Can a Pediatric Oncologist have it all? A family and a great paying job.?

Answer 1

Well, of course (except for maybe the 'great paying' part, but more about that in a minute). Like any other academic medical career, it takes work to balance the demands of your career advancement with the demands of your research, with the the needs of your family, as well as with your own personal needs. All within the finite limits of the number of available hours per week.

How you order those competing priorities depends on your own values. Want to go to every school production and soccer game of your 6 kids? Then you're probably not going to run a 20-person lab and publish in Science every year. Remember: clinical medicine is a full-time job. Science is a full-time job. Being a parent and spouse: a full-time job. You can probably do two of the three (science and spouse; clinician and spouse). To do all three you need to be extraordinary. Remeber that most pediatric oncology positions in the US are academic, not private practice. That's because, unlike medical oncology, there are far fewer pediatric patients, and the centers of excellence are pretty much always concentrated in children's hospitals and academic medical centers.

As for great paying .... if you're going in Pediatric Oncology for the money, let me give you some advice. Stop. Now. You'll live comfortably, but if you're hoping to make $200K or $300K per year right out of fellowship, then you're going to be severely disappointed. You'll go through 4 years of medical school (read: loans), 3 years of residence (~$40-50K/year), 3 years of fellowship ($50-60K/year), and then starting salaries for clinical positions are in the low $100s, just like most academic pediatric subspecialties. As I said, you'll be comfortable. You won't starve. But it's unlikely that you'll be extraordinarly wealthy. It's a good paying job. Not great when you factor in your loans, the deferrment in your life (e.g., starting a family, buying a house, retirement savings, etc.), but good.

For the most part, people in pediatric oncology do their job because it's a fundamental component of who they are as people and physicians. Not because of the money.

You can read more about my experiences at blogmd.samblackman.org.

Good luck.

Answer 2

Of course they can. Unfortunately there is a lot of need for this type of doctor because of all the children that are diagnosed with various types of cancer.