In medicine, you’ll often hear about the ROAD to success.
These are the specialties known for having high compensation and great work-life balance.
They include radiology, ophthalmology, anesthesiology and dermatology.
More recently, emergency medicine has also been added to the list due to its fixed schedule
and control over your free time.
Although these specialties are great in their own right, they aren’t the only specialties
where you can enjoy a great lifestyle.
Plastic surgeons working in aesthetics and orthopedic surgeons working in sports medicine
enjoy the high compensation that comes with being a surgeon, but with more consistent
schedules, fewer emergencies, and less time on-call.
That being said, there are other factors to consider such as practice type.
If you’re a dermatologist working in a small private practice, balancing administrative
and clinical responsibilities, your schedule may be even more demanding than a surgeon
working in the hospital.
As such, lifestyle can vary greatly even within specialties, so it shouldn’t be your primary
consideration when choosing a specialty.
It’s much more important to choose something that you actually enjoy and can see yourself
doing in the long-term.
If you'd like to learn more about any specialty in greater depth, check out our So You Want
to Be series.