<li><p>What exactly is the difference between private and public practice? </p></li>
<li><p>How are the hours in private? </p></li>
<li><p>Is the path to private any different than public? </p></li>
<li><p>What kind of salary can I expect as a private practice surgeon? </p></li>
<li><p>Benefits and disadvantages of private? </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>1.) I don't think "public" practice is a term I've ever heard, although I suppose it could apply to VA medicine. Private practice, more commonly, is the opposite of being an employee of a hospital. This would most commonly be the case in an academic medical center, or in the Kaiser system (in CA).</p>
<p>2.) Whatever you want. In practice, from what I can tell, most PP physicians work a little bit more than academic physicians -- 65 hrs a week or so, from what I've seen. Varies from specialty to specialty.</p>
<p>3.) The path to academic is different because it can be facilitated by a prestigious medical training, where it really doesn't matter for private practice. In terms of the official requirements, basically there's no difference. It's theoretically possible to practice without a residency, but the truth is nobody actually tries this because nobody sane would trust you.</p>
<p>4.) Depends on the hours you work, the type of surgery you do, and the location in the country you practice.</p>
<p>5.) It's less studly but gives you more freedom and you make a lot more money.</p>
<p>I thought Kaiser Permanente was a big hospital.....weird.</p>
<p>My negatives weren't very clear, sorry, let me redo that. Private practice is the opposite of being the employee of a hospital.</p>
<p>Being an employee would be very common in an academic medical center, or in the Kaiser system.</p>
<p>so in terms of path, it would most likely be like this?</p>
<p>undergrad (4 yrs) -> medschool (4yrs) -> residency (~2yrs?) -> private practice? </p>
<p>Where would you work as a private? Do you have to have your own clinic or can you work in a hospital ? Still a little confused about this.</p>
<p>And also in terms of salary, how much of a difference is there? Are the salaries reported on salary sites (ie: ortho surgery = ~$350000) a private or public estimate? </p>
<p>Thanks for helping</p>
<p>Residencies are at least three years long, and those are the lucky ones. Mine's probably nine. It depends on what field you're going into. A surgical one will last you at least five and probably more like seven to nine.</p>
<hr>
<p>Private practice physicians can:
1.) Work out of their own clinic AND work out of a hospital
2.) Work only out of their own clinics. This is common for family practice doctors.
3.) Work only out of their own clinics AND a "surgical center".
or
4.) I think there might be some private practice doctors who only work out of hospitals, or something, and ... well, I don't really know what the financial arrangement is.</p>
<hr>
<p>It's important that you clarify what you're comparing private practice to. As I've explained above, I don't know what you mean by "public". Do you mean VA? Academic? Kaiser? Free clinics?</p>
<hr>
<p>The numbers on salary.com are overall averages. For ortho, that would mean they're heavily weighted towards private practice. For something like trauma, it would probably be somewhat weighted towards academic medicine. I believe that for many specialties academic physicians make about half of what private practice physicians do, but I don't know where I got this impression or whether it's true.</p>
<hr>
<p>An ortho residency is 5 to 7 years, and a fellowship (say, hands) is another two.</p>
<p>Oh, and ortho is a medium hard specialty to match into, so this is one of the rare times when being at a higher-ranked medical school might help.</p>
<p>The two traditional large categories of practice are academic medicine (research, and teaching) and private practice (see patients), although many academic practices now have an private flavor.</p>
<p>Physicians in academic medicine are typically employed by universities or university hospitals, but may also see "private" patients or maintain a quasi-private practice in addition to their university duties (research, teaching, seeing patients). With the increase in production pressure, pure academic jobs are becoming increasingly rare. Many VA hospitals and county hospitals are affiliated with university medical training programs and so jobs there could have an academic flavor.</p>
<p>Physicians in private practice primary activity is seeing patients; research and teaching duties, if any, are minimal. Physicians may practice as solo practitioners, in single specialty groups, in multi-specialty groups or in large organizations such as Kaiser Permanente. Compensation can be fee for service, salaried, or anything in between.</p>
<p>See one internists experience in a "new" academic practice.
[quote]
"The days of a leisurely academic internist who sees patients two days a week and does god knows what else the other three days a week, those days are gone unless you're the kind of person who can generate your own funding," he says in between patients. "Departments of general internal medicine are expected to come closer to paying their own way than they have in the past, and the way to do that is to see more patients.
[/quote]
<p>See also Lichtstein DM. Preparing for Medical Practice made ridiculously simple. Miami, FL: Medmaster, 1998. ISBN#0-940780-38-0</p>