Anyone else having a difficult time choosing a specialty?

[guv_garfunkel]

I'm so sick of trying to figure out what I want to do! I've liked all my rotations so far and seem to want to specialize in whatever rotation I'm doing that month. I've considered about everything and the more I think about it, the further away I get from making a decision! At this point, maybe I'll just go for the one that pays best!

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[hooperg]

I'm so sick of trying to figure out what I want to do! I've liked all my rotations so far and seem to want to specialize in whatever rotation I'm doing that month. I've considered about everything and the more I think about it, the further away I get from making a decision! At this point, maybe I'll just go for the one that pays best!

Not too difficult for me. After witnessing my first vaginal delivery, my second physician/insurance telephone battle royale, and the 50th runny nose and/or cough in the EMERGENCY room, I decided radiology was for me !

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

I'm so sick of trying to figure out what I want to do! I've liked all my rotations so far and seem to want to specialize in whatever rotation I'm doing that month. I've considered about everything and the more I think about it, the further away I get from making a decision! At this point, maybe I'll just go for the one that pays best!

HEck yes. I'm currently stuck somewhere between internal medicine, general surgery, and EM, with ortho as a currently fading fourth choice...every one obviously has their plusses and minuses, but I like them all!

It seems very daunting to make a decision within the next few months.

 

[ubcredfox]

I made my choice by doing a lot of careful reflection; basically I asked myself if I'd still want to be doing that specialty about 10 years down the line, if I'd still find it interesting, and if it would afford me the lifestyle that I wanted at the end of all this. That really narrowed the field quite a bit. I'm happy with my decision - Path

 

[Its_MurDAH]

I am so overwhelmed, we just recently had our class meeting for our 4th year lottery, electives, aways, etc. I don't know what the hell i'm going to do as a career. I am in between picking a surgical field or one of the non-medical fields like rads or anesth. I am finding it to be exceedingly difficult to picture myself 10 years down the road in any particular specialty given that I know just a very little amount about any of these fields. I feel like this is the case with a lot of people in my class too. I am starting to get really scared about what's coming and I have to decide soon and I am afraid I will make a decision that I will regret.

How can you tell what medicine and what your specialty is going to be like 10 years from now and where in life you will be (married, single, broke, rich, looking for time off, hoping you were working harder). Man, I'm scared ****less.

 

[BigRedBeta]

I think if you really looked at it, you'll find that there are things that make you happier than the rest. You might like everything, but there's something out there that gets you excited.

Beyond that, the advice I can give is to focus on BIG categories to help narrow your focus: Procedures or not? Specific patient ages or no patients at all? Mainly clinic or mainly inpatient? Lots of continuity of care or none? Primary problem solver or consultant to just one aspect of care?
and so on down the line. That might at least get you in the ballpark of some realistic options. Of course, even when you've decided on something like IM, there's the whole range of options from critical care (ie all inpatient and procedure heavy) to Endocrine (mostly outpatient).

 

[LuckyBambooGirl]

Good advice, BigRedBeta! For those of you like guv/garfunkel who like some of everything, don't forget about family medicine!

 

[EM2BE]

In addition, if you notice while on one rotation you are wondering what's going on with another rotation (you see your old group and want to go join them or see what they are doing), you can use that as a sign. It definitely helped me clear up my mind.

 

[DD214_DOC]

My wife keeps a tally of how often I bitch about whatever current rotation I'm on. Near time to apply to residency, I'm going to see which one I bitched about the least and apply to it.

 

[InspireMe]

I've been told when deciding about what field to go into its always good to separate the "rotation experience" from the area of study. What I mean by this is having a fantastic resident can make any rotation exciting and fun, and the same thought goes the other way. Since we'll be lifetime students of our chosen fields, just try picking up a journal of "X" field and see how long it takes for it to put you to sleep or whether the material just gets you very excited. you may surprise yourself

 

[Mr. Freeze]

My wife keeps a tally of how often I bitch about whatever current rotation I'm on. Near time to apply to residency, I'm going to see which one I bitched about the least and apply to it.

This is so my method as well. I told her to let me know during what rotations she could stand me.

And I agree separating the experience of the team from the actual job is tough.

 

[bigDinLV]

I struggled with this terribly.. My choices were Neurosurgery and Anesthesia, two very different fields. If I do neurosurg the lifestyle will be hard but I think i'll enjoy my work more. If I end up in anesthesia then my lifestyle will be great but I'm not sure if I will have as much job satisfaction.

Between the 2 fields I pulled 15 interview invitations and actually did 9 interviews. I've ranked programs in both specialties. I did rank one DO anesthesia program and now i'm worried that I could actually end up there. If I end up in anesthesia I would rather that it be at one of the MD programs. Yea you shouldn't rank a place if you aren't willing to go there. I did it as a safety net. Problem is, my safety net matches before the MD anesthesia programs do. if I end up there, I might have screwed myself out of a really great anesthesia residency. Now this is of course only if I don't match at the neurosurg programs that I ranked first. Then I even consider a withdraw from the DO match all together. So I would withdraw from all neurosurg and and one anesthesia in an attempt to match at MD anesthesia.

Take all this into account and then other factors like where I want to live, cost of living, how far away family is, what the local schools would be like for my kids.. etc, etc.

Yea, 100,000 things on our minds right now....

 

[bigDinLV]

I know there is one thing that I wish now... That it was all just one match and not seperate DO and MD matches..

Just put the DO programs in the regular match and let us rank them as we want, mixed right in with the MD programs.. I'd be sooooo happy if I could have done this.

 

[BigRedBeta]

For those of you like guv/garfunkel who like some of everything, don't forget about family medicine!

Great point. At several of my peds interviews, some of the residents (very smartly IMO) used the fact that they *loved* everything as evidence that they needed to be general pediatricians. I realize FM is not a "sexy" choice, but if variety is something that appeals to you, it's hard to beat...especially if living in a smaller community is an acceptable option (b/c then you get to do the OB stuff, a significant number of upper and lower scopes, quite a bit of trauma/ER, and plenty of inpatient care to go along with the normal clinic duties). Plus, you might be able to actually make money during the interview process

 

[LadyWolverine]

I am also having a rough time of it. I originally went to med school thinking I'd most likely end up in IM (specifically either geriatrics, cardio, or ID). Now that I have completed my IM rotation, I find myself very disappointed by the entire experience...almost enough to cross IM entirely off the list. This was a pretty big shock to me.

During my first two years of med school, I was always the student saying "no way in hell" to all things surgery - yet I have been learning more, doing more interesting things, and feeling like I'm finally "at home" moreso on surgery than any rotation thus far. This has also been quite a shock. I'm only about a month into my rotation, so I can't say for sure, but I've finally gotten that *feeling* that everybody keeps talking about - you know, the one where you get excited by what you are doing?

Thus far, the only rotations that I've truly enjoyed enough to make me consider them seriously have been Family Medicine and Surgery (I think I like both for the same reasons). I'm still interested in EM, Radiology, and Path, as I have been from the get-go, but I don't get any elective time in 3rd year. This sucks. How do I figure it all out?!? Why can't I do a little of all of them?

Decisions, decisions!

 

[smq123]

I am also having a rough time of it. I originally went to med school thinking I'd most likely end up in IM (specifically either geriatrics, cardio, or ID). Now that I have completed my IM rotation, I find myself very disappointed by the entire experience...almost enough to cross IM entirely off the list. This was a pretty big shock to me.

During my first two years of med school, I was always the student saying "no way in hell" to all things surgery - yet I have been learning more, doing more interesting things, and feeling like I'm finally "at home" moreso on surgery than any rotation thus far. This has also been quite a shock. I'm only about a month into my rotation, so I can't say for sure, but I've finally gotten that *feeling* that everybody keeps talking about - you know, the one where you get excited by what you are doing?

Yeah, I do know what you mean.

That was a lot like my experience in 3rd year. Came in 100% positive that I'd want to do IM and/or Peds - and I was totally, absolutely sure that I'd HATE surgery and the OR.

Loved my OB and surgery rotations. Absolutely loved them - hated to leave at the end of 6 weeks (12 for surgery). Compare that to the IM rotation, where I was ready to quit halfway through. After TWO WEEKS on peds, I wanted to throw myself out of the window. At the end of peds, I literally skipped with joy out of the hospital. (I also had a bad team, which just made the experience worse.)

Thus far, the only rotations that I've truly enjoyed enough to make me consider them seriously have been Family Medicine and Surgery (I think I like both for the same reasons). I'm still interested in EM, Radiology, and Path, as I have been from the get-go, but I don't get any elective time in 3rd year.

It's interesting that you'd still be interested in path.

The pace in pathology is VERY different from surgery. It requires a lot more reading, research, and thinking, whereas surgery involves a lot of "doing." I didn't particularly like either rads or path because they focus so heavily on diagnosis. In comparison, the thing that excites me about surgery/OB is that you're given the opportunity to DO something about the problem, not just diagnose it. It's a different mindset.