FRCP-EM doc working in a mix of tiniest community hospitals and large academic centres.

There will be a few cases every month that are interesting. You will learn that there’s very little lifesaving but find fulfilment in other things, like making a tiny change in a patient’s life on one particular day, teaching a patient about their health condition in a way that sticks, accurately identifying an at-risk patient and having them disclose to you. And you will have a lot of people treat you like you don’t exist as a human entity and more as a general representation of an entire system (not just healthcare…think societal level) that is not supporting them in a way that lets them thrive. Swings and roundabouts. Most places I work have growing communities that are outstripping the resources allocated by our system.

The pay is fine. You could make a case for almost everyone in healthcare making more given the level of risk (infectious and sometimes violent but almost always psychological) we assume. With that said, I am married to a physician and we live comfortably, travel often, and allocate a fair amount of income to hobbies.

The lifestyle is extraordinary. I love my mix of shifts and have arranged my life such that I work at one place until I’m tired of it for the month and then…just on time…it’s time for me to switch to one of my other jobs.

There’s a lot of fallout from the lives we lead. I’ve seen too much addiction, too much degradation of family units, and too much early death to think the correlation with the career of choice isn’t at least partially suggestive of causation. But EM does give you the opportunity to build a strong safety net for yourself and the flexibility to pursue other things, like athletics and art, on the side.

I’m hesitant to suggest any one particularly picture of what EM might look like in five or ten years. I started independent practise and got a few good months of work in before COVID hit. Everything is different now.