Traumatized
I got sleeted on today. I didn't even know what sleet was before today. Note to self: stop showing up to class 10 minutes late so you don't have to park on the roof. My poor car actually had icicles on it this afternoon :( And I had to spend 5 minutes scraping down my windows just so I could see something on my drive home. I was driving like a grandma out there today.
The good news is they canceled our clinical skills workshop because they didn't want our elderly actors to accidentally break themselves on the frozen pavement out there.
...
I started looking up summer research opportunities the other night and ended up on the aamc site looking up the different specialties. The first thing I did was look at all of income ranges for the different specialties. Does that make me a bad person? Well I guess memorizing mountains of useless biochemistry kinda does that to you.
I'm pretty sure I want to deal with patients and help people and all that good stuff... but goddamn radiologists sure do make some bank. You're not a real doctor, but you get to sit in a dark room, drink coffee and drive a mercedes. Not too shabby. I figure maybe you're not directly helping people, but with that kind of money you could probably donate a whole lot to a charity and some social worker can do the hard work for you. Of course I would probably end up matching in Africa or somewhere for radiology, so I'm going to keep my options open.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of doing Emergency Medicine. You don't make as much money, but you only work 40 hour weeks. Your work stays at work- no pagers at home, no house calls. Less dealing with paperwork. Residency is only 3 or 4 years long and allegedly not as stressful as surgical residencies. If you kill someone in the ER, you can always pretend they were gonna die anyway. You also don't have to worry about getting outsourced. Plus there's the hero factor. I like the idea that if I'm out somewhere and someone's dying I can whip out my pen and stick a hole in their throat. I also like the idea of being able to take vacations whenever I want and go skiing every week if I want to.
EM seems like such a sensible career path. So I don't know why I feel such a pull to do something hardcore surgery, like head and neck. You make more money but you also work twice as hard. Pride? Is it really worth the extra hours of stress, the extra competitiveness, and the lack of personal and family time? I guess I just really like the idea of being able to walk up to a random chick and work into the conversation, "I'm a surgeon" *wink*.
Update:
Holy crap! I just looked outside and it looks like this:
Ice is piling up everywhere... scary. According to yahoo we're getting a "Wintry Mix" of frozen rain and some snow. It's supposed to snow tomorrow which will be my first taste of snow since Tahoe last year. I'm scurred.
The good news is they canceled our clinical skills workshop because they didn't want our elderly actors to accidentally break themselves on the frozen pavement out there.
...
I started looking up summer research opportunities the other night and ended up on the aamc site looking up the different specialties. The first thing I did was look at all of income ranges for the different specialties. Does that make me a bad person? Well I guess memorizing mountains of useless biochemistry kinda does that to you.
| Specialty | (25th %) | (75%) |
|---|---|---|
| Anesthesiology | 257 | 409 |
| Emergency Medicine | 190 | 250 |
| Opthamology | 218 | 414 |
| Orthopaedic Surgery | 290 | 515 |
| Otolaryngology | 229 | 403 |
| Plastics | 260 | 453 |
| Radiology | 351 | 510 |
| General Surgery | 209 | 250 |
| Urology | 250 | 453 |
I'm pretty sure I want to deal with patients and help people and all that good stuff... but goddamn radiologists sure do make some bank. You're not a real doctor, but you get to sit in a dark room, drink coffee and drive a mercedes. Not too shabby. I figure maybe you're not directly helping people, but with that kind of money you could probably donate a whole lot to a charity and some social worker can do the hard work for you. Of course I would probably end up matching in Africa or somewhere for radiology, so I'm going to keep my options open.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of doing Emergency Medicine. You don't make as much money, but you only work 40 hour weeks. Your work stays at work- no pagers at home, no house calls. Less dealing with paperwork. Residency is only 3 or 4 years long and allegedly not as stressful as surgical residencies. If you kill someone in the ER, you can always pretend they were gonna die anyway. You also don't have to worry about getting outsourced. Plus there's the hero factor. I like the idea that if I'm out somewhere and someone's dying I can whip out my pen and stick a hole in their throat. I also like the idea of being able to take vacations whenever I want and go skiing every week if I want to.
EM seems like such a sensible career path. So I don't know why I feel such a pull to do something hardcore surgery, like head and neck. You make more money but you also work twice as hard. Pride? Is it really worth the extra hours of stress, the extra competitiveness, and the lack of personal and family time? I guess I just really like the idea of being able to walk up to a random chick and work into the conversation, "I'm a surgeon" *wink*.
Update:
Holy crap! I just looked outside and it looks like this:
Ice is piling up everywhere... scary. According to yahoo we're getting a "Wintry Mix" of frozen rain and some snow. It's supposed to snow tomorrow which will be my first taste of snow since Tahoe last year. I'm scurred.
