Last edited:
ENT vs. IM and research recs?
- Thread starter mednerd20
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2009
- Messages
- 1,974
- Reaction score
- 2,680
It sounds like you would be happier in a procedure-heavy medicine subspecialty. ENT is not really "IM plus surgery" or "surgery-lite". It's a surgical field that just happens to have a lot of clinic. There's a lot of complex problems in ENT, but we're not doing the kind of physiologic stuff that you seem interested in. From my limited experience, the med students that had the "ENT vs. IM" dilemma solved it pretty quick when doing an ENT rotation.
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2014
- Messages
- 127
- Reaction score
- 66
I know the ENT attendings here were thinking of GI vs ENT as careers. Ultimately, ENT was a cleaner field to go into 
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2004
- Messages
- 1,642
- Reaction score
- 417
This is very well said.
I enjoy thinking about patient problems and dealing with them both medically and surgically. But at the end of the day I'm a surgeon. FWIW my other considerations were urology and plastic surgery. Urology is surprisingly a lot like ENT and it's the one I most considered. Lots of big procedures, lots of small procedures, all age ranges, cool technology, scopes in funny places, etc. Anyway good luck deciding but my gut instinct is you'd be happier in IM.
It's not clear from your post whether you've done IM or ENT rotations yet. Though it sounds like you're more interested in procedural IM subspecialties than general IM.
In my opinion, ENT offers quite a bit more variety than GI and especially cardiology, both in terms of procedures and diseases (ear stuff very different than sinus stuff which is different from H+N, etc).
If I were you, I'd do ENT research and keep the door open to apply for ENT. If you're a competitive applicant for ENT, you should have no problem matching into a top IM program should you change your mind. Once you've spent a month or more on a medicine service and an ENT service, you'll be able to make a better decision.
Good luck!
In my opinion, ENT offers quite a bit more variety than GI and especially cardiology, both in terms of procedures and diseases (ear stuff very different than sinus stuff which is different from H+N, etc).
If I were you, I'd do ENT research and keep the door open to apply for ENT. If you're a competitive applicant for ENT, you should have no problem matching into a top IM program should you change your mind. Once you've spent a month or more on a medicine service and an ENT service, you'll be able to make a better decision.
Good luck!
You are not alone. I'm actually also thinking of IM (GI) vs. ENT. I really liked IM and ENT, and had a hard time deciding between the two.. until I did an ENT rotation. Then it just *clicked*. I think I'm going to try to pursue ENT, but I have to meet with our program director first to see if I have a decent shot.. if I do, I'll go for it. You should do an ENT rotation to help clear things out.
I'll be doing a rotation soon but I have shadowed surgeries and clinic so I know I like ENT. Thanks for the research advice as far as trying to keep doors open.
Flamen, could you elaborate on what pushed you more towards ENT vs. IM? Esp since you were also thinking about the specialties I would want to do in IM, like GI. These fields all offer such a great opportunity to help patients through interventional techniques and clinic care, I suppose we can't go wrong at the end of it all!
Flamen, could you elaborate on what pushed you more towards ENT vs. IM? Esp since you were also thinking about the specialties I would want to do in IM, like GI. These fields all offer such a great opportunity to help patients through interventional techniques and clinic care, I suppose we can't go wrong at the end of it all!
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2012
- Messages
- 26
- Reaction score
- 1
Current ENT resident here. Do ENT research that's broader in scope. Should set you up ok for either field when you decide. Just get SOMETHING done.
My final two choices M3 year was medicine and ENT. It was "sorta" tough to choose ENT since medicine was the reason why I applied to medical school but I did love ENT and don't regret the decision one bit since then.
Medicine Pros: Diverse pathology with complex interactions as you mentioned. Diverse fellowships. Patient interaction. I do enjoy talking to patients and hearing their stories (whether medical or just life). Lots of "thinking", which I enjoyed. Lifestyle variable depending on your post-residency choices. Academic practice attainable without being a research hound. Always will be a need for a medical doctor albeit perhaps in a constantly evolving role.
Medicine Cons: Endless rounding (#2 reason medicine lost). Inpatient medicine often times is more about stabilizing than healing. Hospitalist model more and more prevalent (not my thing). Procedures not truly "surgical" (lines, scopes, caths, ultrasound guided taps, thoras, paras, injections), which is why IR was never a consideration for me. (and this was the #1 reason I chose ENT over medcine).
ENT Pros: Fascinated by and love head and neck anatomy and pathology. There is nothing cooler in the world. Love the diversity of procedures (open one second, using endoscopes the next). Treating pediatric and adult patients. Specialist. You do a decent amount of clinic and have some patient interaction. Procedures generally are not long, drawn out ordeals. You are a surgeon, not a procedurelist.
ENT Cons: Limited to head and neck (although this is a + for me). Tougher to get into. Surgical residency. Probably not able to choose where I do residency. If I could think of more I'd probably be a medicine attending at this point.
My mentors always told me that you kind of "find" the field and vice versa. Ultimately, my personality is of surgeon. I diagnose a medical condition that needs surgical intervention and I act on it. You LITERALLY cut cancers out of people. In no other field or profession are you entrusted with a scalpel and can CUT into someone. For the most part, you will not get the complex anatomy and physiology interactions that you would think about as a medical doctor (although there definitely are cases where that comes into play as an ENT) but that's not something I miss at all.
FWIW, if you aim for ENT and miss, you will always be able to match or find a spot in medicine (and that's not a knock on medicine, just based on the number of spots and programs). Not the same if you never try for ENT. Hope this helps.
- Joined
- May 20, 2015
- Messages
- 99
- Reaction score
- 12
How does the diagnostic process in ENT compare to that of IM?
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2011
- Messages
- 32
- Reaction score
- 2
Thanks Angwor for your reply. I'm in the same boat as the OP. I always thought I wanted to do surgery, especially orthopedic surgery. However, though orthopedics wasn't my thing but I also had a two week rotation on ENT. I loved it. It was a great variety of pathologies compared to other surgical fields and the surgeries were fascinating.
But then I did IM. I never thought I'd want to do medicine, but I loved it (inpatient that is, gen med clinic is boring as hell). The variety of diseases I saw everyday was different, and we were actually able to do a lot more than I thought. I especially loved the critically ill patients, which has me thinking about either hospitalist medicine or Pulm/CCM if I go into IM.
The bottom line though, is I'm still torn. I've done both, I liked both, and I go back and forth every week on what I would like to do. But I agree, I'd need research if I go into ENT so I hope I figure this out soon.
But then I did IM. I never thought I'd want to do medicine, but I loved it (inpatient that is, gen med clinic is boring as hell). The variety of diseases I saw everyday was different, and we were actually able to do a lot more than I thought. I especially loved the critically ill patients, which has me thinking about either hospitalist medicine or Pulm/CCM if I go into IM.
The bottom line though, is I'm still torn. I've done both, I liked both, and I go back and forth every week on what I would like to do. But I agree, I'd need research if I go into ENT so I hope I figure this out soon.
