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Clueless Fourth Year
- Thread starter Budd Chiari
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Budd Chiari said:
well. . .maybe pick something multidisciplinary, with a lot of flexibility as to future mode of practice.
I guess if u start out by narrowing down surgical vs non-surgical, that might help.
One of my friends a couple years ago was also facing a decision-making dilemma still midway through september (although her situation was that she couldn't decide between surgery and EM). She ended up applying to both, and ended up matching at a surg prelim followed by 3 years of EM. Dont know if she ended up going surg all the way after her prelim, but at least she got to really find out if this was what she wanted.
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Accounting.Budd Chiari said:
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Probably at least twenty percent of 4th years are in your predicament.
If you don't know, start to narrow down to surgical vs nonsurgical is a good way to start.
Consider a broad specialty such as medicine, peds or surgery, where you can subspecialize later and change your practice entirely. Also, after the first year you can try to transfer to an advanced program if you change your mind (EM, Anesthesia, etc)
You can apply to multiple specialities, but I don't recommend letting the match decide your future career. I would try to make a choice yourself.
If you don't know, start to narrow down to surgical vs nonsurgical is a good way to start.
Consider a broad specialty such as medicine, peds or surgery, where you can subspecialize later and change your practice entirely. Also, after the first year you can try to transfer to an advanced program if you change your mind (EM, Anesthesia, etc)
You can apply to multiple specialities, but I don't recommend letting the match decide your future career. I would try to make a choice yourself.
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If you can narrow it down to just a couple of choices, you could always flip a coin......
Yes, I know, that sounds terrible, but it's a method I learned a while back to cut through all the fluff and confusion you can have in your mind and help clearly see what you would like to do most. Basically, you assign choice A to heads and choice B to tails, and flip the coin. Catch it and invert it onto your other hand quickly, keeping it covered. If you do this all without thinking too much about it, you WILL find yourself thinking "Please be B, please be B, please be B....." guess what, you just found out what you want. You don't even have to look at the coin. If you DID still find your reaction to be ambivalent, you can look at the coin. You'll either find yourself happy about the result, or disappointed, in which case you still just found out what you truly want and can disregard the coin. If you're STILL ambivalent about it, well..... go with what the coin says, cuz apparently you don't care one way or the other! 🙂
Sure this method has it's flaws, but it's been useful for me in the past, so here 'ya go!
Yes, I know, that sounds terrible, but it's a method I learned a while back to cut through all the fluff and confusion you can have in your mind and help clearly see what you would like to do most. Basically, you assign choice A to heads and choice B to tails, and flip the coin. Catch it and invert it onto your other hand quickly, keeping it covered. If you do this all without thinking too much about it, you WILL find yourself thinking "Please be B, please be B, please be B....." guess what, you just found out what you want. You don't even have to look at the coin. If you DID still find your reaction to be ambivalent, you can look at the coin. You'll either find yourself happy about the result, or disappointed, in which case you still just found out what you truly want and can disregard the coin. If you're STILL ambivalent about it, well..... go with what the coin says, cuz apparently you don't care one way or the other! 🙂
Sure this method has it's flaws, but it's been useful for me in the past, so here 'ya go!
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MattD said:
If you are having trouble making a decision either the choices are equivalent... flip a coin. Or you don't have enough information.... you need to do more research.
Do your board scores preclude you from some things?
I felt that way last year. While I could envision myself doing any one of many things, every field seemed to have a fatal flaw when looking at it in the long term. I wanted something I could sustain over a whole career without getting burned out or bored. It was a little nerve wracking when August was drawing to a close and I needed letters. I don't know if you've ever considered it, but I ended up choosing path, because we have to know everything about every organ system, we get to work with our hands while also being "cerebral," and it's such broad training that we have a huge array of practice options available to us...we can spend all day every day seeing patients if we want, we can do business and lab management stuff, or hard core scientific research, or diagnostic pathology aka "the doctor's doctor," or we can find a niche that is a combination of several things; we can go into industry, consulting, or law enforcement. So I guess I still haven't "decided." If all else fails and I try various niches and still hate my job, at least I'll have plenty of free time for a life outside medicine. I get 8 hours of sleep a night and have yet to come in on a weekend. It's almost a crime. 
Anyhow, if you have any interest at all in path, I'd be happy to talk with you via PM.
Good luck with your decision.
Anyhow, if you have any interest at all in path, I'd be happy to talk with you via PM. Good luck with your decision.
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cytoborg said:
How can you see patients all day? I thought that was part of the deal with pathology--no alive patient contact. That's very cool.
Anyway, I feel for you OP. My problem until about a day and half ago was that the only field I really enjoy, is surgical and the lifestyle scared me (I have a small baby at home). Unfortunately nothing else was appealing to me and I was really trying to talk myself into something a bit easier but all it was doing was depressing me and I felt like I just wanted to not do any residency at all. Now that I've decided that I am not someone who can choose for lifestyle alone and have decided to just go for it, I feel like a weight has been lifted and I am SO excited. I guess what I'm saying is that maybe there IS something you like more than other fields but for some reason you are trying to talk yourself out of it. (Like psych or FP because everyone looks down on it, or ENT because you don't think you'll get in, etc). It's worth exploring anyway. Good luck, this whole residency picking thing is maybe the most stressful decision to be made so far in this med school process.
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Wednesday said:
WOW. This is exactly what my problem is. My favorite field was surgery, but I dismissed this long ago for various reasons (long hard residency, dealing with a-holes, terrible lifestlye).
You're right. THis IS stressful. I can't sleep, can't focus. I'm constantly thinking about next year and the uncertainty of where I will be, what I'll be doing.
Well at least I'm not alone.........
