Bigredmed

There we go, he beat me to my answer.

NSGYDoc did you an endovascular fellowship?

Princess'Dad

IM academic starting is usually about $125K. Are you "pure" academics (tenured route) or nontenured academic affiliated. Being fairly familiar with most tenured positions, I would venture a guess that you are the latter which is really not "academics"??

100 hour work week. Now Neurosurgeon Residents work week is 80 hours/week and will go down to 60 hours/wk probably soon (as for all residencies/fellowships).

asmallchild

Yes, those are the official rules. I suspect more often than not they are bent in surgical fields, especially neurosurgery. 80 hrs/week is also an average over a month. So there are certainly weeks where you will exceed 80 hrs and then hopefully, weeks where you can fall under so the average comes in at 80. Regardless, residents who routinely state they must "clock out" at 80 hrs are not going to be looked upon favorably in surgery.

I've heard rumors of the 60 hrs/week regulations. I find it hard to believe. In an era when more and more people are complaining about escalating student debt, extending residency is not going to be done easily.

Princess'Dad

Small Child
They are pretty strict. Esp in the surg fields where they know they will be bent. If caught mult times breaking them, they can loose their accreditation and chairman fired by Dean. So the hours are strictly followed in all fields. The faculty can also be fired if they "force" the resident to work more.
It is a new world.

asmallchild

Lets ask NSGYDoc. Programs certainly can lose their accreditation if caught in violation of the workhour restrictions. And faculty probably don't "force" their residents to work more than the limit. But these residents in the surgical fields highly motivated and leaving in time for the 80 hr limit often means missing out on OR time. The residents are the ones who often find ways to make their timesheet balance so as not to miss out on operative experience.

Either way, 80 hours is a week is the minimum one should expect to work in residency should you have a serious interest in neurosurgery.

Princess'Dad

As a Surgical Faculty, I can tell you that we enforce the 80 hour week. Residency programs are doing away with elective research year - or adding year - to make up for missed cases. The residents really have no choice now, if they are caught "bending the rules", we must put them on time off to balance. It sucks for all but spouses.

The interesting fact is the one study only found that the 80 hour week gave them more time to moonlight.

bluedevilmike

Didn't JAMA report that about 5% of all residencies, much less surgical ones, were in compliance with the rules?

bluedevilmike

Hm. 84% non-compliance according to this link:
JAMA -- Interns' Compliance With Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Work-Hour Limits, September 6, 2006, Landrigan et al. 296 (9): 1063

This was interns-only, however.

Jamiecakes

Wow. Just everything about neurosurgery deserves a wow. From the length and intensity of the training to the size of the paycheck...wow. Still, my neurosurgeon works so hard and such long hours that I wonder when he has time to spend his money? Last year he took a vacation-->to present at a conference.

You have to really love it, I think, to tolerate that kind of grueling intensity for so long.

The road to being a physician is so tough. My son wants to go into pediatric infectious disease and work internationally. I am proud of him and not because he is going to be a doctor but because he is willing to work to long and so hard without much monetary reward.

Maybe I should tell him to go into neurosurgery....except that I would like to see him again someday.

Princess'Dad

Jamie,
Most infectious disease docs I know work as many if not more hours than Neurosurgeons (they just are not on call for MVAs)

RileyJohn

So how does just a general internal medicine ER doctor compare to this? Is it like night and day, or is simply anything in the medical field going to be grueling?

J'adoube

If you really love being a physician, you'll like it so much that you could do it for free. And guess what, you'll probably be the happiest and most successful.

Princess'Dad

ER docs (are not IM, but specific different residency in emergency med) work 8 to 12 hour shifts and are then off. It is the least "grueling" of all fields as when you are off, you are off. It also has one of the highest malpractice rates as you have to be jack of all trades. Most love it as you see everything.

asmallchild

Uhh, not in my neck of the woods.....

asmallchild

Many start off thinking that way. By the third year of medical school, even the most idealistic will NOT feel this way.