How much do you work? - Page 3

That was my thought. That kind of workload is unheard of for an attending or private practice physician. Even for a fellow, one would have to be heavily involved in bench research or moonlighting to work 11 days straight.

That's your mistake right there. Historically ID has the worst pay to work ratio of the major medical specializations. My dad was an ID, and watching his experience convinced me not to go into medicine. Life balance is very difficult to find when you're on call every other weekend and working 10- 12 hour days every day. I probably average about 50 hours a week. When the short term average gets above that, my personal life starts to suffer.

Yeah, maybe not a fellow but a resident. At which point, it makes even more sense why he has the hours he mentioned.

But for many programs, I've always read that you need to have done an internal medicine rotation. Eg, neurology, nephrology, etc etc. And I don't think that all of those work as brutal hours as the internal med folks. I could very well be wrong though.

That's what my dad always said (actually, he always said, "those damn mechanics work half as much and make several times what I do").

Assuming he's not talking about literal mechanics and was instead calling specialists mechanics (because they only fix certain parts) this reminds me of that old story about the company that calls the engineer to fix something and gets an outrageous bill.

Surgeon=mechanic to my dad, because it requires mechanical skill over intellectual capability and knowledge, and is all about "procedures". This is in opposition to infectious disease, his specialty, which is entirely about curing disease through knowledge and intellect, but pays a fraction of what the top surgery specialties pay.

As I have learned to my everlasting regret from personal experience, the tag fits - surgeons tend to see medical issues more in terms of "What can I cut?" than "How can I best cure this?"

The top paragraph reminds me of Scrubs. Turk: "My girlfriend isn't the only one with straight C's, if you know what I'm saying"

The surgeons I've talked to don't necessarily think in the terms you pointed out, but maybe it's because I didn't see them while a patient.

I "live" in another city 3 days a week, and when there, usually work 12 hour days. The other 2 days, minimum of 10 hours, and then usually 4 to 6 hours over the weekend. What's that, 60+ hours or so a week. Been like that for at least 3 years, it's the norm.

9-9:30 two days a week. 9-5 three days a week. 12-5 one day a week. One day off (sometimes)

October - January I'm up at 8am and I'm usually working until past 9pm (not straight through of course). January - September I'm up at 10am and I'm usually done my day by noon.

Is this part of your regular gig or are you moonlighting a lot? You are attending now right? I had a friend who did research work during the day but moonlighted at night and weekends to pay the bills. He was always working.

I don't even know. 8:45-6 on weekdays, but I often end up doing work from home at night and on weekends. haven't been keeping track, really.

There was a classic study done where a case study of a cancer patient was presented to multiple doctors divided into three groups: chemo oncs, rad oncs, surgical oncs. Want to guess how each group overwhelmingly felt the course of treatment should go? Classic example of when all you have is a hammer, all you see is nails. Also raises some subtle questions about "informed consent," IMO. I am working much less than I did 10 years ago. In fact, not even as much as I did five years ago. I am enjoying the fruits of seven years of work at my current organization in terms of having developed a great team under me and learning the ropes of running the show. I'll still do the occasional 60 hour week or run 2-3 six day weeks together, but I'm much more M-F, 45-50 hours a week now than I have been in 20 years.

That's exactly right, including (if not especially), the last remark.

Most weeks, 40-50 hrs. But then I will have a month with three or four trials and find myself working 60-70 hours weeks. Still a decent schedule for a lawyer. I don't see how the people who work 60 hours every week do it.