If you only work in a hospital and only practice sports medicine orthopedic surgury....?

Question

What are your hours like?

you probably dont have rediculous hours because not many sporting events are that late right?

What is pay like?

Is it stressful

Answer 1

Your hours are whatever you want them to be for those few months before you file bankruptcy and get a real job.

There is no job like you describe. It's a nice fantasy just putting in your OR time and nothing else, but at some point you have to join the real world. What you're going to do is spend a couple of days every week in the OR and the rest in clinic. You'll make hospital rounds every day before clinic or before surgery, and often afterwards as well. You'll share call nights and weekends with other orthopedists if you can, or else you'll be available all the time. The former may give you a 50-60 hour week; the latter is open-ended.

And your sports medicine cases, which will be a minority of your patient load, will largely be referred to your clinic after initial treatment by somebody else. If you're smart, you'll appreciate guys like me, who can set and splint a fracture and refer to you during clinic hours so you can stay in bed at night.

Answer 2

You don't have much of a clue about how surgical practices work.

Do you really think that you're going to find a job where you cruise in at 7 and out at 3, take no call and make a lot of money?

Let me know how that works out for you.

The reality of ALL surgeons is that they work crazy long hours, train until they are in their thirties, and share call with their group.  Even if you're the "sports medicine" guy during the week, you're the broken hip, injured hand, fractured femur etc guy nights and weekends.

Medicine is stressful.

Do you think orthopedic surgeons just sit at the games and wait for a bone to break? (shakes head)

Ortho is also a competitive residency to get into, so you need to be an extra hard worker to even be considered for it.  Those guys work a LOT.  (I have to anesthetize their patients - we see them more than almost any other specialty)