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.... hypothetically speaking?
um, so what if you hate EVERY rotation?
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path
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Consulting.
I all seriousness though: you've only done the core rotations - there are plenty of other specialties and subspecialties that you just arent exposed to unless you specifically rotate through them: Ophthalmology, radiology, Cardio, GI, Urology, Neurosurgery etc. Surely there is something in medicine that you find interesting? If there truly is nothing you can see yourself doing as a career, graduate and go work for Pfizer or something.
I all seriousness though: you've only done the core rotations - there are plenty of other specialties and subspecialties that you just arent exposed to unless you specifically rotate through them: Ophthalmology, radiology, Cardio, GI, Urology, Neurosurgery etc. Surely there is something in medicine that you find interesting? If there truly is nothing you can see yourself doing as a career, graduate and go work for Pfizer or something.
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You need to think about what you hated about every rotation. There is a specialty for everyone. Figure out what you like about medicine, what you hate, and go from there.
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What is it that attracted you to med school in the first place?
What is that you hate? If you hate patient contact, then maybe something like path is right for you. If you hate the long hours maybe you should focus on getting into a specialty that allows part time work.
Or perhaps you can find a niche in administration or teaching?
What is that you hate? If you hate patient contact, then maybe something like path is right for you. If you hate the long hours maybe you should focus on getting into a specialty that allows part time work.
Or perhaps you can find a niche in administration or teaching?
I wouldn't start naming subspecialities like cards or GI if a person doesn't like IM since that is the basis for those fields... Sure in rads you don't have to love the day in day out of each field but you need to at least enjoy or at least tolerate the information and obviously the radiology of pretty much everything. Neurosurg? If a person doesn't even like gen surg I doubt he/she will like neurosurg even though the procedures are very different...
Optho isn't a bad choice. Mostly clinic and some quick surgeries. Uro is surgical. Rad onc and PM&R are other 2 good options to explore.
If OP you don't think you like any one field I would pick something that is the most tolerable after trying rotations like rads and path. Think of the pros and cons of each (including lifestyle and money) and go from there. I'd also pick something where the training isn't very long. And imo clinic work is easier than hospital work.
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Sounds like anesthesia, radiology, pm & r could be options...
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how bout administrative work?
I second these as good options for the OP. PMR is a great straightforward field. Also possibly derm or maybe even psych but you have to deal with plenty of moody/difficult personalities in psych and I'm guessing you didn't like it since that's required rotation.
If you're ok with some procedures and you like anesthesia that'd be a good choice I think. Definitely no rounding or presenting patients.
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Not being a fan of the human population (I'm sure it's an overstatement) isn't going to bode well for PM&R.
I think anesthesia would be the best bet.
I think anesthesia would be the best bet.
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Can you take a research year or some other gap year?
My friend at Jeff is taking one between 3rd & 4th year because she's so indecisive. I guess if you can't find a lab that you would like this wouldn't be an option, but it seems better than throwing yourself headlong into a career you hate.
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It's the culture of residency and wards though that is the worst part of all of this. If it wasn't for these ridiculous rituals of pre-rounding, rounding, grand rounding, walk rounding, presentations, and unnecessary flurry of activity with a pack of people all the time that switch around every few weeks, it wouldn't be so bad. It's such a group oriented job and it's annoying when sometimes you just want to get **** done and yet you have to be able to work and socialize so closely with people you don't necessarily click with. And it's fine if you got to know these people for a few months at least, but there is so much rotating going on, we have new faces on the service every week. It's just an uncomfortable training process. Do rads and anesthesia have similar residencies? Strangely enough I liked the surgeon types; they say it like it is w/o BS-ing and you don't have to small talk. (Hate procedures and the actual job though.)
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I'm starting the anesthesia portion of my anesthesia residency, I'll tell you what I can about the specifics, but your best bet would be to do a rotation and see if it clicks for you.
(speaking in broad strokes here, understand that some programs have minor detail differences)
-The first year of an Anesthesia Residency is a clinical base year, this can be an intern year affiliated with your program or at an outside institution. You'll rotate through different services, including the ICU and possibly your hospital's pain service. You typically only get to do a maximum of one month of anesthesia during your PGY-1 year, if your program has you do more, they spread the medicine/surgery stuff out later meaning your an intern longer.
-Once you get to the OR, you'll have several responsibilities. Typically you will see a patient prior to surgery, identify this patient's risk factors relating to their anesthetic management and discuss this case and your anesthetic plan with your attending. You will then carry out the anesthetic plan (nerve blocks, lines, intra-op anesthetic management) and care for the patient until you transition their care to the PACU team. Hospitalized patients will typically get a quick follow-up visit to identify any anesthetic complications a few days post-op.
-Things to consider during the training phase: You will be working with a number of different attendings, all of whom have opinions on the right way to get the same thing done. During the initial phase of your training, you will need to keep track of how Dr. X wants you to intubate vs how Dr. Y does. However, once you're senior and proficient, most attendings will let you do things your own way. Also, you will have non-OR based anesthesia rotations. As mentioned above, Anesthesia residency requires time on the Pain Service, in the ICU, performing OB anesthesia.
-While anesthesia may not be as procedural as surgical specialties, there are a number of procedures you will be expected to become competent in, including: intubation, IVs, line placement, epidural/spinal placement, TEE.
That said, don't pick a specialty based on what the residency is going to be like. You'll spend 3-7 years as a resident and several decades as an attending. You want to pick the type of medicine that you'll most enjoy practicing, not training in.
So keep in mind, you'd have a lot more sway over how you ran your inpatient medicine service (if that's something you actually wanted to do) for the vast majority of your career.
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Honestly the passive aggressiveness is the worst part. When I click with members of my team the day goes by fast. When I don't, I start thinking of murdering everyone and making a run for it.
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That can be awful. Unfortunately, it's something that's not exclusive to any particular field of medicine, or even medicine in general. There are just passive aggressive people out there that you'll run into and be forced to interact with. It's best to just recognize it for what it is, find a way to work with those people professionally and move on.
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Most of what you've listed are either a function of or made significantly worse by still being in training. It's understandably difficult to divorce your experiences in these rotations from what it is like after training, especially with respect to private practice where bad attitudes aren't tolerated nearly as much. You might be well served to try to speak to PP attendings in a handful of specialties that you might not hate. I wouldn't want you to discount a specialty that you might otherwise enjoy just because some crappy resident or nurse made you miserable or because you had to get up ridiculously early on that rotation.
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you're right. i can't do it for some godforsaken reason. i have no idea what keeps me going.
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Wow...you're in need in of a serious change of perspective. Hating to present patients? Really!?!
Surely you really just mean you hate being in front of everyone and having to answer questions you may not know the answer to...right? Because, "presenting" patients is kind of a universal, vital component of being a practicing physician...you're never going to be practicing in a bubble, so you have to talk to consultants or other docs who are going to take over the care of a patient. Your attendings present patients to each other all the time, it's not anything you're ever going to escape. Even in anesthesia which doesn't have rounds, you bring a patient back to the ICU because they can't be extubated, you're presenting the case to the intensivist. Most of the rest of your list will get better when you're no longer a student. Except for the early hours (that'd be a strike against anesthesia)...and the smells (that's every where, although it could be argued that the worst smell in peds is not as bad as the worst smell in adults).
The passive aggressiveness can be managed by 1) staying away from female dominated fields and 2) doing your best to figure out the culture of a residency program (finding a resident who will answer your questions truthfully, going some place where you or a trusted advisor know someone already, doing a second look)
Lastly, and I say this to many students, focus on what the actual medicine is - the types of patients (age/gender/healthy vs not healthy) you'll see, the types of diseases you find interesting, whether you want to do procedures or not, and any other things that aren't going to change whether you're in Chicago or rural West Virginia. Everything else like the attitudes of your co-workers, the hours, your salary and the bureaucracy are just windowdressings. Yes they can and will make a difference in your happiness, but if necessary, you can move. It's much more difficult to change your specialty if you hate what you're doing.
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El oh el.
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haha well, obgyn was actually a good one; that was female oriented
Private practice pathology. Seriously.
I just did a fellowship for a year in path (google post-sophomore fellowship in pathology), and, for the most part, the things that you don't like about medicine don't happen in pathology. While in residency, you'll have a slurry of conferences, but that's because path is involved in almost every field of medicine. Usually other specialties don't care about what path is presenting because it's such an esoteric field as far as the diagnostic description goes, so they just listen while you explain what infiltrating ductal carcinoma of the breast looks like for the 1000th time, but they still don't get it. Anyway, once you're out of residency, you'll generally push glass all day if you're a general pathologist, and get out by 3, 4, 5, or 6 PM (depending on what type of practice you go to - large vs small volume).
Give it serious consideration if you don't know what to do next. Many pathologists have the story that during medical school they thought many fields were interesting, but had no desire to do any of them.
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Omg, you are my twin. haha
Yeah, I couldn't stand rounding. And I also agree it's the culture of the specialty that I didn't like... more so than say, the actual job of taking care of patients. To succeed in IM, you have to present a certain way, and it's so much about how much someone likes the way you present. And there's so much free time on IM, there's a lot of time to "socialize"... which can be good or bad depending on how well you click with the people there. Plus there's a lot of "free time" for social politicking, as compared to surgery. People are SO inefficient in IM... taking care of same # of patients as the surgical specialties, but literally taking 3x as long.
I too found it easier to get along with the surgeon types. It felt like a great camaraderie in the OR when everyone was working hard toward the same goal. People cared whether you are hard-working and whether you got **** done. No BS.
In IM it's entirely possible to skate by with great evals without being hardworking or actually taking great care of patients. It's all about how well you open your mouth and show off in front of your superiors. I've seen plenty of folks who act one way in front of patients in front of the attending, and totally forget about the patients the entire rest of the day.
I think anesthesia and rads both sound like good choices. Both also seem more "skills" based than the IM specialties. So in that sense, I think it's preferable to be evaluated based on stuff you actually do, rather than how well you talk for hours while accomplishing nothing on endless rounds. Both also seem to have less of a pack mentality. Especially anesthesia. I mean, there IS teamwork, but it's in that OR setting, where everyone does a different job. It's actually efficient and fun. Unlike IM, where you have like 3 cooks in the same kitchen, and I found it so annoying when people would sit there arguing over how to treat constipation.
That "talky" culture is hard to avoid in most of IM, I think. I'm actually interested in an off-shoot of IM, and seriously scared about the IM part of residency right now.
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Yup...you ladies seem like a great fit for rads!
Wow...you're in need in of a serious change of perspective. Hating to present patients? Really!?!
Most of the rest of your list will get better when you're no longer a student. Except for the early hours (that'd be a strike against anesthesia)...and the smells (that's every where, although it could be argued that the worst smell in peds is not as bad as the worst smell in adults).
The passive aggressiveness can be managed by 1) staying away from female dominated fields and 2) doing your best to figure out the culture of a residency program (finding a resident who will answer your questions truthfully, going some place where you or a trusted advisor know someone already, doing a second look)
Lastly, and I say this to many students, focus on what the actual medicine is - the types of patients (age/gender/healthy vs not healthy) you'll see, the types of diseases you find interesting, whether you want to do procedures or not, and any other things that aren't going to change whether you're in Chicago or rural West Virginia. Everything else like the attitudes of your co-workers, the hours, your salary and the bureaucracy are just windowdressings. Yes they can and will make a difference in your happiness, but if necessary, you can move. It's much more difficult to change your specialty if you hate what you're doing.
Staying away from female dominated fields? #Offensive.
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I'd say rads for OP.
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This... thread... is... three... years... old...
OP has already chosen by now.
OP has already chosen by now.
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Looks like she picked Psych. Good choice.
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Probably the most person oriented field, that's some irony.
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I've got to say that Radiology sounds soft! nice comfy chairs, big screens, my hospital gives the option to work in Australia, working daytime there with nighttime on call duties for on-call payment! (Im from europe btw)
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One of the most common things I'm told in an interview by someone when I ask them why they chose EM is they just didn't like any other rotations. EM in general attracts people who hate having a pager/phone, hate call, hate rounding, and have no attention span. Even if you hate medicine in general (i hope not, way too early to be burned out), it's shift work, you do your time and you go home and you're off. You work 14 shifts or so as an attending doc. Not a bad gig, and a popular one amongst those of us who just couldn't fit in anywhere else!
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Thread-bumping like a total champ but this is 100% why I want to do EM.
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Well it actually is pretty cool medicine too. But yea, everything else sucks.
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EM is cool medicine.... lol
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procedures, no rounding, no bull**** notes, no following patients, unpredictable, no call, no bull**** notes and no rounding = cool medicine. Worked as a scribe in the ER before med school. Thought it was pretty cool. Have the grades and step to do anything but unfortunately everything I've done is a total drag.
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As a med student and even now as an intern, I still love EM and was strongly considering it at one point. Howevever, the more I think about, I'm glad I didn't choose that career path. Sure, EM has many perks mentioned above but there are some bad days when **** hits the fan. For this reason and many others, EM is not for everyone.
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