02-28-2024, 09:24 PM
Current US med student who's been gunning neurosurgery since day 1 with no doubts about applying neurosurgery. I come from a first responder background and I recently started volunteering on a SWAT team as a medic as an extracurricular activity. The team's medical director is an ortho attending who also serves as an armed medic on the team. He does this on top of his full time academic ortho position. Not sure about his exact hours but he attends monthly training and goes to callouts/warrants when he can.
This seems to be fairly common nowadays for EM docs, orthopods, and trauma surgeons, but I haven't heard of any neurosurgeons doing this. I'm sure this is due to the nature of the job (longer surgeries, more call/emergencies, fewer neurosurgeons), but it's also a much smaller sample size and there is likely some selection bias of the kinds of people who go into neurosurgery.
I have no illusions or plans of being able to pursue this as a side activity to any depth as a resident because training >>> all else. I'm also willing to drop this completely if it will interfere with my ability to be a good neurosurgeon. That said, does anyone have any insight into if it would be possible to do something similar to the ortho attending as a neurosrgery attending once you get some more control of your schedule?
This seems to be fairly common nowadays for EM docs, orthopods, and trauma surgeons, but I haven't heard of any neurosurgeons doing this. I'm sure this is due to the nature of the job (longer surgeries, more call/emergencies, fewer neurosurgeons), but it's also a much smaller sample size and there is likely some selection bias of the kinds of people who go into neurosurgery.
I have no illusions or plans of being able to pursue this as a side activity to any depth as a resident because training >>> all else. I'm also willing to drop this completely if it will interfere with my ability to be a good neurosurgeon. That said, does anyone have any insight into if it would be possible to do something similar to the ortho attending as a neurosrgery attending once you get some more control of your schedule?
