How should I choose a specialty?

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Ultra7

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Does anyone have any advice about how to choose between specialties? There are several that I am considering; I could see myself doing any of them and they all have their pluses and minuses. I really enjoyed most of my 3rd year rotations (except some parts of Ob/Gyn, let's be honest). Now I'm at the end of 3rd year, and nothing really jumps out saying "pick me! pick me!".
I know I want to avoid the surgical specialties, since I want to do basic science research and I sort of think that to be a good surgeon you have to do a lot of surgeries, not spend 4/5 days in lab. Otherwise, I am pretty open. Neuro, Psych, IM, Peds, Path...
How should I choose? Make a big list of pluses and minuses and devise a complex scoring system? Find a quiz on the internet that will choose for me? Which factors are most important? How did you all decide?
Thanks for your advice. :)

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Take the ones that you are most interested in and do an elective in them as early as you can. Once you experience it, you will have a much easier time making up your mind.

I don't know what your credentials are, but neurosurgeons are surgeons who are very much into research.

Also make sure you look at every specialty. At the end of third year you are only exposed to a very small number of specialties. If you have good credentials, go for something that is interesting to you, but will also give you good pay and good lifestyle. Unless you are crazy about primary care, stay away from it. My humble opinion.

Good luck.
 
Most people I asked (and I asked a lot) said it started out as an exercise in exclusion. After you weed out those you couldn't possibly see yourself doing then try to get some hands-on experience in the others. You seem to be halfway there since surgery is out - although I agree with the other poster about neurosurgery.

Try to do some rotations in medicine in 4th year then pick the one that most interests you AND that you can see yourself doing for a long time. I think the lifestyle factor should be a little more important than money because, seriously, no amount of money will ever make a terrible job worth it. But you have to decide what works for you.

If you do go ahead with the internet quiz just remember to take them with a grain of salt. I've done many of them and Ocuppational Health is a regular top 5 placement (usually number one) which is all well and good except I'd rather drop out of med school and go fold T-shirts at K-Mart than do Occupational Health. No offense to anyone.
 
Once you narrow it down to fields you could see yourself doing for the rest of your career, look at the most routine bread-and-butter case of each one. Narrow it down from there by only looking at the ones were you find bread-and-butter atleast somewhat enjoyable.
 
BlazerMed said:
Once you narrow it down to fields you could see yourself doing for the rest of your career, look at the most routine bread-and-butter case of each one. Narrow it down from there by only looking at the ones were you find bread-and-butter atleast somewhat enjoyable.

That's a very important thing.. Don't picture yourself doing extraordinary cases, that would probably appear once during ur practice..
Think of the everyday procedures, and whether doing them repeatedly would bore you to death or not :luck:


Here's a test that won't tell you what to specialize in, but will show you what most of the people with your traits and personality chose for thei speciality:

http://www.med-ed.virginia.edu/specialties/Home.cfm

Good luck ;)
 
KB_Xiii said:
That's a very important thing.. Don't picture yourself doing extraordinary cases, that would probably appear once during ur practice..
Think of the everyday procedures, and whether doing them repeatedly would bore you to death or not :luck:


Here's a test that won't tell you what to specialize in, but will show you what most of the people with your traits and personality chose for thei speciality:

http://www.med-ed.virginia.edu/specialties/Home.cfm

Good luck ;)

The below link may or may not be helpful.

http://residency.wustl.edu/medadmin...62353a93c5c35cb186256f850071bd86?OpenDocument


Wook
 
I always though that Internal medicine was a laid back speciality....I guess I was wrong. I really would like to know which specialities would just have work hours from 40-48 hrs a week. Med school has already drained me.
 
According to the list above? Pathology, Psych, and Derm. ;) Even Peds averaged almost 50 hours a week.
 
When I was trying to decide, I used the Glaxo Pathway Evaluation Program. The program asks you about your preferences regarding certain aspects of your ideal specialty, then asks you to weigh these aspects in terms of their importance to you. Afterwards, the program produces a ranked list of specialties based on how closely your answers matched what physicians in those specialities answered. You can read profiles of each of the specialies for more in-depth information.

I got the program on a CD from my school, but it looks like SUNY Buffalo has put it up on their website:

http://www.smbs.buffalo.edu/RESIDENT/CareerCounseling/interior.htm? self-assessment.htm

It was VERY accurate for me!

Good luck! :luck:
 
The AAMC has a nice tool for this, called careers in medicine:

www.aamc.org/students/cim

There are tons of tests, information, and tips. Found it incredibly helpful.

To login, usually you need a code from your school (takes like 5 mins to get)


Ultra7 said:
Does anyone have any advice about how to choose between specialties? There are several that I am considering; I could see myself doing any of them and they all have their pluses and minuses. I really enjoyed most of my 3rd year rotations (except some parts of Ob/Gyn, let's be honest). Now I'm at the end of 3rd year, and nothing really jumps out saying "pick me! pick me!".
I know I want to avoid the surgical specialties, since I want to do basic science research and I sort of think that to be a good surgeon you have to do a lot of surgeries, not spend 4/5 days in lab. Otherwise, I am pretty open. Neuro, Psych, IM, Peds, Path...
How should I choose? Make a big list of pluses and minuses and devise a complex scoring system? Find a quiz on the internet that will choose for me? Which factors are most important? How did you all decide?
Thanks for your advice. :)
 
Excellent links here! Thanks people!
 
Thanks for the suggestions...
Neurosurgery seems really cool, but unfortunately I have to admit I am just not dedicated enough to medicine to do a super-tough 6 year residency.
Family practice definitely is out, too, you are right; again, just does not strike me as being especially compatible with basic science research.
Please keep the suggestions coming! Thanks for your help.
 
Path is a great residency for someone interested in bench research, Rads could be too depending on what interests you. Path is probably the most "scientific" if you're into wet-lab stuff. Plus it's decent money, lifestyle etc etc.
 
I think internal medicine might be a good choice for you. You can hope to get into a top-notch residency with a focus on research and fellowship. You can even do shortened residency tracks that sort of funnel you into a research-oriented fellowship after 2 years (instead of the usual 3). Certainly there are many downsides to typical general internal medicine practice, but for someone interested in research, you're looking for a fellowship, and the fellowships out of IM are extremely diverse, so you don't exactly need to decide right now.
 
I just did the pathway eval, I think my top 10 and bottom 10 are interesting.

Top
Dermatology
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Radiation Oncology
Ophthalmology
Allergy and Immunology
Rheumatology
Family Practice
Psychiatry
Neurology
Otolaryngology

...middle stuff deleted...

Preventive Medicine
Neonatal - Perinatal Medicine
Vascular Surgery
Thoracic Surgery
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Vascular and Interventional Radiology
Anesthesiology
Emergency Medicine
Pathology
Radiology - Diagnostic
Bottom
 
funny, my #1 was derm, and my #2 was diag. rads.

I am so much like you, and so much unlike you LOL
 
This was posted in the path forum

b18139348.jpeg
 
TOP 10:
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Rheumatology
Psychiatry
Allergy and Immunology
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Medical Genetics
Geriatric Medicine
Radiation Oncology
Dermatology
Family Practice

etc...

General Surgery
Neurological Suregery
Vascular Surgery
Thoracic Surgery
Emergency Medicine
Radiology - Diagnostic
Anesthesiology
Pediatric Surgery
Pathology
Obstetrics and Gynecology <---Dead last

I was actually kind of bummed that Path ended up so far down on the list; I did like that rotation quite a bit and as Koil suggested, it's a really great fit for someone that is going into research. The major downside of Path from my perspective (and why it ended up so low, I would guess) is the lack of *direct* patient contact, as I do enjoy talking to patients.
Which is I suppose a pretty big downside, right?
 
Ultra7 said:
The major downside of Path from my perspective (and why it ended up so low, I would guess) is the lack of *direct* patient contact, as I do enjoy talking to patients.
Which is I suppose a pretty big downside, right?

You can talk to them, they just won't talk back.
 
Ultra7 said:
The major downside of Path from my perspective (and why it ended up so low, I would guess) is the lack of *direct* patient contact, as I do enjoy talking to patients.
Which is I suppose a pretty big downside, right?

Not really. You do a lot of communicating with other doctors and staff. In some areas of pathology you can have patient contact (for cytology or maybe doing bone marrow biopsies). But you will find out pretty early if you need patient contact. A lot of people say they do, but when they start to experience it, and find out that a lot of it is just routine, paperwork, and being on the phone. You don't have lots of time as a medical doctor to actually learn about your patients personally. You have to get the job done. I rather like the distance I have from patients. I can still learn their histories and their diseases, but I can do it from the perspective of actually seeing the disease in front of me, and it is more intellectual, IMHO.

You have to do what you find out you like doing. Don't go so much with preconceived notions of what specialties are like - keep an open mind. Pathology is not for everyone, but the anti-social among us are not better suited for pathology than they are for other branches of medicine.

Like I said, it's not like you don't use your personality in path. Sometimes you are even more free to use it. To be honest, we aren't doing medicine to make friends with our patients. That's what outside of work is for.
 
When I was trying to decide, I used the Glaxo Pathway Evaluation Program.

The specialty description pdf's have some real good data.

Most importantly, it shows responses to the questions: would you choose this specialty again, and also respondents satisfaction.

For all specialties, the majority are very or somewhat satisfied, there are only a few not for each specialty. Curiously, these forums and mommd etc. give the impression that PCP are all having a horrible time. Much fewer IMs say they would choose the specialty again (60 vs 75-90), but family practice is 80% yes,
 
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