Work Hours/Week by MD Specialty: 2008 MA Data

While deciding a specialty of your choice, besides the salary, medical students also wish to know how much will they need to sweat it out each week to earn their $$$. In fact, surveys show that newer docs of today rate lifestyle higher than salary when it comes to picking up a specialty and also a location to practice....slackers!!!! ;-)

Previously I had posted data on work hours per week by specialty from a 2003 article, and here's some data I happen to dig out from a Massachussets physician workforce survey report . This may not represent averages for the whole of US, but should be pretty close. The hours mentioned are the total hours - including patient care, admin stuff, research and teaching.

Anesthesiology      60.9 hrs/week
Cardiology          62.2 hrs/week
Dermatology         39.3 hrs/week
Emerg Med           48.8 hrs/week
Family Med          49.8 hrs/week
Gastroenterology    55.3 hrs/week
General Surgery     65.9 hrs/week
Internal Med        54.0 hrs/week
Neurology           53.8 hrs/week
Neurosurgery        67.9 hrs/week
OB/GYN              59.5 hrs/week
Orthopedics         60.2 hrs/week
Oncology            62.0 hrs/week
Pediatrics          48.4 hrs/week
Psychiatry          44.2 hrs/week
Radiology           50.2 hrs/week
Urology             65.2 hrs/week
Vascular Surg       71.1 hrs/week

It's easy to see Dermatology being a win-win situation lifestyle wise and income-wise ..almost seems unfair = less complicated, less stressful clinical work and yet pulls the brainiest docs because of less work and more pay.


Download report here