Preventive Medicine Lifestyle

[hitsugaaya]

I am hoping this is the right place to post this. I am a PreMed, soon to be a medical student in the fall and I have an interest in Preventive medicine. I know they say people change their minds a bunch of times as to what residency to apply to, and that is very possible, but both things I envision myself doing in the future as a doctor are related to preventive medicine: breast cancer/ any kind of cancer awareness in developing nations (I am from one myself) and cardiovascular medicine/awareness.

So I just wanted to ask, how is a preventive medicine physician's lifestyle? I know it can be varied. I also know it is not a very high paid specialty, but I wanted to ask if practicing physicians felt satisfied, as well as how residents felt about it. As a final question, are there any physicians/residents that did the combined IM/PM or FM/PM residencies? What were your thoughts on it?

I intend on joining my preventive medicine society when I start medical school but was just curious and would love some responses as well as any other comments, I feel like PM does not get as much coverage on SDN as it should

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[voidlogin]

There is no specialty called Preventive Medicine. I actually had to look that up on AAMC because I wasn't sure. What you're probably thinking of is Internal med or Family Practice where someone builds their practice around prevention. Something like that will be very practice dependent: your location, amount of private/well paying patients, your reputation. (In a way majority of FP and even some cardio is preventive med: control BP, lipids, glucose.) As for lifestyle, well that depends on how much money you want to make. The less money you want/need the better your lifestyle will be. (I know a old physician near retirement who works part time 3d x 8hr/day and makes around 100k and he's happy with it.)

 

[hitsugaaya]

There is no specialty called Preventive Medicine. I actually had to look that up on AAMC because I wasn't sure. What you're probably thinking of is Internal med or Family Practice where someone builds their practice around prevention. Something like that will be very practice dependent: your location, amount of private/well paying patients, your reputation. (In a way majority of FP and even some cardio is preventive med: control BP, lipids, glucose.) As for lifestyle, well that depends on how much money you want to make. The less money you want/need the better your lifestyle will be. (I know a old physician near retirement who works part time 3d x 8hr/day and makes around 100k and he's happy with it.)

Hmm, I may be a premed, but I am pretty dang sure there is a residency program/ specialty, one of the 24 approved called preventive medicine that can be split into general, occupational and aerospace medicine. LIke I said, it is not as well known, but it definitely exists. You get an MPH during residency. THanks for the response though

 

[MrBurns10]

It sounds like a low-pay but good hours specialty. I would suggest looking into getting an MPH during med school then doing an IM residency...you'd still get the MPH but you'd be better trained clinically. Just something to consider.

 

[gutonc]

There is no specialty called Preventive Medicine. I actually had to look that up on AAMC because I wasn't sure. What you're probably thinking of is Internal med or Family Practice where someone builds their practice around prevention. Something like that will be very practice dependent: your location, amount of private/well paying patients, your reputation. (In a way majority of FP and even some cardio is preventive med: control BP, lipids, glucose.) As for lifestyle, well that depends on how much money you want to make. The less money you want/need the better your lifestyle will be. (I know a old physician near retirement who works part time 3d x 8hr/day and makes around 100k and he's happy with it.)

The 73 preventive medicine residency programs listed on FREIDA beg to differ with you.

 

[voidlogin]

ahh. I was wrong. I checked FREIDA and it has "Preventive Medicine (Gen Prev Med, Occ Med, Aer Med, & Pub Hlth)" as a specialty but AAMC didn't. The American college of preventive medicine has a website, which should answer your questions: http://acpm.org/

I'm also a little curious. It seems to be a 2 yr program. (ie in FREIDA Online, check Mount Sinai under General info) Isthis a fellowship or a 2 yr residency? I have never heard of 2 yr residency before.

 

[gutonc]

ahh. I was wrong. I checked FREIDA and it has "Preventive Medicine (Gen Prev Med, Occ Med, Aer Med, & Pub Hlth)" as a specialty but AAMC didn't. The American college of preventive medicine has a website, which should answer your questions: http://acpm.org/

I'm also a little curious. It seems to be a 2 yr program. (ie in FREIDA Online, check Mount Sinai under General info) Isthis a fellowship or a 2 yr residency? I have never heard of 2 yr residency before.

It's a 2 year residency after a prelim or TY year. 3 years total. You can also do it after completing a full IM/Peds/FM residency in which case it's basically a fellowship.

 

[hitsugaaya]

Thanks for the responses. I did check the ACPM website but did not find the answers to my questions. Oh well, it's not super pressing anyways, I'll just wait till I get to campus and find physicians to speak to or something.
And for the person who recommended doing a residency and then PM as a fellowship, there are a couple of combined programs that I think try to ensure you have a good clinical background, the ones I have seen are family medicine and internal medicine combined with PM.

 

[Lespedeza]

I chose to go into FM (starting intern year in a couple weeks) because of my interest in preventive medicine. You can really get involved at all ages -- well-baby checks to pap smears to pre-natal care (which could be considered "preventive") to managing risk factors in the older adult population. It's a mix of early screening/detection and risk factor reduction, which sounds like what you are interested in. In terms of the awareness aspect-- you can choose to educate and make your patients aware in any setting of healthcare. Outpatient settings with continuity are conducive to it though!

 

[smq123]

Moving to Allopathic.

 

[Lil Mick]

Yes, there are residencies for preventive medicine. They aren't through the match, and you need to do a preliminary year first (any primary care field). I'm planning to do one if I opt for doing a residency, so feel free to PM me to talk more about it. Check out the American College of Preventive Medicine to find programs and their requirements. It's a great site and a great resource for a career in preventive medicine (WHO, academia...).

As for the career satisfaction, there are usually two kinds of students who go into the residency: people who didn't get into any other residency, and people who want to split time between academia and public health (US or abroad). The latter are usually happy with their choices. You usually set your hours in academia, and it's regular hours for most doctors in the field (your 9-5 sort of thing), minus working on an outbreak for local or national authorities (such as bean sprouts or terrorist attack...).

 

[hitsugaaya]

I chose to go into FM (starting intern year in a couple weeks) because of my interest in preventive medicine. You can really get involved at all ages -- well-baby checks to pap smears to pre-natal care (which could be considered "preventive") to managing risk factors in the older adult population. It's a mix of early screening/detection and risk factor reduction, which sounds like what you are interested in. In terms of the awareness aspect-- you can choose to educate and make your patients aware in any setting of healthcare. Outpatient settings with continuity are conducive to it though!

Thanks fo the advice

Yes, there are residencies for preventive medicine. They aren't through the match, and you need to do a preliminary year first (any primary care field). I'm planning to do one if I opt for doing a residency, so feel free to PM me to talk more about it. Check out the American College of Preventive Medicine to find programs and their requirements. It's a great site and a great resource for a career in preventive medicine (WHO, academia...).

As for the career satisfaction, there are usually two kinds of students who go into the residency: people who didn't get into any other residency, and people who want to split time between academia and public health (US or abroad). The latter are usually happy with their choices. You usually set your hours in academia, and it's regular hours for most doctors in the field (your 9-5 sort of thing), minus working on an outbreak for local or national authorities (such as bean sprouts or terrorist attack...).

I PMed you

 

[FunnyCurrent]

The 73 preventive medicine residency programs listed on FREIDA beg to differ with you.

 

[PatNanym]

Thanks fo the advice



I PMed you

I see what you did there.