L Mac Posted January 22, 2011 Report Share Posted January 22, 2011 I discovered the other day that I really like hand surgery. Can someone comment on the pros and cons of going through plastics vs. ortho to get there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justletmein Posted January 22, 2011 Report Share Posted January 22, 2011 Ortho hand surgery is a very interesting and broad subspecialty. I think it would be smarter than going the plastics route if that is your real interest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coastalslacker Posted January 22, 2011 Report Share Posted January 22, 2011 The most important thing to keep in mind is that you will probably change your mind about what you want to do. I know plastic surgeons who started out wanting to do hand in residency and ended up doing cosmetics and orthopaedic surgeons who started residency wanting to do hand and now want very little to do with hand surgery. Having said that and, given the fact that you can get there through either route, I would pick between the two based on whichever one you could see yourself doing once you take hand surgery out of the equation. Despite the overlap distal to the wrist, these are two VERY different specialities, with, in my experience, very different personalities in them. None of that really answers your question though. If you go through ortho you will be much more facile at dealing with bony problems, which make up a significant portion of the hand surgeon's on call work. You may only get a couple months of dedicated hand surgery in your residency though. If you go through plastics flaps, skin coverage and microvascular anastamoses will be something you know how to do at the end of residency, whereas the ortho hand surgeon will have to learn that in fellowship. On balance, I think plastics sets you up with the tools to be a hand surgeon better than ortho. However, in my centre, the slickest hand surgeon is an orthopod... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L Mac Posted January 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2011 Thanks! Can anyone comment on either specialty in terms of lifestyle (for a girl who would like to have a family)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coastalslacker Posted January 26, 2011 Report Share Posted January 26, 2011 Depends when you want to have kids. The problem for many women is that residency often coincides with when they want to have kids. Most surgical residencies are hard work with lots of hours at the hospital, and lots more of studying at home. Some women have children during surgical residencies, I'll let them speak for themselves as to how it is. My wife chose to be a stay-at-home mom during my residency because of my hours, and often jokes about being a single parent. After residency you have much more flexibility - a lot of it depends on your career ambitions and/or how much money you want to make. Some people choose to continue to work resident hours when they're staff; I internally shake my head when I hear them complain about not getting to spend time with their families because they quite easily could choose to spend more time at home, they just don't make that choice. One of the greatest fallacies of our time is that you can have it all. You can't, you have to make choices, which is often hard for Type A doctor-folk to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clerk Posted January 29, 2011 Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 Hi Coastalslacker, Regarding your comment about choosing the hours you want..How easy is it to do that in Ortho? I'm very interested in Ortho and don't mind the brutal residency so long as there is a light at the end of the tunnel..Once staff, can i ever hope to achieve an 8-5 type of day in ortho with a 1 in 7 call or more? If so, how much do you think that'll cost me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talon01 Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 I discovered the other day that I really like hand surgery. Can someone comment on the pros and cons of going through plastics vs. ortho to get there? well, where i'm at if you wanted to do hand surgery ortho isn't your best option since plastics does everything distal to the CMC joints. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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