Geriatric Medicine: A Typical “Real” Day in the Life of a GeriatricianGeriatric Medicine has been very good to me and my family. Everyday I feel fortunate to have stumbled into this field of medicine. It offers the perfect blend of intellectual challenge, yet doesn’t have the high level of stress and anxiety provoking speed of other specialties. You the physician have the freedom to pick and choose from the numerous practice models and additional opportunities to custom fit a practice to your desires and life-style. I would like to share with you a typical day in my Geriatric Medicine practice, to show you just how far off the “typical” day of a “normal” doctor you can stray and still make a living. This took a little time to tweak, and it continues to evolve, but remains consistent with my goals. These goals are simple. I need to work enough to make a living, provide for my family and live comfortably within my means. I don’t mind getting up early, but I don’t want to have to leave my house early to go to work. I want to take my kids to school in the morning and ease on into the day. I don’t mind working, but I don’t like working under the artificially induced pressure of an appointment schedule. I don’t want to work with Managed Care(capitated plans in particular). That’s it. My job satisfaction is high and here’s how I do it: 6:30am Wake up. Let the dog out. Coffee. Wake up some more. 6:45am Wake up the kids. Fix lunches for kids, go back and wake kids up again. 7:15am Drive kids to school 7:45am Come back, next cup of coffee. This begins my quiet, creative time. My mind is fresh and clear at this time, the house is quite, and I can write, create, read, and research. I’m writing this web page at 8:15am. 9:00am Light breakfast. About this time my wife (not an early morning person) is up and about. If it’s nice outside, we will sit outside on the porch and talk, drink coffee and just enjoy being alive. 10:00am Prepare for rounds; get paperwork in order (pre-fill H&Ps with histories and med lists for new patients or readmits). Make my to-do list for the day. 11:00am Leave the house. 11:30am Arrive at first LTC facility; see 2-3 patients before lunch. 12:00am Utilization Review meeting at the facility (part of my Medical Director duties) and also serves to review discharge plans of my own patients. Usually eat lunch during meeting or right after, depending on the day. 1:00pm Restart rounds. Typically see about 15-25 patients a day total. 5:30-6:00pm Done. Miss the worst of rush hour. 6:30pm Back Home. Return any faxes waiting for my signature or orders, usually about 2-3. Go through the mail, half hour or so. Some days I am busier, some I am slower. I also field phone calls throughout the day. I get about 15-20 calls per day. The vast majority of these take less than a minute. I don’t make rounds on week-ends, and I can usually move rounding days around if I want to go out of town, or just be lazy. I share call with two other Geriatric Medicine physicians (one out of three call). This works out to be more than enough work since I don’t have the typical out-patient practice overhead to deal with. I have only one employee (she works from home, 150 miles away) whose main responsibility is billing. The secret to making this work, is overhead of <25%, being organized and efficient, living well within my means and taking advantage of available alternative streams of income in Geriatric Medicine. Does this sound good to you? Remember, this is how I do it. You can mix and match to your heart’s desire. Want to work harder, faster, longer? Go ahead. Want to work slower and shorter hours, sure why not. There is really no limit to the ways you can manipulate Geriatric Medicine to provide you with freedom and great job satisfaction. From Geriatric Medicine A Typical Day back to Job Satisfaction
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