April 2014, from comment to post,

"Great post! Any feedback from any female/mom EM physicians on their field? Would you mind sharing the perks you've heard about from other EM docs?...thanks so much and love your blog:)"


Hi Elle, thank you for your comment! The day I was in the ER, there was only one woman on staff and she didn't look old enough to have children. And unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to work with her. As for the perks, the biggest one the Docs I worked with talked about was compensation, and I mean 300K-400K/year which is a WHOLE LOTTA MONEY TO ME, LOL!!!! Honestly, they didn't mention ANY downsides which I was surprised by. But in surfing the net in the days after my rotation, I was able to learn that burnout was the #1 complaint by ER Docs.

But here's my take on burnout. A significant number of people going into ER are people whose first "real" job was as a Resident. So in my mind, what they think "burns a person out" is likely VERY different from what I and many other "supernontrads" have experienced in our lifetimes. Furthermore, many people of color have experiences as children that would make others shudder to even think about it. Now obviously I have NO IDEA about what physician burnout is for a physician. I just know that I've NEVER heard a Doc who became one after say age 35, "complain" about it. Especially if they were in the military previously. That said, I'm certain that seeing seriously injured children would bother me on a personal level, so I'd happily focus on adult ER to minimize types of those scenarios over the long run. Still, almost 1 week after my time in the busy ER of a major city I'm pretty excited about the field.

About the perks of working in the ER, according to the Docs I worked with they are in order of importance:

1) Pretty high compensation in the 300K-400K range.
2) Leaving the "office" when your shift is over.
3) "Exciting" medical moments.

From my perspective, I like the shift work aspect and also don't mind working nights, late nights, weekends and holidays. And part of the reason is that I've always done those things even though there's an obvious difference between doing something every now and then,  and doing it on a regular basis. I'm also a night owl and the one point where I worked 3rd shift regularly was a BLAST for me!! So it's a great personal fit from my "internal clock" perspective.

Finally, my ER rotation reminded me of an episode of "Real Life in the ER" based in Texas where a toddler aged Hispanic boy was brought lifeless to the ER following a drowning. After about an hour if working on him, the other Doctors were ready to pronounce him dead. But his Hispanic lead Attending ordered the team to work on him for another hour. Not only was he stabilized but he experienced no adverse long term effects following his treatment. In fact, he recovered completely.

I bring this up because I sometimes think that the care a person gets in the ER depends on who they are. For example, I'm completely certain that celebrities get treatment MUCH different than the rest of us in emergent situations. And I think the same thing could apply for people of color depending on the personal beliefs/stereotypes and cultural experiences of the Physician involved. I'm also reminded of the locally famous writer in Metro DC who arrived at the ER with diabetic keto acidosis but was mistakingly thought to be inebriated. He died and his family sued and won. So I'm aware that  mistakes in the ER don't just involve people of color.

At any rate, I'm thinking about getting recertified in phlebotomy so I can perhaps get a PRN gig in the ER. Maybe.... if I can fit it into to already slammed schedule.