<p>Recently I shadowed a nephrologist, and I really enjoyed his work and I am definitely thinking of a career in medicine. I don't mind working very hard in medical school and then working like 80 hours a week in residency. After that, I thought that doctors would have better hours, say 9 hours a day (e.g. 9am to 6pm), 5 days a week. However, what worried me is that the nephrologist I was shadowing works 11 hours a day, mon. through fri. and then is on call for like 5 hrs on sat. and sun.. Is this an aberration, or are most physician working hours like this? (of course not including private family practice or pediatricians)</p>
<p>usually if you work for a hospital or the such, you'll work 8-9 hours, not including travel time. that's how much my dad works anyways.</p>
<p>he's on call once or twice a month for the entire week (nothing too big in his current position, he only has to go to the hospital if desperately needed)</p>
<p>Do doctors get to travel a lot? such as "business trips"?</p>
<p>Depends what you do.</p>
<p>There are lifestyle friendly fields where you can work 9-5 with little to no call.</p>
<p>Then there are other fields where call is constant and the work hours are insane.</p>
<p>Obviously, the competition for those lifestyle fields are very very intense</p>
<p>My H. is a cardiologist (private). He generally works 9-10 hrs/day with one to two nights/week on call and every 3rd or 4th weekend on call from 5pm fri. until 7am Mon. One half day per week off and the weekends not on call off.</p>
<p>A lot goes into how much you'll work: specialty, practice type, where you end up living. Specialty is usually the largest determining factor (ex: OB/GYN vs. Derm)</p>
<p>Most "lifestyle" specialties (Derm, Ophthamology, Emergency) are getting more and more competitive, although these things are cyclical usually.</p>