Anyone else stuck in limbo??

[71263]

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Its April... M3 year will be ending by mid june/july for most of us... and I STILL dont know what speciatly I want to sign my life away to!! Granted, Ive at least narrowed it down to 3, but making that decision is proving tough. Whats worse, this is seriously getting in the way of scheduling away electives! I still have to get letters, fill out away apps, figure out my Step 2 situation... UGH!! I swear, some days Im just going to !!!

Anyone else share my frustration?

 

[Kubed]

Totally with you. I'm down to 3 as well. I've watched their order go from changing monthly, to weekly, to daily, and now hourly.

 

[drivesmecraazee]

I guess it's not so bad if your options have some similarity with each other, or course all specialities are diferent.
Which speciliaties are you thinking about you guys? Both of you...

 

[predodoc]

same here. Thats actually why Im on after my night shift ER rotation. Im basicly hoping that something on SDN will help sway me in on direction. Man, Im behind on letters, apps for elective rotations, and just a decision for what I want to be. Right now Im down to :
Internal med- liked it but got boring sometimes.

Emergency med- liking it right now, but I dont know if I can handle the super high intensity cases like cardiac arrest and my patient dying infront of me(happend last week)

PMR- havnt done a rotation yet. Might like it, might hate it. Buts it seems like it might be cool. I probably wont get a chance to do a rotation unless I can knock one of the other 2 out for sure.

I constanly think about this and its driving me nuts! I get married in 6 weeks and should be thinking about that but this decision is taking over and making me go crazy.

 

[bjolly]

how do you feel about continuity, treating a patient and their problem over a long period of time? Seems like that could help you knock out either emergency or the other 2.

 

[predodoc]

well, I pictured myself as more the Internal medicine type going into third year. I like taking care of my patients as long as they do what I want them to( take meds, follow up ect). Emergency medicine was a suprise for me. Although Im working in a level 3 trauma center and the trauma I do see usually can be sutured up by a medical student. I like the working up the n/v cases, chest pain, kidney stones ect. I think I like it because I can see the patient, test the patient, treat the patient( at least acutly) and send them on their way. I do wish I could know what happend to a patient when they leave sometimes.
Also, the appeal of working in the ER comes from shift work, 40hr/wks, good pay and flexability. Whenever I mention Internal medicine nowadays I hear "pay isnt so good" and "I hate being on call".

 

[akpete]

I hear ya. I'm even having dreams at night stressing me out.

I've always planned on orthopedics, but for the past year, I've been considering anesthesia, and now that I'm doing a rotation in it, albeit only 2 weeks, I'm really liking it and could see myself doing it as a career.

But I'm afraid I'd miss ortho if I switch. But also worried that I'd get really burnt out in ortho because I've always been the person to sleep 10-12 hours per night until clinical rotations started. I'm completely on the fence and could go either way.

What really stresses me out is applying for away rotations and my home schedule is set up for ortho so I'd have to switch some stuff around.

I'm afraid of making the wrong choice or running out of time to make a choice.

Oh, and I ran out of money so I haven't scheduled step 2.

Ah. /vent.

 

[akpete]

Sorry, I killed the thread. Oops.

 

[futrorthodr]

Im also in limbo

Been geared towards ortho since high school but now all of a sudden I am leaning heavily towards Rads. Kinda hard to plan senior electives if you arent sure what you want to do.😱

 

[Hard24Get]

Get a code for Careers in Medicine from your student affairs office and have your questions answered. It's a great tool, because it lets you weight factors important to you versus the specialties (ie, decision matrices). Also has info about different specialties.

 

[OrnotMajestic]

I thought about ER for the first two years till I actually spent TIME in an ER. That killed that right quick.

 

[mules05]

Im also in limbo

Been geared towards ortho since high school but now all of a sudden I am leaning heavily towards Rads. Kinda hard to plan senior electives if you arent sure what you want to do.😱

I thought I was set on my decision to do ob/gyn, but all of a sudden I'm on surgery and considering general surgery. And all of a sudden I'm questioning everything- did I like gyn because of the surgery? Am I just second guessing it because it's been almost 9 months since I did gyn? Aaahhh I don't know....

 

[smq123]

I thought I was set on my decision to do ob/gyn, but all of a sudden I'm on surgery and considering general surgery. And all of a sudden I'm questioning everything- did I like gyn because of the surgery? Am I just second guessing it because it's been almost 9 months since I did gyn? Aaahhh I don't know....

I had the exact same problem. Spent a lot of time soul searching about this. Ultimately decided on OB/gyn...but it took a long time to reach that decision.

 

[MrBurns10]

Unforuntately, my problem isn't that I've liked all the rotations I've done like some of my classmates, it's that I haven't done anything I could actually see myself doing for the rest of my career yet. It's scary.

 

[roja]

I was in the same boat. I had thought I would do peds rheum through first and second year.

Loved vascular and trauma but knew in my heart I didn't love it ENOUGH to be a surgeon.

I liked most of 3rd year, just nothing to do soley for my career. I was really floundering until my last rotation when I was venting to a friend. He steered me to EM and I have bveen a happy camper since then. 🙂

 

[LuckyBambooGirl]

I am torn between OB/Gyn and med-peds. I absolutely loved OB, but I'm not the gung-ho surgeon type. I get bored easily in the OR and the surgery doesn't excite me. I'm sure I could do it, but I just don't like it that much. But is that just because all I've done is stand there looking over the residen'ts shoulders for 3 hours during a vag hys, not even scrubbed in? When I've gotten to do stuff in the OR it was pretty cool!
As for med-peds, I really like the variety, continuity of care and having good long terms relationships with patients where you get to know them and their families. I like clinic and I like talking to them about their problems. I like the psychosocial aspect of medicine. I also like working in the hospital and figuring out complex cases.
Man, family practice would be perfect for me if they still delivered babies...😕
Anyone else in the same boat?

 

[Ashers]

I am torn between OB/Gyn and med-peds. I absolutely loved OB, but I'm not the gung-ho surgeon type. I get bored easily in the OR and the surgery doesn't excite me. I'm sure I could do it, but I just don't like it that much. But is that just because all I've done is stand there looking over the residen'ts shoulders for 3 hours during a vag hys, not even scrubbed in? When I've gotten to do stuff in the OR it was pretty cool!
As for med-peds, I really like the variety, continuity of care and having good long terms relationships with patients where you get to know them and their families. I like clinic and I like talking to them about their problems. I like the psychosocial aspect of medicine. I also like working in the hospital and figuring out complex cases.
Man, family practice would be perfect for me if they still delivered babies...😕
Anyone else in the same boat?

FP doesn't deliver babies? That's news to me. I had so many deliveries stolen from me by FP interns while I was on OB/gyn, and while I was on FP, I had the same number of prenatal visits in 4 weeks of FP that I did on 6 weeks of OB/gyn.

The FP program at the hospital where I was for OB/gyn has a special OB track, and one of the FP residents was thinking of doing a fellowship to get more experience with c-sections.

 

[smq123]

Man, family practice would be perfect for me if they still delivered babies...😕

Totally agree with Ashers - FP DOES still deliver babies!

Med-Peds is what people do because they love FP, but don't like the OB aspect of it.

So what's the problem here.... 😕

As for med-peds, I really like the variety, continuity of care and having good long terms relationships with patients where you get to know them and their families. I like clinic and I like talking to them about their problems. I like the psychosocial aspect of medicine. I also like working in the hospital and figuring out complex cases.
Man, family practice would be perfect for me if they still delivered babies...😕

What you've just described? Sounds EXACTLY like the FP program at my school. The FP residents have an inpatient service that's separate from the internal medicine services. They deliver THEIR patients. They have a great clinic, as well as a really strong community medicine program.

So maybe you'll reconsider FP.... 😉

 

[abefromann]

Unforuntately, my problem isn't that I've liked all the rotations I've done like some of my classmates, it's that I haven't done anything I could actually see myself doing for the rest of my career yet. It's scary.

Yeah, it seems like those students are in the minority. I was in that boat for a long time, too, not counting derm. It was something that I liked the most as a combination of procedures, relationship to all specialties, and great great hours. The problem was I didn't think it was realistic and so I considered things that I didn't mind. I couldn't think of anything but radiology, which I liked. In the end patient care was the deciding factor in the decision.

If you have no clue then you have to look at:

1) nonclinical vs. clinical
2) surgical vs. medical
3) primary vs. specialty
4) LIFESTYLE (very important, if you don't really like any specialty over another)

 

[Kubed]

I've met so many FM dr's that talked about how much they loved to deliver babies, how many babies they delivered while in residency, and how the moment they graduated from residency they didn't get to deliver another baby. I agree with Ashers and smq123 that FM interns/residents get tons of OB experience, however you might want to talk to some local FM dr's to see if they're able to do OB in their community. The only FM dr's I know who still do OB did an OB fellowship after their FM residency.

 

[smq123]

I've met so many FM dr's that talked about how much they loved to deliver babies, how many babies they delivered while in residency, and how the moment they graduated from residency they didn't get to deliver another baby. I agree with Ashers and smq123 that FM interns/residents get tons of OB experience, however you might want to talk to some local FM dr's to see if they're able to do OB in their community. The only FM dr's I know who still do OB did an OB fellowship after their FM residency.

The family med patients on L&D at our hospital get delivered by a family med attending who has done an OB fellowship. The clerk on L&D pages them when their patient is admitted, and then they come up and do the delivery. The OB attendings won't deliver these patients unless the family med attending REALLY can't make it - in that case, the OB attending will supervise the family med resident.

So you CAN be a family med attending, and still do tons of OB. You'd have to find a good program that will let you do that, but there are lots of them out there.

 

[Ashers]

The family med patients on L&D at our hospital get delivered by a family med attending who has done an OB fellowship. The clerk on L&D pages them when their patient is admitted, and then they come up and do the delivery. The OB attendings won't deliver these patients unless the family med attending REALLY can't make it - in that case, the OB attending will supervise the family med resident.

So you CAN be a family med attending, and still do tons of OB. You'd have to find a good program that will let you do that, but there are lots of them out there.

Same way at the community hospital where I was for OB. We also had the added pressure of the FP residents needing to meet a quota of deliveries for a month at a not so busy hospital with 8 students, 1-2 FP interns, and 1 OB intern, so the senior OB/gyn residents and attendings, and FP attendings would watch the interns and students do deliveries (if they were lucky enough to get one -- I didn't get to do a full delivery in 6 weeks: many C-sections though). They were the swoopers who'd get the deliveries after the students wrote q2h notes for hours. Anyway, not all of the FP attendings did an OB fellowship, some just were more interested in it, and did the OB track. I had friends on their FP rotation didn't see a single pregnant woman.

 

[LuckyBambooGirl]

Good to know that FP's elsewhere still deliver babies! I am in Louisiana, and the trend here is for practicing FP's not to deliver any more, as the malpractice is so high! Our residents do a lot of deliveries, but most of the FP's I have asked about it don't do it anymore. On our labor unit, off service interns are lower than dirt. The OB/Gyn residents don't trust them to do much real work. I'm gonna have to do some more research about how things are in other states. I'm not really inclined to stay here for residency/practice anyway!

 

[smq123]

On our labor unit, off service interns are lower than dirt. The OB/Gyn residents don't trust them to do much real work.

🙁

It's definitely interesting to see how different people's experiences have been at different hospitals.

The OB residents here get along extremely well with the family med residents - actually, the OB interns need to rotate through the family med clinic and on the family med inpatient service, so they have a lot of mutual respect.

One of the OB chiefs thought about nominating one of the family med residents for a "hospital employee" award, because he was such an outstanding guy to work with.

 

[MadameLULU]

OP: For the past 5 or so months I thought I had it all figured out, but now I'm confused again. I've narrowed it down to 2 specialties, one of which I have had no exposure to yet, so I'll be taking an elective in it next month to see how I like it.

 

[waldenwoods]

I can relate to so many things people have said in this thread! A few months ago I thought I was pretty sure I wanted to do child and adolescent psych, b/c I like the subject matter and thought I was good at it (although, my shelf score said otherwise). Then I found I really enjoyed inpatient medicine, it's challenging and I like the bread-and-butter pneumonia, DKA, COPD exacerbation, CHF management stuff. It never got boring, there's always something to follow up on. I feel like I'm good at it, and it's nice to track their progress. Would even consider doing a critical care fellowship if I could do more procedures; that would be awesome. And I found the neuro patients to be fascinating (yes, I said "fascinating," and does that mean I'm destined to be a neurologist?).

Then I did my family medicine rotation, the entire thing was in the outpatient setting (and btw they didn't do care of pregnant patients and they didn't do any deliveries--like other people said I think it's regional, as well as probably personal preference of the doc). And I saw several people who were noncompliant for one reason or another, or others who follow up frequently for this constellation of pain sx for which they've had the MRI/CT/several specialty consults/full workup and the doc wasn't sure what it was and the patient had no idea either but on some level was emotionally distressed about the uncertainty--and that sort of thing makes me wonder how their development contributed to their disease processes. Outpatient primary care makes me want to be a psychiatrist.

No idea what I want to apply to. Neuro (haven't done it yet), medicine, psychiatry. How about I just throw a few other specialties into the mix for good measure?

And because of the uncertainty of what specialty, the fact that I have done poorly on the shelf, and lack of money, I am stuck in limbo in this regard as well--I haven't scheduled Step 2! 😳

 

[Ashers]

Good to know that FP's elsewhere still deliver babies! I am in Louisiana, and the trend here is for practicing FP's not to deliver any more, as the malpractice is so high! Our residents do a lot of deliveries, but most of the FP's I have asked about it don't do it anymore. On our labor unit, off service interns are lower than dirt. The OB/Gyn residents don't trust them to do much real work. I'm gonna have to do some more research about how things are in other states. I'm not really inclined to stay here for residency/practice anyway!

PM me if you want a change in weather; I've got no interest in FP, but I've worked with some really good residents.

That sucks though with the treatment of the non-OB/gyn residents. The FP residents were treated well, but we students got annoyed because, I especially, always got sent into the C-sections instead of the NVSD and the FP took that, even if I hadn't set eyes on the section before.

 

[Unsure2009]

I'm in limbo as well. I've thought peds ever since 3rd yr started, but I started Medicine about 1 month ago...and have been on the wall ever since. I realize I like asking my patients how they are feeling in the morning. Adults can give you a hx and (mostly) can articulate their feelings. So different from peds. Whats worse is that I've already submitted my 4th yr schedule, as our school requires it, and it's all peds. It would be hell to change it. Not impossible, just hellish. I'm also procrastinating on aways, etc. Just wish I knew what the hell I wanted to do.

 

[tinkerbelle]

I'm in limbo as well. I've thought peds ever since 3rd yr started, but I started Medicine about 1 month ago...and have been on the wall ever since. I realize I like asking my patients how they are feeling in the morning. Adults can give you a hx and (mostly) can articulate their feelings. So different from peds. Whats worse is that I've already submitted my 4th yr schedule, as our school requires it, and it's all peds. It would be hell to change it. Not impossible, just hellish. I'm also procrastinating on aways, etc. Just wish I knew what the hell I wanted to do.

I'm in the exact same situation. I wanted to do peds as well and made my 4th yr schedule (aways, subI's, electives) all peds. However, I just stared internal medicine, and I really like it. Not sure what to do now 😕

 

[DoctorFunk]

Never underestimate the power of procrastination in career choice inherent in a Med-Peds residency.

 

[Ashers]

Never underestimate the power of procrastination in career choice inherent in a Med-Peds residency.

Wait, are you doing THAT now? 😕 Or are you just commenting?

 

[DoctorFunk]

Wait, are you doing THAT now? 😕 Or are you just commenting?

Naw, just commenting.