Medical career progression

[Anonymous]

How do doctors feel about longevity in the careers?

I've been looking for a new PCP and online resumes show doctors with 27 years experience, 36 years experience, 40+ years experience in the same position.

It made me compare this to other careers. A young foreign affairs analyst might aspire to be deputy ambassador, a young lawyer might aspire to be a partner, a coder to be an IT company founder.

Do doctors get bored or do medical developments keep things interesting?

[Anonymous]

It’s not like that when you’re in practice. You grow the practice as much as you want to and to whatever size volume intensity works best. You keep refining your work, you stay current, you continue learning. To some people it gets repetitive but to the best people they just get better and more efficient at it. It’s not like moving up a chain, although at most practices you would move up and become partner if you are good. You are talking about people with a lot of innate drive to excel. Most are going to keep excelling. You kind of have to otherwise the wheels would fall off the bus.

[Anonymous]

Does an artist get bored? They don’t become “Senior artist.” It’s more like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does an artist get bored? They don’t become “Senior artist.” It’s more like that.

I don't know. Picasso went through his blue phase and his cubist phase and his women with eyes in strange places phase, which would seem like going from being a PCP to an orthopedic surgeon to a plastic surgeon. He tried many different things.

[Anonymous]

Of course it really depends on the environment you practice in. But for most doctors once they get to a certain level, they’re either going to plateau or transition to administration. Administration may pay better in a lot of cases, but requires a different skill set so it just depends on what they’re looking for.

[Anonymous]

Work a few years, move to more of an admin role, realize that's a pain, return to seeing patients. That's my parent and all their peers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does an artist get bored? They don’t become “Senior artist.” It’s more like that.

I don't know. Picasso went through his blue phase and his cubist phase and his women with eyes in strange places phase, which would seem like going from being a PCP to an orthopedic surgeon to a plastic surgeon. He tried many different things.

No it’s not like that. Medicine is a medium and that’s why they call it practice. You go through stages with it. But it remains your art.

[Anonymous]

Everything gets repetitive.

I mean how many ENT's are still excited by a deviated septum or gastro's by a colonoscopy or endoscopy, after 40 years?

Some become motivated by doing as many procedures as humanly possible whether patients need it or not. So, greed can help motivate, like any other profession.