medicine subspecialty stereotypes

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Talking to some residents today about stereotypes of various internal medicine subspecialtists...here is what we came up with:

Cardiologist/pulmonary/Critical care: aggressive, mean, surgeon-like, action oriented, short-tempered, don't like to think, algorithmic
Hem/onc: sweet, nice, calm, highly intellectual, compassionate, smartest of all medicine subspecialists
Nephrologist: nerdy, mathematical
Geriatrics: thinks slow, nice, patient
Allergy/Immunology: lazy
Rheumatology/infectious disease: sherlock holme, solving puzzle
 
Let's have a little fun with this...
Cardiologists: The orthopods of internal medicine. Forget most of their other knowledge and like to cath cath cath. $$$urgeon's mentality...they will cut you off if you don't get to the point.

GI: $$$

Heme/Onc Docs: Interestingly at my hospital they have a rep for malignant personalities...maybe because the patients they take care of are sooo sick?

Nephrologist: The ultimate field of mental masturbation and intellectualism. Love to pull out the zebra diagnoses. Acute Renal Failure in a hypotensive postop patient? Order an SPEP/UPEP!!!

Geriatricians: The happiest of all docs (according to a study too). Know their gomers so well.

Allergy/Immunology: The dermatologists of IM.

Rheum: Old school, Oslerian, masters of the physical exam. They'll spend lots of time studying a patient's nails in the ICU for subtle signs of liver disease.

Infectious Disease: Similar to nephro. Love to bust out with the zebras like babesiosis in their differentials.

salmonella said:
Talking to some residents today about stereotypes of various internal medicine subspecialtists...here is what we came up with:

Cardiologist/pulmonary/Critical care: aggressive, mean, surgeon-like, action oriented, short-tempered, don't like to think, algorithmic
Hem/onc: sweet, nice, calm, highly intellectual, compassionate, smartest of all medicine subspecialists
Nephrologist: nerdy, mathematical
Geriatrics: thinks slow, nice, patient
Allergy/Immunology: lazy
Rheumatology/infectious disease: sherlock holme, solving puzzle
Click to expand...
 
salmonella said:
Talking to some residents today about stereotypes of various internal medicine subspecialtists...here is what we came up with:

Cardiologist/pulmonary/Critical care: aggressive, mean, surgeon-like, action oriented, short-tempered, don't like to think, algorithmic
Hem/onc: sweet, nice, calm, highly intellectual, compassionate, smartest of all medicine subspecialists
Nephrologist: nerdy, mathematical
Geriatrics: thinks slow, nice, patient
Allergy/Immunology: lazy
Rheumatology/infectious disease: sherlock holme, solving puzzle
Click to expand...

In the spirit of this....I take serious issue with lumping pulmonary/CCM with cardiology...

1. Aggressive...yes...drastic diseases require drastic measures
2. Mean and short tempered....yes...but primarily to stupid people and surgeons
3. Surgeon-like....only in contempt for specialties like cardiology and surgery itself
4. Don't like to think....you missed the mark on this one....we like to think and act fast. Mind you...most of us actually like acid-base, alveolar gas equation and advanced hemodynamics...
5. Algorithmic....yes and no....

As for the rest...pretty close...perhaps your view of the oncologists is a bit over inflated...but I sense a true bias there...

Cheers!
 
Eidolon6 said:
In the spirit of this....I take serious issue with lumping pulmonary/CCM with cardiology...

1. Aggressive...yes...drastic diseases require drastic measures
2. Mean and short tempered....yes...but primarily to stupid people and surgeons
3. Surgeon-like....only in contempt for specialties like cardiology and surgery itself
4. Don't like to think....you missed the mark on this one....we like to think and act fast. Mind you...most of us actually like acid-base, alveolar gas equation and advanced hemodynamics...
5. Algorithmic....yes and no....

As for the rest...pretty close...perhaps your view of the oncologists is a bit over inflated...but I sense a true bias there...

Cheers!
Click to expand...


I do admit I missed the mark on pulm/cc. They routinely deal with intellectually challenging, complicated multi system organ failure that require lots of problem solving.

The resident I spoke with was going into hem/onc...not surprisingly hem/onc is over inflated a bit.
 
1. Heme/oncs are from one end of the spectrum to the other...they are probably the most medically removed internal medicine subspecialists, so they are either highly intelligent and very knowledgeable in basic science and pharm or very quack-like. They are also either very kind or very angel of deathlike in my experience.

2. Nephrologists are very highly intellectual, and can be found running mot BP clinics.

3. GI - ah, the procedures and not too much cognition. This is the life.

4. Cards - if you like that sort of thing, it's magical. They know their basic science, but their field is EXPLODING procedure-wise.
 
Does anyone know of any realistic, non-insulting, "traits" of subspecialties, such as hobbies, or habits? Things that might help students "fit in" better....

EM: rock climbing and mountain biking, gotta have trauma shears
Ortho: always know the sports scores, Buzz cuts,
Surg: no stethoscope over the neck, say sontemeter for cm.
Cardio: nice wristwatch
 
What about endocrinology?
 
Endocrinologists are mainly nerdy like the nephrologists except the nephrons win the king of the nerds competition. Endo and Rheum are kind of like their minions although they all belong in the same kingdom.

Renal, Rheum, ID, Endo are all thinking specialties - the varsity chess team
Cards, Pulm/CC, and GI are the doing/thinking specialties - the varsity cross country/track team
Surgeons are the jocks - the varsity football team
 
Heh. In the medicine=high school analogy, I've always thought of psychiatrists as being the kids that would cut class to experiment with mind altering substances. 😉
 
True to the above. Psychiatrists were the weird ones interested in odd behavior: "Adam and I dropped some acid on Saturday and my necklace was like....moving man!" But keep in mind these were the ones that did substances and were intelligent, unlike most of my substance using friends who were pretty amotivational and unintelligent.
 
In the real world I WAS a starter on the varsity football team and a college track and field athlete, yet the medicine sub-specialties I'm finding myself drawn to are of the "chess club" variety.
 
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