Neurosurgery vs Peds General Surgery vs Orthopedics Lifestyle

[extendablelungs]

18 minutes ago, PhD2MD said:

Neurology. My break down is:

Undergrad - 4 years - done
PhD - 5 years - done
MD - 3 years - 2/3 done
Residency - 5 years
Fellow ship - 2 years
Total = 19....oh God, I didn't realize how bad it was until I wrote this post. I think I was in denial haha.

on the bright side, you did short cut your PhD + MD a little! 

[NLengr]

I started university in 2000-2001. Started as a staff in Sept 2017. 

Mind you 6 year undergrad in engineering and worked as an engineer for a year. 

[jijijijijijijiijii]

guess i'm sending in that mdphd application again next year hah

[Font123]

10 minutes ago, kirraea said:

guess i'm sending in that mdphd application again next year hah

If you're interested in  doing a Phd, it is much better to do it during residency than during med school. 

[extendablelungs]

1 minute ago, count123 said:

If you're interested in  doing a Phd, it is much better to do it during residency than during med school. 

can you please elaborate? 

[Font123]

You will get more $ for doing it during residency and it will be more specific to your speciality allowing you to be an expert in the topic of your choice

2 minutes ago, extendablelungs said:

can you please elaborate? 

 

[extendablelungs]

1 minute ago, count123 said:

You will get more $ for doing it during residency and it will be more specific to your speciality allowing you to be an expert in the topic of your choice

 

does it end up being compressed as well? (i.e. not as long)

[NeuroD]

9 minutes ago, count123 said:

If you're interested in  doing a Phd, it is much better to do it during residency than during med school. 

 

7 minutes ago, extendablelungs said:

can you please elaborate? 

Benefits of doing it residency:
1. Shorter (often 3 years instead of 5 years)
2. Cheaper (much better compensation during residency than outside of it)
3. More likely to be useful in your practice
4. More likely yo directly benefit your career path

Con: I've heard, but I have no idea if it's true, that residency-PhDs usually aren't as intensive/rigorous as a pure PhD. I'm sure that's highly variable though, because I know some who probably want to be researchers more than physicians, who did really excellent work in their residency PhD...so take that with a huge grain of salt.

[extendablelungs]

Just now, PhD2MD said:

 

Benefits of doing it residency:
1. Shorter (often 3 years instead of 5 years)
2. More likely to be useful in your practice
3. More likely yo directly benefit your career path

Cons: I've heard, but I have no idea if it's true, that residency-PhDs usually aren't as intensive/rigorous as a pure PhD. I'm sure that's highly variable though, because I know some who probably want to be researchers more than physicians, who did really excellent work in their residency PhD...so take that with a huge grain of salt.

3 year fellowship(s) vs 3 year PhD - which would add more market value to a budding surgeon? or perhaps it would vary by specialty?

[jijijijijijijiijii]

1 minute ago, PhD2MD said:

Cons: I've heard, but I have no idea if it's true, that residency-PhDs usually aren't as intensive/rigorous as a pure PhD. I'm sure that's highly variable though, because I know some who probably want to be researchers more than physicians, who did really excellent work in their residency PhD...so take that with a huge grain of salt.

but maybe that's because a majority of those PhDs were done with the intention of getting in and out ASAP and use the credentials for a job?

[NeuroD]

3 minutes ago, extendablelungs said:

3 year fellowship(s) vs 3 year PhD - which would add more market value to a budding surgeon? or perhaps it would vary by specialty?

Fellowship!

[NeuroD]

3 minutes ago, kirraea said:

but maybe that's because a majority of those PhDs were done with the intention of getting in and out ASAP and use the credentials for a job?

That's how it was explained to me. Not sure if its entirely true.

[1D7]

If you consider Obstetrics a surgical specialty that's your best chance at doing a 5 year specialty with minimal or no additional training (i.e. 1 or 0 fellowships for reasonable work location).

With regards to post-residency qualifications, it seems that one fellowship plus a Master's degree is sufficient in most surgical specialties to find a job, at least for now. Often a MSc can be completed in just 1 year. Surgery is the toughest road, but keep in mind that it is the norm for most 5 year specialties to face bad hours/call and require a fellowship to find work in a reasonable location.

[la marzocco]

27 minutes ago, 1D7 said:

If you consider Obstetrics a surgical specialty that's your best chance at doing a 5 year specialty with minimal or no additional training (i.e. 1 or 0 fellowships for reasonable work location).

FRCSC for ob/gyns  

[rmorelan]

3 hours ago, PhD2MD said:

Neurology. My break down is:

Undergrad - 4 years - done
PhD - 5 years - done
MD - 3 years - 2/3 done
Residency - 5 years
Fellow ship - 2 years
Total = 19....oh God, I didn't realize how bad it was until I wrote this post. I think I was in denial haha.

ha - yeah, let no one say medicine is the quick path

[NLengr]

58 minutes ago, la marzocco said:

FRCSC for ob/gyns  

They're quite good at finding the ureter. Of course they do that by transecting it......

 

I should clarify, the only places that give a shit about academic degrees are academic programs. You can work a community job in a big city and nobody cares if you have a masters. Even in academic programs it seems to be the university who drives the need for academic degrees. Most surgeons, even in an academic center, only do them to meet the universiy's requirements for appointment to a job. 

 

Masters and PhDs are pointless credentialism a lot of the time. It certainly doesn't make you a better clinician or surgeon. That's why most of the surgeons doing them don't give a sweet f*ck about them beyond getting them done. 

[NLengr]

3 hours ago, extendablelungs said:

3 year fellowship(s) vs 3 year PhD - which would add more market value to a budding surgeon? or perhaps it would vary by specialty?

Fellowship by far. People care about your surgical expertise. Very few care about the fact that you spent 2 years researching a random step in some biochemical reaction because it adds zero value to your skill as a surgeon. In fact it probably detracts from it (if it meant you weren't operating full time during your studies).

[jijijijijijijiijii]

19 minutes ago, NLengr said:

That's why most of the surgeons doing them don't give a sweet f*ck about them beyond getting them done

that's the feel im getting from this haha. still, given the job market it's probably better to have a phd than not right?

[NeuroD]

29 minutes ago, NLengr said:

Fellowship by far. People care about your surgical expertise. Very few care about the fact that you spent 2 years researching a random step in some biochemical reaction because it adds zero value to your skill as a surgeon. In fact it probably detracts from it (if it meant you weren't operating full time during your studies).

That's true. The time spend on real basic science research usually isn't useful at all in clinical medicine. It's VERY useful for the long term advancements of medicine/man kind (I mean, thank God so many people did hardcore pure research in the past, we can only do the clinical work we do now because of where they've brought us so far), but those are 2 very different goals. Hard to be great at both at the same time, so one often gets in the way of the other.

[NLengr]

2 hours ago, kirraea said:

that's the feel im getting from this haha. still, given the job market it's probably better to have a phd than not right?

If you want an academic job then yes. Although a masters will suffice a lot of the time. And you can do that during fellowship. Won't be an academically amazing masters but who cares. For most people its checking a box.

[medigeek]

On 6/1/2018 at 2:22 PM, extendablelungs said:

.... wow. 

 

why are the odds so grim if there's clearly a shortage and the majority of surgeons are brutally overworked?

Cause single payer healthcare. 

[canucks_14]

For some reason I used to be super interested in these two paths in the US

After med school cv peds 5+3 or 6 (few and harder to get into so basically assume 8) + 2 I think + 2-3 fellowships

Also after med school combined nsx and plastics residency is 10 years + whatever fellowships but was definitely interested in doing 3 in spine surg onc and whatever clipping and coiling falls under can’t remember hah

[Blake]

On 6/1/2018 at 5:04 PM, NLengr said:

They're quite good at finding the ureter. Of course they do that by transecting it......

 

I should clarify, the only places that give a shit about academic degrees are academic programs. You can work a community job in a big city and nobody cares if you have a masters. Even in academic programs it seems to be the university who drives the need for academic degrees. Most surgeons, even in an academic center, only do them to meet the universiy's requirements for appointment to a job. 

 

Masters and PhDs are pointless credentialism a lot of the time. It certainly doesn't make you a better clinician or surgeon. That's why most of the surgeons doing them don't give a sweet f*ck about them beyond getting them done. 

Oh man, what an hilarious post. So much truth about the credentialism. I'm barely using my MSc and I don't care at all. So glad to be out of the academic rat race.

[yonas]

How is orthopaedics in comparison to ENT and urology in terms of employment opportunities?

[NLengr]

On 2/4/2019 at 9:59 PM, yonas said:

How is orthopaedics in comparison to ENT and urology in terms of employment opportunities?

Worse. Mind you they are all terrible. The difference is you will need at least one fellowship in ortho to work a dead end job in an isolated rural town. ENT and Uro you could probably get that soul crushing position without a fellowship. 

Expect 2 fellowships and a lot of luck to get a reasonable ortho community job. One fellowship and a lot of luck to get the same position in ENT and Uro. 

Note: assume you will not be working in your preferred location. When I say reasonable community job I mean somewhere in Canada. It could be anywhere. You will need a ton of luck to end up in your community of choice. Don't count on such luck.