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For Love or Money: How Do Doctors Choose Their Specialty?
Does every doctor feel a calling to a certain specialty? How much does money factor into the decision?
www.medscape.com
Interesting article about how medical students choose which specialty they want factoring money vs doing what you enjoy. They interviewed a doctor who subspecializes in adolescent medicine and is the lowest paid subspecialty. Reminds me of an internist told me why he respects ID docs, they do a fellowship so they can earn less money. The takeaway is chase your passion because chasing money will burn you out.
It got me wondering how this parallels podiatry. We talk a lot about ROI here (justifiably so) and going to extremes so we can make sense of all the time and training we take on. (Troll meme suggestion: in podiatry you don't have to choose between job satisfaction and financial success because you'll have neither!) I think a lot about reconfiguring my schedule so I'm treating problems I actually want to treat, turning away the rest, and what kind of financial hit would I take doing so.
You hear about these pods who just treat a lot of kids or a lot of runners and eventually become "pediatric experts" and "sports medicine specialists." Honestly, more power to them that they have tailored their practice to their interest. As for me, I don't want to target any subpopulation so much as I'd like to eliminate a lot of the lobster work so I might actually enjoy podiatry.