When you’re driving at night and see a full moon—big and round, looming so low you can almost see the depth of its craters—do you take a deep breath and acknowledge its splendor, or think about what time it is and all the things you still have to do, or ignore it altogether because you’re too exhausted? 

The things that make us smile, feed our passions, help us to move forward, give us permission to pay our debts or encourage us to sit and do nothing can be benchmarks for the kind of physician quality of life for which you yearn.

Dreaming ahead to the day you have your license and can finally live on your own terms, it’s reasonable to ask what type of doctor has the best lifestyle. This can be especially decisive when dealing with the high-stress field of surgery and wondering about surgeons with best worklife balance. 

Physician lifestyles and physician worklife balance are not to be taken lightly. Exploring the issues now will help you develop the necessary habits to enjoy the best medical career and personal life possible.

What type of doctor has the best lifestyle

Identifying doctors and best medical specialties for lifestyle begins with a clear vision of what lifestyle you want and what it takes to get it. If you want a lavish lifestyle, then a high-paying specialty such as gastroenterology, thoracic surgery or cardiology might be best. If a low-key family lifestyle would make your heart content, then a specialty with plenty of flexibility and free time might be best. Those include pain physicians, otolaryngology, psychiatry and ophthalmology. 

Ultimately, regardless of the field, doctors with the best lifestyle are the ones who negotiated specific parameters and boundaries in their contracts before starting their jobs. 

For many, these are hard-knock lessons learned during their first roles after training. For others, dealbreakers might be negotiated as survival mechanisms because they’re feeling the throes of burnout. Scenarios born out of frustration can be avoided at the start of your career by approaching recruitment talks with confidence in your worth and an understanding of what personal wellbeing means to you. 

Knowing what you are worth and that you are worthy can give you the calm assertiveness you need to ask for what’s important, such as one day a week or month working from home or one week of PTO every year for conferences.  By getting a clear sense of what wellbeing means to you, you’ll know what to prioritize, and have a better chance of choosing the opportunity with the best fit.

What type of doctor has the best worklife balance

The children of doctors who rarely see their families might argue the type of doctor with the best worklife balance is one who is not a surgeon – or surgeons who are not parents. That’s because urgent surgeries can’t be set aside for family dinners or school concerts, prompting many children in online groups to complain about having too few memories of spending time with their surgeon parents. 

That’s not to say surgeons can’t find balance. Surgeons and other specialists in high-stress fields with long or unpredictable hours can carve out balance by keeping sight of what they love about their work as well as what’s beautiful about their personal lives. 

In the end, becoming the type of doctor with the best worklife balance means you worked for it. You unplug at the dinner table, plan ahead for vacations, have people that keep you grounded and have mechanisms in place to laugh, cry, scream and learn from situations that don’t work out, either in your work life or personal life. 

Commonalities of the best specialties in medicine for worklife balance include having a range of clinical cases that get you pumped while at work, as well as a predictable schedule with clear days off. For instance, hospitalists working 12-hour shifts, seven days straight, say it’s as grueling as it is dynamic, but also worth it because at the end of it, they have seven days off.

For specialties like family medicine and psychiatry, where you see the same faces month after month and can look back and gauge their growth over time is fulfilling work that ends at a set time every day and rarely spills into the weekend. This allows them to turn their attention toward themselves, family, friends or personal projects.

Which doctor specialty has the best lifestyle

When considering physician satisfaction by specialty, cardiology, anesthesiology, gynecology, cardiothoracic surgery, sports medicine and ophthalmology rank among the happiest physicians who frequently report high job satisfaction. Even though their schedules can be demanding, they often can command the flexibility needed to pursue a good physician lifestyle.

Specialists with the best lifestyles are often those that work under 50 hours a week or have a support staff they can lean on if they work more hours, are compensated well enough to not need side gigs to supplement their income, work in an environment they enjoy and pursue a career that continues to challenge.  Pediatricians, neonatologists and pathologists are good examples. Anesthesiologists, however, report supplementing their income with extra work, which might throw off their worklife balance.

Is worklife balance possible in medicine

Not only is worklife balance possible in medicine, it has become a call to action by many healthcare organizations. 

Thousands of current job postings on PracticeLink.com boast initiatives geared toward physician worklife balance. For instance, Tift Regional Medical Center in Tifton, Georgia, offers a “strong support network, robust resources, and collaborative environment” for its role for an emergency medicine director. St. Luke’s University Health Network in Pennsylvania, which has opportunities for dentists as well as physicians, shares it has “a culture in which innovation is highly valued.” 

These might seem minor, but on an organizational level, commitments to support and nurture employees can increase job satisfaction, foster a more enjoyable working environment, improve morale and aid physicians as they develop their careers.

As you consider your ideal physician lifestyle, explore opportunities on the job board at PracticeLink.com. From big cities to rural communities, you’ll only see what would be expected in different environments, including non-profits, clinics and large healthcare systems. 

For insight into other areas of physician life, visit the PracticeLink Resource Center.