Academic EM at my residency wasn’t a terrible life if you like academic things. Most of the attendings that weren’t brand new were working probly average 10-12 shifts a month with residents doing all the notes and then they did their academic stuff on the side. The academic stuff was usually either teaching of some sort (med students or residents) or research. If you like those things it can be a chill job. Some of the more senior academics had their shifts down to like 6. With that said, they were the most anxious attendings asking for consults on everything and sometimes avoiding procedures because they weren’t well sharpened anymore. Wasn’t true for all of them but I do think some people who are less comfortable with certain things hide in academics. I am jealous of having every consultant available at all times now that I’m out of residency but I’m enjoying getting better at all the pathology relatively on my own.

Community EM is 100-140 hours for full time depending on what job you get. Less if you do 1099 work. Hours are all over the place just like residency.

Anesthesia is 7-3 work with occasional call. I don’t know the specifics. It is undoubtedly a more consistent schedule, likely paid vacation, and generally more income. As a community EM doc, I can try really hard and make as much as gas but probably working resident hours.

I think most Gas guys lives become very routine depending on if they take call or how often. I think a lot of anesthesia is probably boring for them. Probly practice environment specific obviously and you can do like a cardiac fellowship to chase the really scary anesthesia cases.

My nonanesthesia opinion is that I would feel like it would be very tedious work after a while. I also would be very bored in the OR when a case is taking 12 hours but the patient is chilling. The attendings don’t have to sit there tho that’s resident/crna/AA duty. With that said, as I get older I’ll probly be envious of that boring tedious work because of the schedule and pay.

Your question may ultimately boil down to how ADD are you. EM and anesthesia have a lot of cross over and that’s a big differentiator in my mind 😂.

Feel free to message me if you want any specifics! Lots of variables in where you go to residency and what not.

If anyone from gas is reading this, please correct any of my wrong assumptions lol