Specialty of Interest???

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masaraksh said:
Heard from my research supervisor about a recent cardiac sarcoma case. Something about removing multiple tumor nodules from within a ventricle. :wow:


Those videos above looked really cool. Not sure if I'd be able to pull of surgery though. Seems scary
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Keep an open mind. You never know! I never thought I'd be interested in surgery. And of course that changed after I actually explored it.
 
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Psychiatry or neurology. I would love to go into one of those.
 
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Optimus-Prime said:
Trauma!

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I remember my first cracked chest. I'd been a nurse for about 8 months. Blood all on the floor, the sounds of the ribs cracking... it was at that moment, I knew I had found my match. Then, I heard someone vomit behind me. I wouldn't mind doing plastics. I also work at a surgery hospital in their ER, mostly ortho cases, but we do have plastics here who do reconstructive surgery. I think that's pretty cool.
 
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Wasted Energy said:
I'm really not sure why it's not mentioned more often in "specialty interest" threads like this one. To me it has it all: the hours and pay are relatively good, it's incredibly interesting, nice balance of procedures/treatment plans, not particularly competitive to get into, very diverse, and even has awesome subspecialties like Sports and Pain.
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PM&R is one of the hidden gems of medicine if you find yourself interested in it. Most people (myself included) know next to nothing about it, though, because you typically don't get any exposure to it during medical school. As a result, typically only the people that specifically seek out exposure to it end up getting it.
 
How difficult is it - as a med student - to move around between specialties of interest? When is it too late to switch, get the requisite research, and still be competitive? Right now I really like ortho, but could absolutely see myself getting interested in other surgical specialties after learning more (Maybe outside of surgery entirely, again I get that it's early in the process).
 
rfenzo said:
How difficult is it - as a med student - to move around between specialties of interest? When is it too late to switch, get the requisite research, and still be competitive? Right now I really like ortho, but could absolutely see myself getting interested in other surgical specialties after learning more (Maybe outside of surgery entirely, again I get that it's early in the process).
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Not hard at all depending upon the field. Obviously the more competitive the field, the more difficult the switch; things like derm and the surgical subspecialties de facto require a certain degree of "grooming" in order to be truly competitive. It can be difficult though certainly not impossible to manufacture those kinds of things if you decide on a specialty late.

If your school is supportive of its students - and I can't imagine why it wouldn't be - then they will do everything possible to help you be successful in the application process. The key is to get involved with the department and make some allies early - people that have a reputation for helping students. Even going into the end of MS3 it's still possible to get in some clinical and research experiences to boost your app prior to applying for residency. As an example, I have no psych research but will be starting on a project pretty soon that will likely be far enough along to list on ERAS and discuss in interviews. This is true of pretty much any specialty provided you can find an appropriate project.

It's very common for people to not have much of an idea of what they're going into even as they approach the end of MS3. Those people are still successful as long as they get their butts in gear once they do make a final decision on where to apply. This isn't something I would be overly concerned about until you get into MS3 - the main exception being if you're seriously considering something like derm, optho, uro, ENT, etc.. You will have enough time to make yourself into a competitive applicant. Just do your best at trying to figure out what you want from your career and what aspects of medicine you find interesting/rewarding. Once you identify a field that fits those interests, then you can start worrying about strengthening your app. Of course, the earlier you pick a specialty the more time you have to get experiences and CV fodder that will be helpful to you come application time which is obviously advantageous, but really, don't put pressure on yourself to make a decision before you're ready out of fear for being non-competitive. This isn't much of a concern based on what I've seen.
 
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Anesthesiology. Decent lifestyle, reasonable training time, good salary, not outrageously competitive.

Surgery interests me, but I feel surgeons need to make significantly higher sacrifices in their personal lives than pretty much any other type of physician. I don't want my wife to cheat on me and my daughters to grow up into skanks because I'm never at home.
 
NickNaylor said:
PM&R is one of the hidden gems of medicine if you find yourself interested in it. Most people (myself included) know next to nothing about it, though, because you typically don't get any exposure to it during
medical school. As a result, typically only the people that specifically seek out exposure to it end up getting it.
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Given the prevalence of chronic pain do you think med schools should give students more exposure to this field? I'm pretty sure back pain is one of the most common medical complaints.
 
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Cyberdyne 101 said:
Given the prevalence of chronic pain do you think med schools should give students more exposure to this field? I'm pretty sure back pain is one of the most common medical complaints.
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I have no idea, though I'm not sure that would necessarily be the best idea to address a problem of education.

The difficulty is that medical school is designed to expose you to a little bit of everything in the major fields, and it's already pretty difficult to do that within the timespan of a year. Exploring things like this is largely what MS4 is for and doing electives, but, of course, the problem with that is that you may not actually have time to check a field out during MS4 before you have to start working on ERAS.

I don't think there's an easy solution. You just have to be proactive and have the initiative to explore fields you might be interested on your own. Apart from doing well in your courses, that really is probably the next best thing you can do during the pre-clinical years, but especially during MS1 when you will likely have plenty of time and not be too stressed about step 1 studying.

Also, while back pain is a relatively common complaint, initial management is pretty straightforward and certainly capable of being managed in the PCP setting. Problems occur, however, if clinicians aren't vigilant about following-up on treatment failure or failing to recognize progression, resulting in a delay in referral to specialists that might be able to do more intense intervention. In the absence of really concerning symptoms, nearly every back pain treatment algorithm starts with NSAIDs + warm/cold compresses + stretching. That doesn't really require specific training or management by a specialist to implement.
 
NickNaylor said:
I have no idea, though I'm not sure that would necessarily be the best idea to address a problem of education.

The difficulty is that medical school is designed to expose you to a little bit of everything in the major fields, and it's already pretty difficult to do that within the timespan of a year. Exploring things like this is largely what MS4 is for and doing electives, but, of course, the problem with that is that you may not actually have time to check a field out during MS4 before you have to start working on ERAS.

I don't think there's an easy solution. You just have to be proactive and have the initiative to explore fields you might be interested on your own. Apart from doing well in your courses, that really is probably the next best thing you can do during the pre-clinical years, but especially during MS1 when you will likely have plenty of time and not be too stressed about step 1 studying.

Also, while back pain is a relatively common complaint, initial management is pretty straightforward and certainly capable of being managed in the PCP setting. Problems occur, however, if clinicians aren't vigilant about following-up on treatment failure or failing to recognize progression, resulting in a delay in referral to specialists that might be able to do more intense intervention. In the absence of really concerning symptoms, nearly every back pain treatment algorithm starts with NSAIDs + warm/cold compresses + stretching. That doesn't really require specific training or management by a specialist to implement.
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I developed back pain as an adolescent and the solutions proposed by my PCP's (an internist and pediatrician) actually exacerbated imbalances. Much later (after seeing a physiatrist) the internist actually admitted that he wasn't equipped to properly diagnose my condition (he should have sent me to the pm&r doc right away).
But that's just my story, although I have met others with similar experiences.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback!
 
Cyberdyne 101 said:
I developed back pain as an adolescent and the solutions proposed by my PCP's (an internist and pediatrician) actually exacerbated imbalances. Much later (after seeing a physiatrist) the internist actually admitted that he wasn't equipped to properly diagnose my condition (he should have sent me to the pm&r doc right away).
But that's just my story, although I have met others with similar experiences.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback!
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I also had back pain and my PCP just kept pushing pain killers. I went and asked my PT cousin who told me how to fix it within 5 mins. Some people...
 
Fabio Lanzoni said:
I also had back pain and my PCP just kept pushing pain killers. I went and asked my PT cousin who told me how to fix it within 5 mins. Some people...
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After much agony, I learned that the solution to my problem was relatively straightforward, but it was very specific. At least from my experience, it boiled down to a PCP giving a diagnosis without an adequate MSK examination (the differences between the PCP and the physiatrist examinations were quite staggering).
I looked online, and there are older studies that have confirmed the inadequacies of MSK training. This thread (although really old) provides some data.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/pm-r-vs-ortho-vs-neuro-more.48734/
I sincerely hope that this is changing for the better.
 
NickNaylor said:
Not hard at all depending upon the field. Obviously the more competitive the field, the more difficult the switch; things like derm and the surgical subspecialties de facto require a certain degree of "grooming" in order to be truly competitive. It can be difficult though certainly not impossible to manufacture those kinds of things if you decide on a specialty late.

If your school is supportive of its students - and I can't imagine why it wouldn't be - then they will do everything possible to help you be successful in the application process. The key is to get involved with the department and make some allies early - people that have a reputation for helping students. Even going into the end of MS3 it's still possible to get in some clinical and research experiences to boost your app prior to applying for residency. As an example, I have no psych research but will be starting on a project pretty soon that will likely be far enough along to list on ERAS and discuss in interviews. This is true of pretty much any specialty provided you can find an appropriate project.

It's very common for people to not have much of an idea of what they're going into even as they approach the end of MS3. Those people are still successful as long as they get their butts in gear once they do make a final decision on where to apply. This isn't something I would be overly concerned about until you get into MS3 - the main exception being if you're seriously considering something like derm, optho, uro, ENT, etc.. You will have enough time to make yourself into a competitive applicant. Just do your best at trying to figure out what you want from your career and what aspects of medicine you find interesting/rewarding. Once you identify a field that fits those interests, then you can start worrying about strengthening your app. Of course, the earlier you pick a specialty the more time you have to get experiences and CV fodder that will be helpful to you come application time which is obviously advantageous, but really, don't put pressure on yourself to make a decision before you're ready out of fear for being non-competitive. This isn't much of a concern based on what I've seen.
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Is there some wiggle room for doing specific electives that pertain to your interests

ie PMR, trauma icu, ortho joints, and so on
 
Optimus-Prime said:
Is there some wiggle room for doing specific electives that pertain to your interests

ie PMR, trauma icu, ortho joints, and so on
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It will depend on your school, of course, but as a general rule you'll likely have free reign more or less during MS4. As I said, though, the whole problem with this is that that's typically too late if you're thinking about applying into a field you're doing an elective in. Thus the need to shadow and explore fields during the pre-clinical years.
 
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It has really changed in the last 4-5 months but I'm really liking ophthalmology with a fellowship (retina, refractive, ...)
 
Cyberdyne 101 said:
I hope your mom is doing ok. A friend of mine recently had surgery for an AVM and they also found an unruptured aneurysm in the vicinity (so they had to take care of that as well). Luckily, her surgery was a success.

I initially wasn't interested in surgery until an orthopedic surgeon invited me to shadow him. He completed 6-7 procedures before 3 pm. It was amazing.
Obviously, this is vastly different from clipping an aneurysm, which can take all day (or all night). I actually tell myself to avoid shadowing a neurosurgeon because I'm afraid that I'll get suckered in-lol.
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My mom is doing pretty good in that department, but she has a whole lot of other problems. She has had spine surgeries a few times in the past and it seems she is going downhill again. Physically not being able to get out of a sitting position, and she isn't obese, and only 45.

Anyways the brain is such a fascinating thing I think anyone would be suckered in, at least in a fantastical perception of the field lol
 
Optimus-Prime said:
Might wanna wait if you got a sensitive belly, choppin a beating hear kinda stuff
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I got so sucked into this video. I was actually getting ready for bed and propped it on a pillow and watched lol. It was longer than I expected but I was totally wide eyed, mouth open haha. Loved it thanks

I'm starting to think I'm less sensitive to the blood and stuff then I thought. You're sucking me in this surgery stuff!
 
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WhittyPsyche said:
My mom is doing pretty good in that department, but she has a whole lot of other problems. She has had spine surgeries a few times in the past and it seems she is going downhill again. Physically not being able to get out of a sitting position, and she isn't obese, and only 45.

Anyways the brain is such a fascinating thing I think anyone would be suckered in, at least in a fantastical perception of the field lol
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Again, I hope your mom's overall health improves for the better.

Although brain surgeries look really cool, I actually find the spine procedures that neurosurgeons perform to be very intriguing. And unlike ortho surgeons, they can actually operate within the dura (ie for intramedullary tumors). Although, maybe some ortho surgeons do those procedures as well (who knows). I feel that you should be able to differentiate between an "OMG, this is cool" vs doing "the cool thing" for the rest of your life. I'm not sure if the "cool factor" of spine surgery is enough for me to do it long-term lol.
 
I have been pretty set on anesthesia since HS. It remains my primary interest, but recently I have also become interested in:

Orthopedics
Cardiology
OMFS
And of course Derm!
 
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I always liked interventional cardiology too, def my alternate should surgery not work out
 
Spinach Dip said:
I have been pretty set on anesthesia since HS. It remains my primary interest, but recently I have also become interested in:

Orthopedics
Cardiology
OMFS
And of course Derm!
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Interesting list. What do these have in common that interests you (Other than, you know, $)?
 
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rfenzo said:
Interesting list. What do these have in common that interests you (Other than, you know, $)?
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Anesthesia has always interested me.
Ortho and OMFS are surgical-oriented specialties that have definite endpoints.
I have personal experience in Cardio.
And Derm is obvious....
 
I'm a big fan of medical genetics, plus its a growing field with alot of potential
 
UlahSnackbar said:
I'm a big fan of medical genetics, plus its a growing field with alot of potential
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ALOT.png

...couldn't resist.
 
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