5: What Does the Life of an Orthopedic Hand Surgeon Look Like?

Session 5

In this week's episode, Ryan talks with an orthopedic hand surgeon in a hybrid setup. He's in a community-based hospital and program but he has residents he interacts with who rotate through the hospital. He has been practicing for almost two years.

Here are the highlights of the conversation with Ragu:

When he knew he wanted to be an orthopedic hand surgeon:

• Deciding he wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon towards the end of 2nd year medical school
• He chose hand surgery towards the middle of his orthopedic residency after doing some rotations and liking the intricate nature of the hand

What led him to orthopedics vs. general surgery:

• Enjoying the aspect that you focus on the extremities
• It's a specialty with multiple subspecialties - (ex. sports, joint replacements, shoulder, knee, hand, children) so it gave him a lot of options
• General surgery is like a primary care field with no cross-correlation for orthopedics.

Other specialties he was considering:

• Anesthesia
• Radiology
• EENT

Traits that lead to being a good orthopedic surgeon:

• Hardwork
• Dedication
• Desire to work with your hands and doing procedures
• Good motor coordination

A typical day for an orthopedic:

3 days of office

• 1 1/2 days of surgery
• 1/2 administrative work or extra surgery

Office day:

• 8am - 4pm seeing 20 patients
• 20 minutes per patient + 5 minutes to do charting
• Consultations on the floor in between
• Answering calls from patients
• One weekend per month of call

Surgery day:

• 7:30 am to 3-4pm doing 3-6 surgeries a day (depending on the type and length of surgery)
• 75-80% of his surgeries are hand/upper extremity surgeries (hand, wrist, forearm, elbow)
• *Majority of hand surgeons do only hand surgery (90-95%)
• *The average orthopedic surgeon takes 5-6 days of call a month (1 weekday a week and 1 weekend for the month)

Types of patients and cases an orthopedic sees:

• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Tendonitis
• Hand fractures/injuries
• Traumatic injuries (lacerations on the hand)

Percentage of patients he sees in the office that he ends up taking in the operating room:

1-2 out of 20 people that he sees

Does he have work-life balance?

• He is married and travel once every 3-4 months for a vacation.
• He has a number of hobbies outside of work like basketball and golf.
• Quality time with his wife, friends, and family
• You have a good chance of having a say on who you want to set up your life because you get to pick and choose what is important to you.

What makes a competitive applicant for orthopedics:

• Showing interest in orthopedics (talking to the orthopedic department in your school and talking to some people) and getting involved such as research or lectures
• Good board scores
• Good letters of recommendation
• Good scores on clinical rotations especially those involving surgical stuff (surgery, OB, medicine)

Bias in the orthopedic field towards DO applicants:

In the past, DO applicants were not getting proper consideration. But in the recent years, DOs are starting to get more recognition as being just as competent as MD applicants.

Generally, there is a slight bias against DO applicants applying to MD orthopedic programs.

Residency as an orthopedic surgeon:

• Tough but every year gets better
• He enjoyed it a lot.

Duration:

• 1 year general surgery intern year (half doing orthopedics and half doin