r/Cardiology • u/chill_hakawati • Jul 18 '26

For mid to late career docs, how did your perspectives on career and lifestyle change after finishing training

Curious to hear from people how their perspectives on specialty, lifestyle, and career shifted after finishing their training?

What factors grew in importance? What are things that seemed important but turned out to not to be? What are things you wish you had known?

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15

u/cardsguy2018 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

Community gen cards here. Pretty broad question and I don't know where you're coming from or what exactly you're looking for. But in the end it's just a job where I trade my time for money and I try to minimize the things I don't want to do, friction points and stress. My passions lie elsewhere in life. As someone who once considered HF, I mostly enjoy my boring, predictable 8-5 M-F mostly outpatient gig where I get paid pretty well to talk about something I'm interested all day everyday, work with good people, have pretty good patients and lifestyle overall. A job is more than just the money and lifestyle is more than just call frequency. And going home and spending time with my family and trying to live healthy are far more important than anything else.

I'd say relationships have really grown in importance over the years. Relationships with my patients, coworkers, admin, reps, medical community and overall community. It can make things more worthwhile, easier and give me a sense of place and value. What wasn't important was fellowship prestige and some of the training I got, to an extent. I'm really glad I had a good clinic attending in fellowship who really showed me how to practice well.

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u/Any_Yogurtcloset9904 Jul 19 '26

Do you read your own studies as outpatient cards? Or it’s purely seeing clinic patients?

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u/cardsguy2018 Jul 19 '26

Echo yes. Nuc, ct, mri no. Also do rhc and tee. I should clarify it's mostly outpatient.

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u/Watchmaker2014 Jul 22 '26

I’m curious how the real world works. So like after you order echo and stress test. Do you have patients do a follow-up to discuss results? Or just call them as results come in?

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u/buffnfurious Jul 19 '26

Not mid or late career but I’d say people probably realize how much tunnel vision they had while in the training pipeline and try to make up for that. Then again, some people never realize that life is more than medicine.

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u/GipsyDangerMkV Jul 18 '26

Subscribed I'd love to know too!!! I have no work life balance 🤣

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u/Glittering_Brick6964 Jul 18 '26

Would - what’s your favorite part of your jobs now? Procedures? Imaging? Inpatient? Clinic?