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Soon2BeMD

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Soon2BeMD last won the day on April 15 2022

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  1. I’m a PGY1 in Quebec and from what I’ve gathered speaking to several staffs, the things that seem to pay the most are inpatient work. I’ve heard you can make anywhere from 15-18K per week covering the FM ward and the staffs that do it typically either do it once per month or once every 8 weeks, but you have the option to do more if you wish. Another thing that is extremely lucrative is practicing rural. Lots of staffs will pick up short term contracts and the money you’d make in a week up north is the equivalent of what you’d make in a month of clinic in an urban setting. So it’s definitely extremely lucrative but also quite intense. Clinic can be lucrative if you’re efficient especially if you’re doing FFS. However, the staffs I know that do rural or hospitalist work in their practice use clinic as a downtime so they’ll typically opt for an hourly rate so it’s more relaxing than FFS but pays less of course. All this to say, if you want to make bank as a fam doc, it’s absolutely doable. You just gotta do the stuff that actually pays. Doing clinic solo will still get you a good life but if you really want the big bucks, I would add inpatient + rural in the mix and you’ll comfortably melt those debts in no time.
  2. That article is not talking about replacing FP with NPs, though. It's making an argument that NPs could be a great way to make primary care more accessible for everyone. In fact, I hope we get more NP-led clinics because it will significantly reduce the load on FPs and will give them the room to focus on some more complex care. I've seen clinics where FPs and NPs work together and it's WAY more efficient than an FP running the show alone. I literally cannot imagine a world where you would simply remove FPs and replace them for NPs. In the US, you have PAs, DOs, NPs and FPs all working and as far as I can tell, there is no sign that FPs are going "extinct" over there. Just because it "makes sense" for NPs to replace FPs, it doesn't mean it's actually feasible in practice. Demand for primary care will always be high and removing FPs from the work force will likely make the situation even worse.
  3. Alright this is gonna be a long one but I have to rant. Look, for anyone reading this who’s thinking about wanting to be a family doctor, don’t let the negativity above detract you from what you want to do. At the end of the day, people’s opinions are exactly what they are… opinions. You have to keep in mind that a lot of people that end up in family medicine actually never wanted to be there in the first place because they didn’t match into their specialty of choice. So of course, people like that will be pessimistic about every aspects of the career. As somebody who is actually interested in family medicine, I can give you my thought process behind why I picked this career: 1) FLEXIBILITY Can we all just acknowledge for a quick second that family medicine isn’t just filling up insurance forms and writing prescriptions? Yes, clinic CAN be part of the practice but it doesn’t need to be 100% clinic. I’ve lost count on how many family doctors I’ve met doing all kinds of different things, from emerg, geri, palliative care, hospitalist work, rural medicine, and some combine this with clinic and others don’t even do clinic! I don’t think people appreciate the beauty of FLEXIBILITY. Do you want to go up North and do some insane medicine while making an insane amount of money? You can. Do you want to hang back and do 3 days of clinic per week while pursuing other things outside of medicine? You can. Do you want to take a more entrepreneurial approach and just run clinics? You can. Do you want to have a mix of hospitalist + clinic practice and keep yourself busy while also having the OPTION of toning it back later on? You-can. It’s up to YOU on how you want to shape your career. To me, that’s VERY valuable and I can’t find anything in medicine that offers this type of flexibility. 2) OPPORTUNITY COST Here’s the elephant in the room that I feel like nobody wants to talk about. The second you decide to do anything but family medicine, you’re officially investing 5 years minimum + fellowship. You better love every aspect of that specialty because 5-7 years is not trivial. Think about how much has happened in your life in the last 5-7 years… it’s a LONG TIME. That’s 5-7 years of being a resident, always being told where to be, with ZERO freedom of your schedule and essentially being borderline abused. 5-7 years in the prime life building phase of your life. A family doctor will finish in 2 years and start making staff salary right away and will be already 7 figures ahead by the time the specialist finishes fellowship and that’s IF they don’t get convinced into doing 16 more fellowships because they can’t find a job when they finish. If you’re financially savy and know how to make your money work for you, you will reach the path of financial freedom much quicker than any specialist would. (Of course this is debatable but you know what I mean) Why is this important? When you have financial freedom and KNOW that you have the OPTION to NOT be at work, you will enjoy that work MUCH more because you know you can leave whenever you want. Think about it. 3) TIME I feel like A LOT of people in medicine fail to realize a fundamental thing: medicine is a very time consuming career. It bleeds into every other aspect of your life so effortlessly. People are so hung up on how much money they will make once they finish their 20 year residency but not on how much TIME THEY WILL HAVE to actually enjoy the fruits of their labour. Time is the most valuable asset you have and it’s not even a guarantee. I rather make 250 k as a fam doc but be in COMPLETE CONTROL of how I use my TIME and make sure that I can actually do the things that actually bring me happiness like spending time with my partner, seeing my family, pursuing hobbies I have outside of medicine, and making sure I don’t miss major events like weddings, travels and even being present in my kids’ future as a committed parent. Cause let’s face it, your job as a physician is not your only job. Being a good friend, a good partner, a good parent are also jobs and they are just as important, at least to me. There’s only so much time in a day and if 90% of it is being spent on my job as a physician, then everything else will suffer, hence why medicine has the highest burn out and suicide rates. 4) THE BAD DAYS Every specialty has its bad days. I think it’s overrated to ask yourself whether you love a specialty because honestly, every specialty is cool. I truly mean it when I say I enjoyed every rotation during clerkship. However, the more important question you should be asking yourself is: are you able to TOLERATE the BAD DAYS of said specialty? The worst things I can think of when it comes to family medicine is filling up endless forms and dealing with patients coming in with a wide range of non-specific issues that may be difficult to deal with in an outpatient setting. Will those days be annoying/hard? Yeah, they will. But man, I would take that over being woken up at 3 am while I’m feeling warm under my covers nexto my wife receiving that harrowing phone call that two category 1s just came through and now I gotta go operate while running on a fragmented sleep schedule. Or having to deal with the stress of making sure I don’t kill my patients when I’m opening them up as a surgeon because of course, I’m human and yes, mistakes do and WILL happen. Or dealing with the stress of being the staff in charge of an ICU floor filled with complex patients where you’re on call for every waking minute of that week, praying that someone in your large team doesn’t screw something up under your name. I rather focus on the “boring screening guidelines” that can actually prevent my patients from even being in those situations in the first place. Every specialty has its bad days and each of them interfere with your personal life to varying degrees. So ask yourself what you’re willing to stomach and pick your poison. I just wanna finish with this. We all have egos and we’re all overachievers. At some point before you came into medicine, you were likely the top of your class. Now imagine taking ALL those people, and shoving them in 1 room. OF COURSE family medicine receives so much heat. It’s just not sexy enough when that’s your target audience. When someone matches ophthalmology, there’s a wow factor but there definitely isn’t one for family medicine. And it’s normal, cause there’s like 3 optho spots in the world versus the 100s for family medicine. Human beings value exclusivity and it’s always been this way. It’s just the nature of the beast. BUT, don’t let your ego force you into a position where you feel compelled to impress other people because once the novelty wears off, you’ll find yourself in a situation where you gotta face the repercussions of your decisions. A job is a job at the end of the day and even the coolest job of all time becomes routine. End of rant. TLDR: Family medicine is the best SPECIALTY. Yup, I said it. If that triggers you, lighten up bud
  4. I kept track of the waitlist movement for last year's cycle (2018 admissions). If I remember correctly, the waitlist went to #14 in 2017. Next potential offer… April 18th: 5 April 30th: 6 May 9th: 9 May 17th: 10 May 18th: 12 May 23rd: 14 May 31st: 15 June 1st: 23 June 7th: 24 June 27th: 25 July 6th: 26 July 31st: 27 August 6th: 28 Good luck to everyone on the list. I know how you feel but just know that it's not over until it's over. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
  5. Good luck everyone! Be proud for making it to this point and if you don’t get the outcome you hoped for, don’t let it stop you from pursuing your dreams. It really is a numbers game so persistence is key. If anybody needs to vent after today, feel free to PM me
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