which specialty?

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daemsiati

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hey so im about to start MS2 and i figured this summer was as good as any to start figuring out which specialty i like.. as of now, i dont really have any idea, but i had two questions..

1) i heard the best way to figure out what field of medicine you really enjoy is to make a list of all the specialties available and just start crossing off the ones you know you dont want to do, or the ones that dont interest you. is there anywhere i can find a comprehensive list like this?

2) how many days do you really need to shadow a physician before you kinda get a feel to how a given field of medicine is like in practice? i was gonna shadow a cardiologist for a week this summer, but my roommate was saying i should go for longer.


any info would be helpful

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Suggesting that you have any true sense of what you do or don't want to do as a 2nd year is kind of ridiculous. How do you know if you don't want to do something unless you've experienced it? I thought I would hate psychiatry and OB as a 2nd year, but actually ended up liking both. You'll figure out what you want to go into as you go through your 3rd yr rotations and maybe some of your early 4th year rotations. There's also no set number of days or hours you need to figure out if you like a field of medicine or not. If you have more than a week to shadow the cardiologist and you like him/her, then do it. Just try to get as much exposure to as much as you can. You have lots of time being only a 2nd year student. It'll come to you in time.
 
Shadowing just one physician in a specific specialty can be faulty. Sometimes the physician can turn you off to a specialty because of their attitude when you could have really enjoyed the field in general. (i.e. think of a subject that you thought was going to be interesting, but you had a really horrible professor who turned you off).

As you get the chance to experience things, you will find what you like and don't like. As an M3, you will get a better feel, so don't rush it.

One thing that may help you is to think of lifestyle. I know I don't want to have an office and see patients in an office all week. It very quickly narrowed down my list of possibilities. I know that I like to do shift work and don't mind working long hours. I also know that I don't want to take call.
 
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Freida has a pretty long list of residencies and fellowships that can get you a start. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/2997.html

I definitely did the crossing off thing and it actually worked really well. I was surprised how often there'd be a subject I didn't like the basic science of (OB/GYN) and then find out I didn't like it clinically either and the stories of the people who are like "I always thought I hated (Blank) until I did (blank) and loved it!" do happen but aren't super common.
 
Yeah I also thought psychiatry would be last on my list and I am now very seriously considering it. You won't really know for sure until third year, but shadowing could help you rule things in/out. Honestly, I'd say it takes about a month to REALLY KNOW how you feel about a specialty, just because in the early weeks you may like something just because it's new and fun, or hate something b/c you're having a hard time adjusting to it. It's how you feel at the end that really matters, since you'll be doing it for the rest of your life. Shadowing for a month is a long time though.
 
Shadowing just one physician in a specific specialty can be faulty. Sometimes the physician can turn you off to a specialty because of their attitude when you could have really enjoyed the field in general. (i.e. think of a subject that you thought was going to be interesting, but you had a really horrible professor who turned you off).

Still, even third year is a crapshoot. You get decent insight during most rotations, but if your school has a particularly crappy OB department for example, or get hit with a particularly nasty resident/attending right off the bat that sours your whole outlook. Or during IM/surgery you might be stuck on general wards and don't get to experience fellowships/subspecialties like cards/plastics. And nowhere I know of allows you to do everything -- at my school for example you can't do ER, anesthesia, or ophtho until fourth year. Of course you can try to shadow during the holidays or after hours, but plenty of people sign up for a specialty with very little real knowledge about what they'll actually be doing for the rest of their working lives. Scary huh?
 
It's hard, but you really have to separate out your feelings for the people you work with from your opinion of the actual medicine. I've had to counsel some friends about this and some people just can't make that distinction. I had one friend who loved the actual things she did while on surgery, but "hated" surgery because the residents and attendings were simply abrasive (to put it kindly) people.

So I'd just say, focus on the actual care/interactions with patients, and try to keep personal feelings about other docs off your radar. Or at least try to prevent bad residents/attendings from coloring your judgments (I think it's less problematic if the people are awesome and they improve your feelings towards a particular field).
 
It's hard, but you really have to separate out your feelings for the people you work with from your opinion of the actual medicine. I've had to counsel some friends about this and some people just can't make that distinction. I had one friend who loved the actual things she did while on surgery, but "hated" surgery because the residents and attendings were simply abrasive (to put it kindly) people.

However, I think you do have to take personalities into account. I don't know the actual numbers, but the majority of physicians these days seem to work in group private practices, and if they're solo they tend to have people who they team up with so you can vacation etc. So you WILL be working with people in the field and you want to make sure you see eye to eye.

This isn't to say "Specialty X is full of jerks, Specialty Y is full of nerds, and specialty Z is full of pansies" or anything pejorative like that. But I don't think it's controversial to say that you can have a cool surgeon, pediatrician, and pathologist that you get along with but there approaches to medicine and personalities are totally different. I think it's worth paying attention to what specialty has people you see eye to eye with.
 
One thing that may help you is to think of lifestyle. I know I don't want to have an office and see patients in an office all week. It very quickly narrowed down my list of possibilities. I know that I like to do shift work and don't mind working long hours. I also know that I don't want to take call.


Guessing your interested in em?
 
I agree with the above posters: it'll likely take time, effort, and at least third year to figure things out.

With that said, if you're looking for something concrete to do with a pen and pencil or your computer, the aamc website has a link for students, and in it is a link for something that I *think* is called "Careers in Medicine." It gives you a list of all possible specialties, and some info about each one. And it's my understanding that each medical school has access to it, so your school can assign you a username and ID, and you can gain access to even more resources.

However, the bottom line is that no amount of forethought or obsessive research will truly prepare you for how comfortable you feel in a particular area of medicine until you experience it.
 
Its hard because some specialties are impossible to get a good feel for without a significant effort. e.g. rad onc is a great field but you have to go out of your way to learn about it, so most students never even consider it. I guess its better to have a philosophy that "there are many soulmates out there for me"
 
Someone let me know if this is generally true or not: "It is hard to find a cardiothoracic surgeon that is still married".
 
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With that said, if you're looking for something concrete to do with a pen and pencil or your computer, the aamc website has a link for students, and in it is a link for something that I *think* is called "Careers in Medicine." It gives you a list of all possible specialties, and some info about each one. And it's my understanding that each medical school has access to it, so your school can assign you a username and ID, and you can gain access to even more resources.

This is correct. For those of you that are unsure of what DrBubbles was talking about, check out this website:

http://www.aamc.org/students/cim/program.htm

The Associate Dean for Student Affairs at your medical school should have the access code for your school.
 
Someone let me know if this is generally true or not: "It is hard to find a cardiothoracic surgeon that is still married".

I know one. Married for >25 yrs to an infectious disease specialist in the same hospital. They did go to med school together though. I dont kow if that makes a difference.
 
hey so im about to start MS2 and i figured this summer was as good as any to start figuring out which specialty i like.. as of now, i dont really have any idea, but i had two questions..

1) i heard the best way to figure out what field of medicine you really enjoy is to make a list of all the specialties available and just start crossing off the ones you know you dont want to do, or the ones that dont interest you. is there anywhere i can find a comprehensive list like this?

2) how many days do you really need to shadow a physician before you kinda get a feel to how a given field of medicine is like in practice? i was gonna shadow a cardiologist for a week this summer, but my roommate was saying i should go for longer.


any info would be helpful

Pathology > everything else
 
Someone let me know if this is generally true or not: "It is hard to find a cardiothoracic surgeon that is still married".

I only know one cardiothoracic surgeon and he is indeed happily married. He actually has a fairly time consuming church job on top of his physician duties, but somehow he is able to keep everything in balance.
 
bmj.jpg
physician-know-thyself-bmjcom.html
 
The above posted chart is still creepily accurate.
 
I saw the chart above before it i sooo true haha! I think I want to do EM. I'm also about to start my MS2 year. I was told by a third year that during third and fourth year when you are doing rotations notice how often you look at your clock. If you are doing a rotation and every 5 minutes you are looking at your watch trying to rush out of there THAT MIGHT NOT be the specialty for you lol. If you are truly interested in the field you will want to learn as much as possible. I guess we'll c.;)
 
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