
"Anything you get better at as you get drunker is not a sport, thus bowling is not a sport" Jim Rome
 
danzman said:
Didn't mean to hijack. All I was saying was that it is quite possible to lead a happy life in a surg setting. You just have to give a little.. And for what it is worth, the neuro guy is only 42. The ortho guy is in his late 50's. And golf is a sport, bowling is not.
"Anything you get better at as you get drunker is not a sport, thus bowling is not a sport" Jim Rome
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Then neither is golf when I play it. :)
 
danzman said:
Didn't mean to hijack. All I was saying was that it is quite possible to lead a happy life in a surg setting. You just have to give a little.. And for what it is worth, the neuro guy is only 42. The ortho guy is in his late 50's. And golf is a sport, bowling is not.
"Anything you get better at as you get drunker is not a sport, thus bowling is not a sport" Jim Rome
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For me, this absolutely includes golf.

I've won bets because of it. My golfing colleagues and I think it is because I become more relaxed and stop over-thinking...
 
Jim Rome is correct for the most part....even though I hate the douchebag. I did drunken ice curling once...that was prettttty awesome.

Billiards has a tipping point. I know I went by it when I hit some guy in the face with the butt end of a pool cue by accident....or I tear the felt on the table. (Not that that has happened. *cough*)
 
TheMightyAngus said:
A few of the athletic trainers at Stanford used to say that Tiger could bench press 300lbs.
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300 seems kind of low for tiger actually. I guess it is because of the crowd that I used to hang with, but if you benched only 300 you were on the low end for most. I was on the lower end at 350, but I hate bench. Worthless
 
Is ortho considered a lifestyle friendly surgical field once residency is over?

(I've heard the residency can be quite brutal but lifestyle is dependent mostly on the type of practice you decide to join afterwards)
 
discontinuebed said:
Is ortho considered a lifestyle friendly surgical field once residency is over?

(I've heard the residency can be quite brutal but lifestyle is dependent mostly on the type of practice you decide to join afterwards)
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Hmmm... When I left the hospital this morning from being on-call last night, the Orthpods were just about to start their Saturday filled with hips and other such joint stuff. This is just about every Saturday. And they operate through the week.

Nah... Not lifestyle friendly at all.
 
Castro Viejo said:
Hmmm... When I left the hospital this morning from being on-call last night, the Orthpods were just about to start their Saturday filled with hips and other such joint stuff. This is just about every Saturday. And they operate through the week.

Nah... Not lifestyle friendly at all.
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ugh, just finished call last night myself. can't imagine going in to the hospital each weekend. now are these residents or attendings?
 
Mariah246 said:
ugh, just finished call last night myself. can't imagine going in to the hospital each weekend.
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You mean as a resident or attending?

As a resident, count on being in the hospital at least one of the two weekend days most weeks.
 
Blade28 said:
You mean as a resident or attending?

As a resident, count on being in the hospital at least one of the two weekend days most weeks.
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As an attending. I'm assuming he was referring to ortho attendings who were coming in on Saturdays to do their cases.

(although that being said, weekends are completely empty in terms of ortho OR schedules at my home hospital. even trauma calls are shipped off elsewhere)
 
Are we at a conclusion that there are no surgical specialties with a good lifestyle? I'm curious.

And I'd like to clarify, I like to fix things and work with my hands. I don't want to deal with varying degrees of sickness, I want to meet the patient, diagnose, and fix. I hate feeling like I can't help.

I started out looking at dentistry, because it had many of the things I was interested in, but I love sports and the human body. I would much rather run a sports clinic, or work in a specialty that allows me to work with an active patient base. So dentistry was ruled out.

Now, I'm looking at many things, with PM&R, Ortho, Pod, etc. being the top, because they seem to have a combination of things I'd like to do.

I don't mind working 40-50 most weeks, but I do want to have a share in raising my children. That is the most important job for me.

Would ortho not allow that?
 
biocmp said:
I don't mind working 40-50 most weeks, but I do want to have a share in raising my children. That is the most important job for me.
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40-50 is pretty light, for many medical specialties.

Most specialties (aside from PM&R, radiology, and maybe path) are closer to 60-80 hours per week. I wouldn't count on having fewer hours as an attending.
 
Most surgical specialties, or any field for that matter, generally require more than 40-50 hours per week at the beginning of practice.

There are anecdotal reports of surgeons working that few hours per week, but in general, these are people who:

1) are simply working part-time; if that is of interest to you, positions are available, but they can be hard to find because some expenses (ie, malpractice) don't decrease with working fewer hours

2) have reached the height of their career and can financially afford to work fewer hours

It is possible, for example, to do purely elective spinal surgery, make great money and work fewer hours than a general orthopedist. However, this is a long road to get to, with lots of long hard hours and fairly competitive. Not everyone who wants to be the high roller spinal surgeon will get to be so.

So I don't think you should rule out surgery just because you don't want to work more than 40-50 hours per week because there are options, but I would caution you that many fields outside of surgery exceed those numbers as well and to work those hours in surgery will take a while to get to.
 
Mariah246 said:
ugh, just finished call last night myself. can't imagine going in to the hospital each weekend. now are these residents or attendings?
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Attendings. With the on-call Ortho resident.
 
Mariah246 said:
(although that being said, weekends are completely empty in terms of ortho OR schedules at my home hospital. even trauma calls are shipped off elsewhere)
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It really depends on the hospital. Some other hospitals in this area (New York) run rooms on Saturdays for elective cases. It partially has to do with nursing and their willingness to participate.

And you can be sure that if there's an opening for elective cases, there's gonna be someone who wants to do their cases then. Some patients LOVE weekend operations.
 
biocmp said:
I don't mind working 40-50 most weeks, but I do want to have a share in raising my children. That is the most important job for me.

Would ortho not allow that?
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You should probably expect to work way more than 40-50 hours per week in any surgical subspecialty if you want to be successful (i.e., generate an income worth something to you and your family and your partners in practice).

Maybe PM&R is something you might want to consider instead. There's no operative component, but it has a far more predictable lifestyle for your tastes. Podiatry? I don't know anything about it, but basically understand that unless you're doing "podiatric surgery" (i.e., foot and ankle stuff) then you're not going to do that well in practice doing toenails, bunions, etc.
 
Wow! Thank you so much for the replies people. I was afraid of sounding naive, so thank you for putting up with my questions. If you don't mind me asking, what drew each of you to your specific specialty? Everything sounds so interesting in the surgical field. I just can't seem to narrow it down (I guess I shouldn't since I haven't begun medical school yet). I'd love to hear any stories, etc.

I'm sure everyone has steady hands, but I love intricate work/detail. And as stated before, I also love sports/training etc.

So many options...

Thanks in advance to all those who reply.
 
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