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ortnakas said:
You’re deciding between cardio, plastics, oculoplastics, and ophthalmology now?

You need to do some soul searching on rotations and figure out what you like. You’re asking this kind of question too early.
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Agreed. It’s fine to speculate but way too early to really seriously consider these kinds of questions.
 
KaratCake said:
Nope, just the first 3. I know for oculoplastics you have to go into ophthalmology, and given it's got so few spots a year there could be a chance I end up going for it but not getting in, landing me with ophthalmology. That's why I feel I should at least consider how the rest of ophtho sits with me, but I get what you're saying

Reason I'm a little all over the place is because I'd like to commit myself to something as soon as possible so I make good use of my (relatively-free) time in my preclin years, and for it to be towards something I want. I suppose the only thing I can really do is just work towards the most competitive specialty on my list, and see how I feel about it come time for rotations, though it'd sure suck if I end up doing something completely different than what I worked towards in my preclin years.
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Still- you’re going about this backward. You need to be figuring out what you want to do for the rest of your life, not how to be competitive for the next year.
 
Never pick a specialty solely for a fellowship, because there's no guarantee you'll get that fellowship. If you wouldn't be happy with ophtho if you couldn't do oculoplastics, you shouldn't do ophtho. That's it.

Similar to your other thread, you're asking for advice on a question only you can answer. Don't just focus on what "looks cool." A lot of med students think surgery looks cool until they actually try it.

How about putting some of your free time into shadowing? Ask around and see if you can scrub into some cases. Figure out if you love surgery first, then worry about the specifics.

If you think you really want to do plastics, you can always do some research or something now to build your resume. It won't hurt your chances at IM, which isn't too competitive. But keep in mind you may be sinking hundreds of hours into something that might just end up as a footnote on your CV.
 
KaratCake said:
Figured that's the case (although it probably doesn't apply to IM), thank you! Have shadowed all the specialties I've talked about in my two threads (OR, inpatient, outpatient, you name it) which is why I feel decently confident in them. The likely path I'm going to take is starting to do research in the more competitive specialties on my list, and if I do decide on something like cards it won't be a huge hassle since IM isn't the toughest thing in the world to match into.
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Still does apply to IM actually. Some people who do IM but only want cards/GI/etc have a bad time. Only do IM if you can deal with the chance of being a hospitalist or PCP.
 
ortnakas said:
Still does apply to IM actually. Some people who do IM but only want cards/GI/etc have a bad time. Only do IM if you can deal with the chance of being a hospitalist or PCP.
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I’m not sure if this is true for those applying for strong academic IM programs, because those programs want to see their graduates match into competitive fellowships (unless of course residents want to do hospitalist/PCP work)
 
If you are not sure about ophtho in general, you should go plastic surgery. Plastic surgeons do ptosis and other eyelid issues all the time. You don't even need a fellowship. Oculoplastic surgeons usually develop the interest in plastic while doing their residency. I don't think you can really aim for oculoplastic as a med student since there are so few spots and you have no idea how your residency will turn out.
 
I would say plastic surgery is more difficult to get into than ophthalmology, but not enough to offset the extra fellowship match. Ophtho -> oculoplastics isn't any kind of "back door" to facial plastics. If what you really want to do is work on the face, the only routes to doing that are all pretty competitive (plastics, ENT, oculoplastics, or OMFS if coming from dentistry).
 
If you are worried about best utilizing your free time I would say to just start research in ophtho or plastics. They both essentially require it to match and even if you switched to the other as long as it was productive and resulted in a pub/presentation/abstract it wouldn't be wasted time.
 
KaratCake said:
Figured that's the case (although it probably doesn't apply to IM), thank you! Have shadowed all the specialties I've talked about in my two threads (OR, inpatient, outpatient, you name it) which is why I feel decently confident in them. The likely path I'm going to take is starting to do research in the more competitive specialties on my list, and if I do decide on something like cards it won't be a huge hassle since IM isn't the toughest thing in the world to match into.
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Shadowing gives you an idea, but honestly ime actually doing the work on rotations is different. Being scrubbed into 6 hour cases every day for months is different than shadowing in the OR a few times. I agree that your best bet is to start research in plastics or ophtho now. Prob plastics tbh.
 
ortnakas said:
Still does apply to IM actually. Some people who do IM but only want cards/GI/etc have a bad time. Only do IM if you can deal with the chance of being a hospitalist or PCP.
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Agree. I think the only fellowships you could get away with being dead set on over straight IM are maybe some of the less/noncompetitive ones like ID or Nephro, but I think both have enough overlap with PCP/hospitalist interests that you’d probably do okay in IM anyway
 
Is it true that oculoplastics is inbred? Like, literally inbred? As in the field is controlled and filled by only a few families?
 
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