Am I insane?

[Kindoflost]

Hello everyone,

I’m a minted 2nd year Pathology resident who is having a bit of an identity crisis right now. I’m honestly getting a lot more bored with Pathology than I thought I would and am actually starting to miss interacting with patients on a day to day basis. Nothing against Path, which is an important field with some good people in it, but I am starting to wonder if I made the wrong choice long term. Part of the reason I went into Path was I felt this overwhelming pressure to subspecialize and find some relatively lucrative field to go into or become an elite researcher (I went to a very name brand, top 15, hoity toity med school where everyone rocks a 240 usmle score and primary care was considered a cute afterthought). As I used to be very involved in public health and working in health care advocacy prior to med school, I feel as though I’ve turned my back on what made me apply to medical school in the first place.

How as a path resident could I go about exploring FP as a field? Should I try to shadow someone even though I’m currently doing a residency in a completely unrelated field? .Will I be completely incompetent after not having worked directly with patients for a couple years? .If I were to practice clinical medicine I would really like to have an entirely outpatient clinic type focus (I used to love clinic in med school, didn’t care about the inpatient stuff as much). Something else I never understood about my classmates was their overwhelming love of procedures. I see the usefulness of procedures, but I never felt the desire to scope and stab at the drop of a hat. Is it possible to make out ok in private practice without having to perform tons of procedures?

Any suggestions or advice, especially if anyone has experience switching into a primary care oriented field. would be greatly appreciated. I fortunately have a very reasonable of student debt and my spouse enjoys a highly lucrative legal career, and I really don’t care about fortune or fame. I’m just trying to be as happy with my job as possible.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[secretwave101]

Often when people are thinking of switching specialties, they emphasize the things that make the new field (aka, the "greener grass") seem like a good fit. If you really aren't doing that, I'd say you might be a pretty good fit for FM.

You always have to work to add procedures in FM, mostly due to time-constraints. If you don't care about doing them, this makes FM a field you are more likely to enjoy. Same for outpatient clinic. If you truly enjoy opt. clinic, you'll fit right into the average FM job. And if you don't have lots of loan pressure over your every move, then you can work at a leisurely pace that will allow you the best the FM has to offer, which is real time with patients and the relationships that develop from that.

If your assessment of yourself is truly what you've written, I'd say you should definitely research the field more. Your idea of shadowing an FP - preferably in a program you might like to attend - is a great idea. Our program is always open to that kind of thing. Last year we picked up a gasser who was burnt out on that field. People switch with a reasonable amount of regularity. You wouldn't be reinventing the wheel.

Good Luck.

 

[Kindoflost]

.Thank you for your insight secretwave101. I understand what you’re saying about the grass is always greener, and I know for a fact primary care has some obvious problems today that I can’t ignore. That said, I really enjoyed the office during med school and I really do miss interacting with patients a lot more than I thought I would. Its not as though I’m miserable in path, and I could stick it out, do a GI fellowship and possibly make lots of cash and be OK with it. But I think I might really be happiest doing something with substantial patient contact on a day to day basis..

 

[andwhat]

.Thank you for your insight secretwave101. I understand what you’re saying about the grass is always greener, and I know for a fact primary care has some obvious problems today that I can’t ignore. That said, I really enjoyed the office during med school and I really do miss interacting with patients a lot more than I thought I would. Its not as though I’m miserable in path, and I could stick it out, do a GI fellowship and possibly make lots of cash and be OK with it. But I think I might really be happiest doing something with substantial patient contact on a day to day basis..

GI fellowship after Path? Come again please?

 

[Kindoflost]

GI fellowship after Path? Come again please?

.Not clinical GI, but GI path, which is a relatively good market in pathology these days. .

 

[andwhat]

.Not clinical GI, but GI path, which is a relatively good market in pathology these days. .

are you messaging from your cell phone? Just curious. GI path that sounds cool.

 

[Kindoflost]

.No, I’m just copying and pasting text from Word because the computer I’m using here is so freaking slow it takes forever to type directly onto SDN.
.

are you messaging from your cell phone? Just curious. GI path that sounds cool.

 

[dr0277341283141]

deleted