Life as a general surgeon?

-What do you do day to day as a general surgeon. What are the hours. Also, what's the salary



Please and thank youSo an average non-call day could be getting to the hospital at 6am or so to round on any in-house patients. The more in-house patients you have, the earlier you have to get there. You will then do dressing changes, discharge those who are ready, examine post-op wounds, and change medication/care orders.

Then, you get to clinic, usually by 8am or 9am. You usually see patients until 4:30 or 5pm. If you haven't dictated all your charts, then you dictate. If you have any emergent cases, then you head over to the OR or Surg center and do surgery on those patients.

Depending on how your group works, on days where you are first call, your day may start out with the rounding and you may then have the rest of the day off, but you are on call. So, anyone comes into the ED who needs surgery or a consult, and you go in. So, no alcohol and you typically have to stay within 20 minutes of the hospital. So sure, you can spend your day on the Golf Course or at Disneyland, but if you get a page about an appendix that's ready to go, then you have to drop everything and get to the OR immediately.





Salary varies by how much time you put in, your overhead, and your reimbursement. It could be $150k/year, it could be $600k/year.