Physician Career Satisfaction Across Specialties

[Garnets]

I thought this might be of interest for many on the forum. http://www.americangeriatrics.org/ed...hys_career.pdf

It was interesting to see that those people doing "procedural" medicine(ent, ortho, pulmonary, etc) had the lowest job satisfaction as opposed to those say in peds, infectious disease, and geriatrics.

Also, that the FMG's had lower satisfaction, too. I wonder why that is the case. Why would their satisfaction be lower than others? I mean if FMGs have completed a residency and all why would their satisfaction be lower? Is it a stigma associated with being an FMG? Is it that they are truly not happy because they did not match into their desired field? I would love to hear comments from others on that.

I have been doing a good deal of reading on why physicians leave medicine as a career. I have come to the conclusion that "the grass is always greener" syndrome is alive and well in medicine as it is anywhere else. Physicians leave to become stockbrokers. Stockbrokers leave to become lawyers. Lawyers leave to become physicians. Further, I think age and experience have something to do with it. If a 21 year old has studied biology in school, went straight to med school, onto residency, and into practice, then they may have not had the opportunity to experience other work that they might be more satisfied with. I know that is the case with one doctor I work with. Once he found computers he came alive and left medicine. He told me he wished he had studied computer science in college instead of biology.

Garn