Re: Family life of an orthopod

Well, I have my never ending "honey do" list that I have to attend to. I also do alot of boating (skiing, wakeboarding, airchairing) and fishing. As well as haul the kids around to various events. We also like to catch a lot of athletic events like home football and basketball games.

So you really have three days off per week? I was under the impression you worked six days per week.

The only weekends I work are the ones that I'm on call. One weekend every other month. Now I do occasional go in and round for a few minutes on Saturday morning if I happen to have any inpatients, but usually the weekend call doc does all of the patient rounds.

Family life will be determined by practice selection and not necessarily subspecialty. For example, I am a sports doc/arthroscopist. I have two full clinic days a week which keep me busy starting at 8 and usually home by 5 or 5]

how are you on call 3-4 times/month? i thought attendings went on call for 1 whole week at a time?

In an academic center you may see attendings taking call a week at a time b/c they have residents to do most of the work for them. In the private world, rarely are there residents to do your work. Therefore, taking call a week at a time would be a killer unless you're in a place where call is extremely quiet.

Most groups divide call by weekdays and weekends. So if you have a group of eight docs that all share call, then each doc takes one weekday every two weeks and one weekend every other month. Of course, different groups do different things so this can vary, but this is a very common way to setup the call schedule.

In our group, you can only take call on the days you are operating since our clinic is a few miles from the hospital. It would be too hard to cover the ER when you're in clinic and disrupt your clinic schedule.

Sounds to me like you need to go chat with some of your local orthopods in the community so you can see what the real world is like outside of an academic institution.

In an academic center you may see attendings taking call a week at a time b/c they have residents to do most of the work for them. In the private world, rarely are there residents to do your work. Therefore, taking call a week at a time would be a killer unless you're in a place where call is extremely quiet.

Most groups divide call by weekdays and weekends. So if you have a group of eight docs that all share call, then each doc takes one weekday every two weeks and one weekend every other month. Of course, different groups do different things so this can vary, but this is a very common way to setup the call schedule.

In our group, you can only take call on the days you are operating since our clinic is a few miles from the hospital. It would be too hard to cover the ER when you're in clinic and disrupt your clinic schedule.

Sounds to me like you need to go chat with some of your local orthopods in the community so you can see what the real world is like outside of an academic institution.

you are correct, i definitely would appreciate speaking to a community orthopod. is this a common thing for med students to do? i feel like a big part of matching is convincing programs that you love research and are committed to academics. i really appreciate your advice and experiences.

If you are interested in orthopedics, you should definitely go out and chat with the community orthopods and see what their lifestyle is like. Some medical schools have interest groups set up with contacts you can use. Just remember that only 10% of trained orthopedists go into academics.