IN PRACTICE

The Academics

Academic medicine varies from private practice in several ways. In addition to treating patients, the academic physicians hold university positions, and they teach medical students and residents about their specialties. There are a host of administrative duties and compensation may include both the university salary (usually based on a percentage of what the local private practitioner might expect to earn) and income from private patients.

Outsiders often regard university medical centers as consisting of the worst combination of stuffy academia and arrogant medicine.The two women in this section bring the tempering perspective of the former nurse to this setting. The two are in different branches of medicine--neurology and pathology--and offer a unique perspective on the world of academic medicine.

Dr. JJ always desired more autonomy and chose public health nursing as a way of achieving this. Her experiences of teaching, administration, and becoming a pediatric nurse practitioner eventually led her to strive for the greatest independence of all--a medical degree. But her choice of neurology was a surprise to her, and her academic position guarantees her more scope to be an active mother than private practice might.

Beth Lucas came from a high school class of 85 people in a small, Southern state. Only four went to college. With the proper direction, she might have moved rapidly forward into a scientific career in biochemistry. Instead her search for the appropriate spot in science took her through many varieties of nursing, to ultimately deposit her in pathology, where the final answers are.