Do you work more hours as an IB or a surgeon?
Do you work more hours as an IB or a surgeon? Also who will make more money? Just generally curious what you guys think. I wanna say it is close.
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More in IB, and probably tied in comp depending on specialty of surgery
In my experience, surgeons work worse hours. The issue with being a highly paid surgeon is that you work when your clients (or the clients of the hospital) get injured. My great uncle would regularly get called in at 2 AM after getting home at 9 PM for a 12-14 hour shift and have to perform a 2-13 hour surgery. He was constantly on call, and as the lead specialty surgeon for a hospital, there wasnt really anyone who could replicate what he did.
In general, the answer to your who makes more and who works more hours is totally it depends. You need to be far more specific (e.g, does an IB Analyst 1 in TMT GS work more than an ENT surgeon 3 years out of medical school working for a hospital serving 10,000 individuals annually, where he or she is 1 of three specialty doctors on rotation).
100% this, depends on the specialty, but I have a family member who is an interventional radiologist and there are times he'll be called in at insane hours. It is much higher stress too... pitching clients vs. opening someone up and fucking with their insides...
Not to mention if you're in private practice / a partner you also have to deal with all the typical entrepreneurial / administrative shit as well.
Something about surgery/medicine that has always frightened me is that even a single mistake can lead to your patient being permanently disabled or dead. Whereas in finance you typically just get another round of comments to turn.
Honestly come to think about it finance is probably the best field for risk adjusted compensation.
Can't speak to IB but for surgery there is a huge variation in practice setup and compensation among surgeons within the same field, much less across different ones (neurosurgery vs. general surgery etc). I'm a fourth year interventional radiology resident who did a surgical internship. During residency most surgeons will work between 70-90 hours per week and those hours are truly productive. Lifestyle as an attending surgeon can vary greatly. Certain fields like breast or sports orthopedics can be largely 8-5 with minimal after-hours requirements. Other more intense fields like transplant and cardiac can easily remain above 60 hours/wk for your entire career.
Compensation is highly dependent on practice setup and payor mix. A trauma surgeon working for the county hospital has a cool job and works very hard but likely makes sub-$400k. An orthopedic surgeon who is a part owner of a private practice in an area with lots of insured patients can easily hit $1M if they work hard. Job offers I'm looking at vary between $400k with 4 weeks of vacation at the Government VA hospital (but never work nights or weekends and the pace is very easy) up to a seven figure job in an extremely busy private practice with 10 weeks vacation but ball-buster weeks.
Did you really spend $400K on med school and now want to switch to IB anyway? That is incredible hahaha
Yes. Sounds crazy but I will not last even another 15 years in medicine. Better to start another career while still reasonably young.
How do oncology surgeons and neuro do? Similar to 400k? or more/less?
Like I said, it totally depends on practice set up. Being in the bottom 10th percentile and top 10th percentile could easily result in vastly different incomes and work-life balance.
Per MGMA (our reference for negotiating salary),
Neurosurgery median = $870k, 75th percentile = $1.15M
Surgical Oncology median = $460k, 75th percentile = $650k
Do you mind me asking how old are you? how do you plan on transitioning to IB - MBA? why the switch anyhow
I personally know a surgeon making ~$2M and he still works full time (40-60 hour weeks) and he's in his late 40s/early 50s. I don't think he would make nearly the same amount of money working part time - so not entirely sure how viable it is to say an ortho surgeon can easily make $1M+ down the line working part time (even in less than desirable locations). Also may PM you at some point because your story is quite interesting.
I got the same question for IB v. BigLaw
Damn at least if bankers get too fatigued, there’s no risk of killing someone.
This
During residency one of my older cousin's shift was like all night shift -> day shift -> all night shift -> day shift constantly back to back. So more intense fields I'm sure are really getting worked than IB analysts.
Grass is always greener on the other side that being said sir this is a wendys
The type of work a "Surgeon" and an "Investment Banker" does are leagues apart. At the end of the day, I'm really just entering inputs into a prebuilt model, structuring shapes on a PowerPoint deck and etc. Surgeons literally deal with human lives on a daily basis. If I fuck up because I'm stressed out on 10 different staffings or w.e. the worst I would get is "be more attentive to detail you piece of shit" or w.e. If I fuck up because I'm stressed out as a surgeon, I might've just committed murder which will stay with me for the rest of my life. Also, if surgery is not a success, I also just killed someone and will have to live with that and let the family know. Granted I'm pulling this out of my ass but generally speaking, I would say 50 hours (Surgeon time) is probably 100+ hours (Investment Banker time) as far as stress goes.
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