<p>For a while now i have been going back and forth between becoming a physician assistant and a physician. The most important pro i find with becoming a PA is that i will have more time with the family the i hope to have. Thats one of the main things that make me unsure about medical school. I know i want to work in the medical field. I love biology ( which is my major) and learning about the body and being able to help people is what i want to do. It just seems that physicians (other than dermatologists and i guess family practitioners and very few other types) have to spend the majority of there time working. I read one blog of a ER doctor that says he works over 100 hours a week and i read another made by an OBGYN who said the same. I find that to be ridiculous, and absolutely not something i want to do.</p>
<p>It really depends on the town, the city I live in (austin) usually have pretty good ER/OBGYN schedules. </p>
<p>If you don't want all the obligations a doctor has to deal with, I would say PA they make 75k+++++++ and dont have to deal with high malpractice. From what i've witnessed they do nearly all the things doctor's do.</p>
<p>OB - murderous schedules pretty much everywhere - patients feel comfortable with their doc and want them there when the time comes (the movie 'Knocked Up' got this one extremely right). Certainly the number of inductions (especially at certain hospitals in certain parts of the country) are very common, but for the most part, babies are on their own time schedule. The schedules (and the malpractice costs) are one of the main reasons why you see so many older OB/GYN's drop the OB from their practice and do strictly GYN stuff.</p>
<p>ER - if you're in a large enough city, most ER docs are working far less than 100 hours a week. It's a shift work position - three to four 12-hour shifts a week, or you might do 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off, with 12 hour shifts each day for 14 days straight, but then get two weeks free. The one thing to realize is that this is done irrespective of holidays - if Christmas and New Year's fall on your week on, you're working. </p>
<p>PA's, like anything, depends on the specialty, but if you just work in a general practice, you can largely avoid things like call. PA's have a lot more freedom as they can negotiate their schedules/salaries to what's acceptable to them and their employer. Of course the cushier the schedule, the less salary one is likely to get.</p>