Newer Physicians Showing Difficulty Balancing Family and Work Life

As a new school of medical doctors is entering the practice of medicine, these doctors are trying their best to balance home life with work life.

These new school doctors are recognizing the need for more family time and less office time. Where once doctors were called upon 24 hours a day and responded for life’s late night emergencies, today are doctors that believe their family life needs to be just as important, if not more important than their practice.

Thanks to these changing minds, a new breed of doctor is finding a career that fits how they wish to live their lives. This new breed is the hospitalist, a doctor that specializes solely in the care of hospitalized patients and which carries no patients of their own in either a private practice or group practice setting. The hospitalist focuses more on the general care of patient already in the hospital than anything else and thus is able to leave their work at work and retire home after their shift to enjoy family without the stresses of receiving phone calls from patient emergencies.

The hospitalist profession does not come without its own stresses however. The practice often leads the doctor into a constant barrage of acutely ill patients. Where office based doctors may see well visits here and there scattered throughout the patient pool during the day, the hospitalist is focused on those patients that are ill enough to be admitted to the hospital.

Despite this fact, one of the biggest attention grabbers for new physicians is the predictability of the schedule. Doctors report to work at a set time and leave at a set time. There are no after hours pages or calls, just caring for patients during their time at work.

This new school physician following has been growing for quite some time, but, never quite as fast as it has in the last few years. During a 2001 study, 15% of new doctors claimed they were worried about having enough free time in their lives. In 2006, that number jumped to 63%.

This movement from the more traditional style of practice to the new timed practice is leaving a bit of strain on the medical community as well. New doctors are leaving behind the fields of internal medicine, pediatrics and family medicine in exchange for either more specialized care or the hospitalist setting.

Dealing With the Lack of Doctors

In order to deal with this new age of medicine, the American medical field is changing the way they do business. A team approach is helping more and more doctors meet the growing needs of their private patients. A team is often made up of Physicians Assistants, Nurse Practitioners and other forms of health specialties with each caring for a different aspect of the overall patient needs.

While this team approach will clearly help the doctor to meet the number of patients coming in to the office, the level of care is at risk, some believe. With rotating care specialists, the patient history may not be fully divulged or understood to the new care provider and thus the diagnosis and treatment of conditions may falter.

Patients are also a bit skeptical about the new team approach to care. Patients are accustomed to a certain type of care and when they have less opportunity to bond with their primary care physician or specialist, they often feel the level of care is slighted.

One of the most sensitive areas being hit by the team approach is Obstetrics. There are times, in the team practice, when a patient will enter the hospital for birth and see a doctor they have never met. The sensitive nature of child birth may leave the patient feeling as though this new doctor is not invested in their care or the care of their new baby.

The hospitalist plays a huge role in some Obstetric practices in order to meet these changing needs. Many OB physicians are hiring hospitalists to care for their patients after hours when the primary physician may not be available for birth.

The Home Life / Practice Balance

For many new physicians even the thought of being on call once in a while is not something they are willing to accept. These physicians are at odds with the more traditional ideals of practicing medicine but are not willing to allow this conflict to stop their need to care for patients. New practices are being based upon office only care, where any emergency problems are immediately diverted to hospitals and all care transferred to the on call physicians.

There will certainly continue to be pros and cons associated with the new school of medicine versus the old school of medicine. Older physicians will look upon the new methods of “I will not work this and I will not work that!” as a change, but time will make the change more acceptable. But, one thing is for certain, doctors today are trying to balance home life and work life more so that they are able to make more of all aspects of their choice of professions.