changing speciality after the first year

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Tariq

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Hi.We have discussed this topic before but i just want to know common is it for someone to change specialities after the first year ?Also is there anyway the Program director can refuse a Letter of recommendation?Just need some input on this.
Thanks :rolleyes:

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•••quote:•••Originally posted by Tariq:
•Hi.We have discussed this topic before but i just want to know common is it for someone to change specialities after the first year ?Also is there anyway the Program director can refuse a Letter of recommendation?Just need some input on this.
Thanks :rolleyes: •••••Hi there,

It is not common for someone to change specialties after the first year but it does happen. The most common scenario in the past few years happens with folks leaving General Surgery. The surgical internship is grueling under the best of circumstances. It is easy to wind up hating life and hating the prospect of spending four to five more years hating life. This happens in other medical specialties too but surgery is notorious.

Yes, your PD can refuse to give you a letter of recommendation. If you honestly have made a poor first choice of residency, the best thing to do is do your best and finish the year as positive as possible. If you made a mistake, own up to it and do your best until your first year is over. A good PD will not want to keep a good resident who doesn't want to be in his or her program.

On one of my fourth year electives in surgery, one of the interns was miserable. He started to slack off and didn't pull his weight. He started on only talk of getting out of surgery and into Emergency Medicine where he belonged. The problem was, he was in a top five surgery program and was screwing up. His PD refused to give him a letter of recommendation. He found a preliminary slot in internal medicine but he will have to prove himself to get past his poor performance.

Another surgery resident hated her program and program director. With this much negativity, she has had a difficult time getting another slot in another surgery program. The bottom line, do your best at every shot even if you are hating life. You stand a much better chance of getting a good letter if you are honest and hard-working. If you are really doing well, there are other attendings in the program that might be able to lobby the PD on your behalf, again if you are doing a good job. If you are in a bad program as with the case above, you may still have problems getting out. :rolleyes:
 
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