"Best" time to choose specialty?

[surftheiop]

So when do you all think is the best* time to have choosen a specialty by?

*By best I mean- You've had a chance to be exposed to as much of medicine as posible to be sure your not overlooking a specialty that you would actually love, but at the same time you havent waited so long that it becomes harder to make yourself competitive for getting a residency in that specialty.

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[RisingSun]

I was told that we should have our application submitted by September 1st of our 4th year. So I would assume that early August should be the latest that you would want to have decided on a specialty in order to give yourself time to ask for letters, get your application ready, etc.

For my school, that means that we will have had one elective rotation before having to choose our future. How one is supposed to know what to apply to with such little exposure to other fields is beyond me. I guess that makes sense why so many people choose something like medicine or surgery. There hasn't been much exposure to other less well-known specialties, and both offer multiple options to specialize after residency. Kind of like hedging your bets that you'll like something that falls within the scope of specialty, even if you don't know what that is when you apply.

I guarantee you that most students who go into specialized fields like Rad Onc or ENT were considering those fields well before 3rd year. They aren't really fields that you "fall in love with" during clerkships.

 

[Blesbok]

Most people will know or at least have a good idea by the end of their third year. If you aren't absolutely sure by that time, you should schedule your electives in each of the prospects as early as possible in 4th year. You need to know by september 1st of 4th year in order to submit eras.

 

[njbmd]

You will have a general idea of whether or not you are competitive for surgery or one of the surgical sub-specialties after you get your Step I score and grades from pre-clinical years. If you are not competitive, you are not going to be a surgeon (or get into one of the ROAD specialties either). You may want to look at the averages for some of the the specialties to get a general idea of what you need a bare pass on Step I coupled with a less than impressive pre-clinical performance is going to put many specialties out of reach.

After that, you can do a preliminary year in Internal Medicine if you still need extra time to decide and re-enter the match the following year in what you have decided. If you have the grades/board scores you can still do a Prelim year but you have far more options.

In general, most people have an idea as they move through third year. A minority will not and will end up sitting on the surgery versus medicine fence. If this turns out to be the case, think long and hard about surgery because most people know pretty quickly whether they are suited for surgery or for something else.

 

[sjdsn135]

I've heard that it is important to do research in your specialty field of choice during med school in order to make yourself more competitive for that residency. If you haven't chosen a specialty yet (i.e. during your first or second years of med school), is it advisable to basically pick one arbitrarily (since you haven't experienced any of them yet) and do clinical research in that?

 

[Pinkertinkle]

I've heard that it is important to do research in your specialty field of choice during med school in order to make yourself more competitive for that residency. If you haven't chosen a specialty yet (i.e. during your first or second years of med school), is it advisable to basically pick one arbitrarily (since you haven't experienced any of them yet) and do clinical research in that?

The two recommended strategies are to do research in a broad field or to do research in one that's more competitive. I would suggest just going with the lab that feels the friendliest.