Can't decide....

[HMSBeagle]

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Hi to all. I'm in 3rd year and so far I've done pediatrics, radiology and surgery. I totally disliked pediatrics, but I somewhat like surgery. Surgery is interesting because of the manual work, but when the second hour of a case rolls around I lose attention and focus, and don't care. I guess this means I'm not cut for surgery. This leaves me worried and wondering because I have not LOVED anything this year as to say "wow this is for me and is what I want to do in my life". I feel really confused. Any advice is appreciated.

 

[Droopy Snoopy]

Hi to all. I'm in 3rd year and so far I've done pediatrics, radiology and surgery. I totally disliked pediatrics, but I somewhat like surgery. Surgery is interesting because of the manual work, but when the second hour of a case rolls around I lose attention and focus, and don't care. I guess this means I'm not cut for surgery. This leaves me worried and wondering because I have not LOVED anything this year as to say "wow this is for me and is what I want to do in my life". I feel really confused. Any advice is appreciated.

I don't have an answer but think you're asking a lot of yourself trying to figure this out being not even finished with half your third year rotations. There are like a hundred other specialties and subspecialties out there. Take heart that you're probably in the majority not having some Holy Grail moment third year, but we all find something we like (or can at least tolerate given enough cash and loose women).

 

[H_Caulfield]

Even people who love surgery get really bored after about an hour of retracting or just plain watching. I'm pretty confident it's a whole different experience by PGY-2 when you're actually participating in a meaningful sense.

I'm going into surgery and all I can think about in the fourth hour is the slight aching in my lower back and how I'd love to take a piss. When you're the one doing the cutting it'll be much more exciting.

P.S. Compare the boredom of watching surgery to that of sitting through 4 hours of rounds every morning (IM...)...

 

[TexasPhysician]

You have plenty of rotations left.

 

[Law2Doc]

Hi to all. I'm in 3rd year and so far I've done pediatrics, radiology and surgery. I totally disliked pediatrics, but I somewhat like surgery. Surgery is interesting because of the manual work, but when the second hour of a case rolls around I lose attention and focus, and don't care. I guess this means I'm not cut for surgery. This leaves me worried and wondering because I have not LOVED anything this year as to say "wow this is for me and is what I want to do in my life". I feel really confused. Any advice is appreciated.

Unless you totally fell in love with something, you cannot possibly decide on a career path with those 3 rotations (with only two being core rotations). But if you like surgery for the first hour of each operation, perhaps you want to consider a career involving procedural non-surgical things in IM specialties (eg GI procedures, bronchs etc). Most of them only take < 1 hour, but you do many per day.

 

[vtucci]

You might also consider anesthesia, which will allow you to do a number of procedures from intubation to nerve blocks and will also allow you to sit during a procedure in the OR and play sudoku in between checking the equipment readings.