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Hello,
As away rotation applications open soon for third years, I need advice from people with more experience than myself. I am torn on what I want to do, and I know from the title, you're probably thinking how in the world do these things all tie in together.
Quick background: I came into medical school wanting to do surgery or EM; I like fast paced, procedures, and I like working with my hands. But as third year has progressed, things have changed (as life does), and my interests are a little different.
Thing ruled out and why:
Surgery - I enjoyed surgery, I enjoyed procedural stuff more than the surgical stuff though, and I hated when routine surgeries turned into super tedious events that required GI or uro to come in to help. I hated running the floors to every possible surgery consult. AND I hated getting to the hospital at 4:30-5 AM just to leave around 6-7 PM. I felt like I was going to sleep and waking up just to work. And I could not imagine living my life in that manner not to enjoy every aspect of surgery
EM: Have not rotated, but the current job market quite honestly scares the crap out of me. I would enjoy the procedures and fast paced environment though
Things ruled in, why, and my concerns:
OBGYN: I am male, and never in a million years thought I would be interested in this specialty. However, I really enjoyed my rotation. I enjoyed the clinic, I enjoyed getting to be an expert on one thing, I enjoyed the office based procedures, I enjoyed getting to find the fetal heart rate and measure the fundus, I enjoyed the patient population, and unlike gen surgery, I enjoyed the surgeries. They were rather quick, really routine, had very few issues (consulted uro only once - look I know surgeries are always going to be at risk of something going wrong, it just felt like that happened more in gen surg than it did in OBGYN, and I also wasn't watching the clock waiting for surgeries to be over with in OBGYN like I had for gen surg), got to use Davinci. Also, some things that you couldn't do in office, you got to go in the OR for example like ablations, D&C, or Mirena retrievals. I got to deliver babies, and appreciate that aspect of care as well. Overall, I loved this experience. My concerns though is that my attending did not take call, he delivered very few babies (as his practice was mostly older population), and I did not work with residents. So I do not truly know what the lifestyle of OBGYN is. I hear it is brutal, and if it is as brutal as surgery, then yeah I would have caution towards this specialty. I also know that the MGMA average is 300K for general OBGYN in my area, but I've never talked salary with any obgyn attendings or residents to get a real idea. I do know that if the salary is around 300k, and the lifestyle is as bad as reddit or some people on SDN make it out to be, I would be hard pressed to want to pursue this field.
Family medicine: I enjoy family medicine for the lifestyle that it offers. I have done two rotations of FM, and both attendings that I worked with (that worked at two different private practices entirely) had clinic only 4 days a week from 8-4:30 with the 5th day being a half day. They also got to do small procedures like suturing, wart removal, skin tag removal, I&Ds - just enough to keep me interested. One admitted to making on average 295k a year, and they other admitted to 335k a year AND he had his loans paid for by the hospital system he had worked at before starting his practice. Obviously this lifestyle for this kind of pay interests me. I may not get to do as many, or as large, procedures, but I would still get to do some things, while being able to pursue a life outside of medicine. This is where I get conflicted with OBGYN though because the MGMA average for FM in my area is 245k. But my attendings (one of which is only 8 years out from residency and relatively young) obviously state that their salaries are much higher than MGMA. Therefore, I find it hard to believe that if FM in my area is doing around 300k for 24 patients a day, then how is MGMA average for OBGYN in my area only 300k? And if I can live life making 300k as a FM with a great work life balance, why pursue OBGYN at all?
Internal medicine: It is ruled in for much of the same reasons as FM. Except at the end of residency, if I wanted, I could go pursue a more procedural based fellowship, and if not, I could practice just like FM or do 7 on 7 off as a hospitalist and get to do some procedures.
Look, I am not in medicine for the money, but obviously when we are talking work life balance, it has to be considered which is why I brought it up in the context of lifestyle/hours worked vs compensation. Also, I guess I just need to know more about OBGYN lifestyle to better help formulate my opinions. If anybody could chime in on your experience with these fields, that would be great!
And I guess all of this gives me anxiety because I would hate to use an away rotation opportunity, for something that I later find out, that I hate because I didn’t have the information to make an informers decision. #stressed
As away rotation applications open soon for third years, I need advice from people with more experience than myself. I am torn on what I want to do, and I know from the title, you're probably thinking how in the world do these things all tie in together.
Quick background: I came into medical school wanting to do surgery or EM; I like fast paced, procedures, and I like working with my hands. But as third year has progressed, things have changed (as life does), and my interests are a little different.
Thing ruled out and why:
Surgery - I enjoyed surgery, I enjoyed procedural stuff more than the surgical stuff though, and I hated when routine surgeries turned into super tedious events that required GI or uro to come in to help. I hated running the floors to every possible surgery consult. AND I hated getting to the hospital at 4:30-5 AM just to leave around 6-7 PM. I felt like I was going to sleep and waking up just to work. And I could not imagine living my life in that manner not to enjoy every aspect of surgery
EM: Have not rotated, but the current job market quite honestly scares the crap out of me. I would enjoy the procedures and fast paced environment though
Things ruled in, why, and my concerns:
OBGYN: I am male, and never in a million years thought I would be interested in this specialty. However, I really enjoyed my rotation. I enjoyed the clinic, I enjoyed getting to be an expert on one thing, I enjoyed the office based procedures, I enjoyed getting to find the fetal heart rate and measure the fundus, I enjoyed the patient population, and unlike gen surgery, I enjoyed the surgeries. They were rather quick, really routine, had very few issues (consulted uro only once - look I know surgeries are always going to be at risk of something going wrong, it just felt like that happened more in gen surg than it did in OBGYN, and I also wasn't watching the clock waiting for surgeries to be over with in OBGYN like I had for gen surg), got to use Davinci. Also, some things that you couldn't do in office, you got to go in the OR for example like ablations, D&C, or Mirena retrievals. I got to deliver babies, and appreciate that aspect of care as well. Overall, I loved this experience. My concerns though is that my attending did not take call, he delivered very few babies (as his practice was mostly older population), and I did not work with residents. So I do not truly know what the lifestyle of OBGYN is. I hear it is brutal, and if it is as brutal as surgery, then yeah I would have caution towards this specialty. I also know that the MGMA average is 300K for general OBGYN in my area, but I've never talked salary with any obgyn attendings or residents to get a real idea. I do know that if the salary is around 300k, and the lifestyle is as bad as reddit or some people on SDN make it out to be, I would be hard pressed to want to pursue this field.
Family medicine: I enjoy family medicine for the lifestyle that it offers. I have done two rotations of FM, and both attendings that I worked with (that worked at two different private practices entirely) had clinic only 4 days a week from 8-4:30 with the 5th day being a half day. They also got to do small procedures like suturing, wart removal, skin tag removal, I&Ds - just enough to keep me interested. One admitted to making on average 295k a year, and they other admitted to 335k a year AND he had his loans paid for by the hospital system he had worked at before starting his practice. Obviously this lifestyle for this kind of pay interests me. I may not get to do as many, or as large, procedures, but I would still get to do some things, while being able to pursue a life outside of medicine. This is where I get conflicted with OBGYN though because the MGMA average for FM in my area is 245k. But my attendings (one of which is only 8 years out from residency and relatively young) obviously state that their salaries are much higher than MGMA. Therefore, I find it hard to believe that if FM in my area is doing around 300k for 24 patients a day, then how is MGMA average for OBGYN in my area only 300k? And if I can live life making 300k as a FM with a great work life balance, why pursue OBGYN at all?
Internal medicine: It is ruled in for much of the same reasons as FM. Except at the end of residency, if I wanted, I could go pursue a more procedural based fellowship, and if not, I could practice just like FM or do 7 on 7 off as a hospitalist and get to do some procedures.
Look, I am not in medicine for the money, but obviously when we are talking work life balance, it has to be considered which is why I brought it up in the context of lifestyle/hours worked vs compensation. Also, I guess I just need to know more about OBGYN lifestyle to better help formulate my opinions. If anybody could chime in on your experience with these fields, that would be great!
And I guess all of this gives me anxiety because I would hate to use an away rotation opportunity, for something that I later find out, that I hate because I didn’t have the information to make an informers decision. #stressed
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