Personal Family Dr discouraging, others supportive

One of my best pals is an OBGYN and she loves her job. She is very encouraging of my efforts to change careers and get into med school. I pick her brain as often as I can. she has no children and is married and her husband is a house hubby–takes care of things at home.
My family dr expressed concern about my career change…he said that he never sees his children and that when he does see them, that they are angry with him for being gone so much. He cautioned me to reconsider.
I am wondering–just what is a “typical” schedule or lifestyle for a rural family dr? I am wondering if I will miss out on everything in my daughter’s life, or will I be able to make it to her events…
Is this a case of your life is how you design it? I have a pal in her third year of med school and she insists that she is going to try to keep office hours like 9 to 4 so that she can have time with her son. I am wondering if that is feasible…is it possible to be a mom and be a doctor?
Thanks
E Lynne

If you go to the other forums here at OPM you may find many threads with discussions about time. I have never heard of any physician with 8-4 schedule so I have no clue where your friend is getting this from. Even part-time physicians work long hours more than 60 per week but maybe in your part of the world it is different. Yes you can be a mother and a medical student and physician but no you will not be able to go to all events that your family has. My medical school is pretty intense and I do not see my family very much for we are in class from 8-5 then you have to study. Other medical schools that get out at 11:00 or so may be more conducive to spending more time at home but you still have to study quite a bit on your own so the time will also be limited at those schools. Third and fourth years are variable depending on what rotation you are in. Some of them will require you to be there a looooong time and others not. Residency is 80 hours per week which leaves little time for family.

I shadowed a rural family doc that owned his practice. There are 2 other physicians in the town and between the 3 of them and 3 ER physicians they cover the hospital (which has 49 beds!) He keeps clinic hours from 9-4:30. However, he rounds his patients at 8am in the hospital and may have business at the end of the day. The longest day I witnessed for him was 8am-7pm, but the rest of the days we were done by 5. He rotates hospital call one weekend a month and the ER docs take care of the nights.
He has 3 children and while he wasn’t able to do go to all the games, he caught a few :wink:
He doesn’t roll in the dough, but he makes enough to pay a large staff and keeps a pretty nice home…
Hope that helps.
DRD

While being or becoming a physician will never be an easy life - you can influence how you live through your own choices. I will employ one of my favorite concepts here --> BALANCE. During med school & residency, much of the control of your personal life is nixed. However, once in practice, you can control it by which specialty you choose & how intensely you commit to working. Many physicians are compelled to work longer hours due to debt load or their own income expectations/needs & they are well w/i their rights to make those choices…just as much as it is your right to choose to do otherwise.
Anecdotally, it seems that female physicians are more apt to work PT or in alternate job types over their male counterparts. I know a couple of female anesthesiologists who only work 1 to three days per week - their husbands are FT anesth staff. Back in Saginaw, I knew a female physician, an FP, who choose to work for a “Doc in the Box” in lieu of her own or a group FP practice. A “Doc in the Box” is one of the urgent/non-emergent clinics where you just drop in w/ or w/o an appt & they generally care for the most mild of problems (wheezes, sneezes & snots). In Saginaw, they paid $70 to $80/hr for essentially shift-work. No, it’s not glamorous, it’s not “your” practice, but it afforded her the ability to work a normal job hours & be a mom, which was her largest priority - and the money was far from shabby!
So, I respectfully disagree with the two previous posters. In fact my wife & I had a similar discussion at dinner tonight. Working in the culture of physicians, it takes a continual & deliberate effort to avoid being caught in the “doctor = core of my identity” mindset. I think this is at least a contributor to the drive demonstrated by most Docs, including myself. However, in the almost 2 years my daughter has been in my life, I find my perspectives changing. No longer is it quite so imperitive that I drive myself to one day become the first DO Pres of the AMA. It is becoming much more critical & desirable that I balance my professional goals with those of being the husband & father I yearn to be.
Back long ago, when I was only an allied healthcare professional, I relayed an observation to Wendy, my wife. From working w/ physicians for many years, I saw that many of them had for so long dedicated themselves heart & soul to the pursuit of their goals that once they achieved them, they were so firmly entrenched in that mindset - they neglected to stop & savor their successes. They simply heaped on larger & more lofty goals & kept on driving until one day, the people who were most important to them were so alienated from them that their only purpose was their relentless pursuit of goals…more important even than the goals themselves.
I promised myself then that I would never walk that path. But, I will be perfectly honest, immersed in the culture of “physician” it perilously easy to transition to that precise mindset. It does not occur as abrupt, sweeping change - but as a slow, insidious process. But, it is wholly 100% preventable AND, almost as good, it is 100% reversible too.
So, long answer made short: it’s all about balance & dancing with who ya brung to the party - your family.

"Many physicians are compelled to work longer hours due to debt load or their own income expectations/needs & they are well w/i their rights to make those choices…"

I never considered that but it makes sense–that like with any other life style choice and occupation, some of the time that you put in can be attributed to the debts that one owes. My husband and I are accustomed to living pretty frugally and really appreciate the sense of freedom in not having to have certain things to make ourselves happy. I hope that we can continue to choose this practice so that we are not enslaved to “things”… when we married we paid off our credit cards and cut all of them but one.

"Back in Saginaw, I knew a female physician, an FP, who choose to work for a “Doc in the Box” in lieu of her own or a group FP practice. In Saginaw, they paid $70 to $80/hr for essentially shift-work. No, it’s not glamorous, it’s not “your” practice, but it afforded her the ability to work a normal job hours & be a mom, which was her largest priority - and the money was far from shabby!"
That is an excellent tidbit to know! Thanks! I had not considered that…I need to keep looking around and keeping my eyes open to possibilities. It certainly looks as if there are many. One thing that I dream of doing–many moons from now–is medical missionary work. I know that it will be for only very short periods of time and that it will be nothing glamorous–but it will be enriching. I did some missionary work in Guatemala and this is ultimately what lead me to grab onto the brass ring of my dream–to serve my community in the medical capacity and take a jaunt to a third world country every so often to boot. I found long ago that the money in my life (which seems to come and go) is not what counts. Now I do not want to be a rose colored glasses type of gal and think that I can pay student loans back on my good looks. I know that if I stay in my community that I will never be rolling in the dough. But that is not my focus for doing this anyway.
My husband and I lost 6 pregnancies to miscarriage and eventually adopted our daughter as a baby from Russia. Her presence in my life has single handedly transformed my way of thinking. Isn’t it neat how wee, innocent children can do such magical things? We saw her transform from a sickly, starving baby with Rickets, giardia and bronchitis to a thriving, bouncy, chubby baby and she is now a firecracker of a 3 yr old young lady. She is my miracle. She makes me feel as if I can do anything…thus another reason I found the “gumption” to go after my dreams.

We have some family docs in our church that seem to be pretty balanced and family oriented and I wondered how they were doing things differently than the ones I speak with that seem so stressed out. I am not afraid of long hours and hard work–I have been doing that all of my personal and professional life. Now that I think about it, the most important thing for me to know at this time is that there will be options before me.
I have to say that I have not felt this alive in years–since returning to school I feel like I finally “fit in” to where I was supposed to be all along. Do I think that I could have done this in my early 20’s–study science and prepare for MCAT’s? No way–I was in the honors program and studied hard but did not take much in life seriously. I came from a very strict militant home and wanted to get away and have fun. Am I ready now? You betcha…I soak up every tidbit of info that is thrown my way and that I see in my books.
Interestingly the more I learn in my biology (wish I felt the same way in chem class lol) the more fascinated I am with life. WOW–what order, what structure there is to even something at a cellular level. I am amazed on a daily basis. We are studying cellular respiration, meitosis and meiosis this month in Bio class and I just shake my head in amazement. The kids in my class think that I am a goofball–but I also see them finding amazement in their selection of beverages for the weekend festivities and I think that they are goofballs, so the score is even. LOL
Blessings–
E Lynne

Quote:

BALANCE. During med school & residency, much of the control of your personal life is nixed. However, once in practice, you can control it by which specialty you choose & how intensely you commit to working.


This is key, and Dave has said it so well that I can’t add a thing.

Quote:

Working in the culture of physicians, it takes a continual & deliberate effort to avoid being caught in the “doctor = core of my identity” mindset… Back long ago, when I was only an allied healthcare professional, I relayed an observation to Wendy, my wife. From working w/ physicians for many years, I saw that many of them had for so long dedicated themselves heart & soul to the pursuit of their goals that once they achieved them, they were so firmly entrenched in that mindset - they neglected to stop & savor their successes. They simply heaped on larger & more lofty goals & kept on driving until one day, the people who were most important to them were so alienated from them that their only purpose was their relentless pursuit of goals…more important even than the goals themselves.
I promised myself then that I would never walk that path. But, I will be perfectly honest, immersed in the culture of “physician” it perilously easy to transition to that precise mindset. It does not occur as abrupt, sweeping change - but as a slow, insidious process. But, it is wholly 100% preventable AND, almost as good, it is 100% reversible too.
So, long answer made short: it’s all about balance & dancing with who ya brung to the party - your family.


Hear! Hear! Dave’s thoughts here deserve to be highlighted, put into capital letters, and bold face.
Being a doctor is a great job. Maybe in family practice, which definitely has a more laid-back culture, I don’t pick up so much on that “driven” mindset. I know that the faculty, the full-time partners, and the more junior attendings at my office carve out time for themselves and their families. The part-timers, a few moms with little kids, REALLY ARE working less than 40 hours a week. The full-timers are certainly putting in 60 hours a week but they are not living, breathing, eating and sleeping medicine. They go home at night, they are off on the weekends unless it’s their turn to do call, they go out to dinner, movies, kids’ soccer games, etc.
Like Dave says, there is definitely a culture of work obsession in medicine and it’s very easy to get sucked into that. To some extent, it IS inevitable - because above all, we want to do right by our patients, and more often than not that can mean staying late, coming in early, making the extra phone calls, etc. etc.
So it’s smart to figure out a way to choose a work environment that will give you what you want in terms of personal job satisfaction AND satisfaction with your personal and family life. This can drive your choice of specialty, type of practice you join, etc.
Sometimes I think the “Don’t do this because you won’t have a life; look at what I am sacrificing” lectures from practicing docs are a way for them to salve their own egos about the choices they’ve made. What is it Ann Landers/Dear Abby always said? “No one can take advantage of you without your permission.” You may give your permission by choosing a specialty that’s in high-demand and low-supply, or by having generous office hours, or by being the only doctor in a little town. My point is you CHOOSE those things, and you can also choose NOT to go those routes.
Hmmm this is turning into a rant when what I really started out to say was “Yeah - what he said!” Back to lurking like a good intern should…

There are very good reasons why I consider Dave and mary two of my biggest mentors(Nat is the other member of my “Mentor Trinity” and I’m qiute sure that she will weigh in on this topic when she gets an opportunity), because they have learned to reason the fact that this(medicine and becoming a physician) is a hard road and you have to be true to those who helped you get there…your family and the people that are there for you. It’s not without problems, heartaches, and pains at times but, the satisfaction is at the end of the day, you are as Dave so eloquently put it, still hanging out and enjoying those who helped bring you to the dance in the first place. Even though I’m still a pre-med, I think about my partner and my relationship when I make decisions about where I go to medical school and where I would eventually like to practice. We talk often about things like this and, her opinions are very impoartent to me. That is one of the biggest reasons why I decided to move to Rochester to work as a Respiratory Therapist…to be closer to her and my “Home” as well as have a somewhat comfortable environment to finish my undergraduate degree and go hopefully go to medical school…not to mention there are two very good universities in Rochester(U of Rochester with the medical school and Rochester Institute of Technology). I know that looking to practice Trauma Anesthesia/Surgical Critical Care Medicine may be a hectic life in some respects but, I think that with a strong partner, I will be able to be successful in my career and my family life…that will make me happier than anything else…even more so than being one of the few African-American female anesthesiologists but, it will be a well-earned and cool accomplishment nonetheless!!!

Just one more thought: I do think this is an emotional advantage of being an OPM, that you’ve (hopefully) established some strong family bonds, some deep commitments, and a powerful recognition of what’s important to you - in a way that frankly I think is hard to appreciate when you are younger.
The folks who get acculturated (is that a word??) to medicine when they are also establishing these family bonds have it tougher, IMHO. They are pushed to sacrifice so much for their pursuit of a medical career, they are torn as anyone would be by the medicine vs. family time dilemma, but around them are lots of people who insist that they put medicine first, and precious few people who reward them when they think “Wow, I haven’t seen my kids in four days.” These younger new physicians have to really swim against the tide, and unless they are VERY strong, I do think it’s harder for them to say “You know what, this is also important to me and so I am going to do it this way.” (I am thinking of a junior resident who was looked at askance when he left for a few hours - on a day that was quiet and his duties were covered - to go with his wife to a prenatal ultrasound. One senior resident supported him, but a second senior resident gave him a raft of crap for it.)

Kimberly,
“Let your heart not be saddened”. You can do it. If you have a strong relationship with an open communication line.
Keep in there and fight for what you want!
You have my best wishes and support.

Hang in there, you can do it. If doing this makes you happy it will make your family happy. Joy is contagious.