Plastic Surgery vs. Neurosurgery ( Questions)

[med.goals]

How is the workload different during residency? Post-Residency?

Which one is a more competitive field to get into? 

Which one offer better work life balance?

 

[ZBL]

If you are asking questions related to workload during residency and work life balance, neither are right for you

[NeuroD]

36 minutes ago, ZBL said:

If you are asking questions related to workload during residency and work life balance, neither are right for you

Very true haha.

Plastics seems better as staff. Also, they're very different surgeries. People tend to think brain surgery is very delicate, but it's actually quite crude most of the time (notwithstanding the 16 hour microscope-assisted super fine tumor resections).

[Snowmen]

13 minutes ago, PhD2MD said:

Very true haha.

Plastics seems better as staff. Also, they're very different surgeries. People tend to think brain surgery is very delicate, but it's actually quite crude most of the time (notwithstanding the 16 hour microscope-assisted super fine tumor resections).

Let's not even talk about spine (although it's shared with ortho).

[ZBL]

15 minutes ago, PhD2MD said:

Very true haha.

Plastics seems better as staff. Also, they're very different surgeries. People tend to think brain surgery is very delicate, but it's actually quite crude most of the time (notwithstanding the 16 hour microscope-assisted super fine tumor resections).

Plastics CAN be better as a staff (both are super busy as a resident) depending on circumstance. Doing straight medical plastics at a community hospital will probably get you 6:30 or 7:00am to 4pm or 5pm every day of the week, with weekend call 1 in 4, and weeknight call around 1 in 4 as well. Call won’t be super crazy, but you will not infrequently be there late on call. The downside is that medical plastic surgeons like this will still work about 60hrs per week and really do not get compensated well.

Or you could do academic plastics and get paid about the same but work closer to 70-80hrs per week due to busier call (and more “exhilerating” cases).  

Then there’s cosmetics. Ah cosmetics. Yes, some plastic surgeons work 50-60 hrs a week doing straight cosmetics and make a lot of money. This is exceedingly rare in Canada, to the extent that I don’t know if it exists except for maybe a few rare cases in Toronto - these are people who have been in the business for >20 years. This will not ever happen straight out of residency. Most plastic surgeons will do community plastics then cosmetics on top. They get paid more, but will work closer to 80hrs per week to make it happen. 

Basically plastics has a more controllable lifestyle to some degree, but most people gunning for plastics are not doing it for the laid back (relatively speaking for surgery) day to day that is community medical plastics. Plastics is definitely one of those specialties where high compensation is dependent on doing a lot of work  

Neurosurgeons are paid well and work a lot, and there’s no variability in that. 

[hero147]

To answer your question outright, neurosurgery has the worse residency, attending life, work-life balance and even employability. Plastics is generally more competitive. Of course this is all subject to individual variation with practice type and residency location.

[medigeek]

2 hours ago, ZBL said:

Plastics CAN be better as a staff (both are super busy as a resident) depending on circumstance. Doing straight medical plastics at a community hospital will probably get you 6:30 or 7:00am to 4pm or 5pm every day of the week, with weekend call 1 in 4, and weeknight call around 1 in 4 as well. Call won’t be super crazy, but you will not infrequently be there late on call. The downside is that medical plastic surgeons like this will still work about 60hrs per week and really do not get compensated well.

Or you could do academic plastics and get paid about the same but work closer to 70-80hrs per week due to busier call (and more “exhilerating” cases).  

Then there’s cosmetics. Ah cosmetics. Yes, some plastic surgeons work 50-60 hrs a week doing straight cosmetics and make a lot of money. This is exceedingly rare in Canada, to the extent that I don’t know if it exists except for maybe a few rare cases in Toronto - these are people who have been in the business for >20 years. This will not ever happen straight out of residency. Most plastic surgeons will do community plastics then cosmetics on top. They get paid more, but will work closer to 80hrs per week to make it happen. 

Basically plastics has a more controllable lifestyle to some degree, but most people gunning for plastics are not doing it for the laid back (relatively speaking for surgery) day to day that is community medical plastics. Plastics is definitely one of those specialties where high compensation is dependent on doing a lot of work  

Neurosurgeons are paid well and work a lot, and there’s no variability in that. 

Pure cosmetic surgery isn't rare in Canada at all, it's in fact very saturated. 

[ZBL]

46 minutes ago, medigeek said:

Pure cosmetic surgery isn't rare in Canada at all, it's in fact very saturated. 

Saturated means there’s no room for anyone else to get into the business. And in the case of plastics, it’s saturated because it’s rare to begin with. Very, very uncommon for a plastic surgeon to run a 100% cosmetic business in Canada. Same for derm. Only ones (trying) to do it these days are nurses and family doctors. 

[rmorelan]

On 5/12/2019 at 5:23 PM, ZBL said:

If you are asking questions related to workload during residency and work life balance, neither are right for you

humor aside - I still think it is a valid question. I mean there are all levels of pain we are willing to endure