Do people at your school hide what specialty they are interested in?

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In retrospect, I wish I hid it and said undecided instead of divulging my interest in rads. While some attendings were cool and even went out of their way to dive into imaging more than they usually would just to get me involved, I think a lot more immediately wrote me off as disinterested in the rotation and it took convincing to win them back. It’s like basically starting from behind.

I really tried to get involved and go above and beyond most of the time. Usually the first person there, already checked labs, over night events, checked on patients I’d been following and had prepared presentations. Just didn’t matter to some attendings. I even had one attending straight up tell me he thought I was faking interest when I was asking about something I had read about the night before and was trying to clarify. Its like they forget you still have an intern year and need to know stuff.

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In retrospect, I wish I hid it and said undecided instead of divulging my interest in rads. While some attendings were cool and even went out of their way to dive into imaging more than they usually would just to get me involved, I think a lot more immediately wrote me off as disinterested in the rotation and it took convincing to win them back. It’s like basically starting from behind.

I really tried to get involved and go above and beyond most of the time. Usually the first person there, already checked labs, over night events, checked on patients I’d been following and had prepared presentations. Just didn’t matter to some attendings. I even had one attending straight up tell me he thought I was faking interest when I was asking about something I had read about the night before and was trying to clarify. Its like they forget you still have an intern year and need to know stuff.
Can't win with the bolded. This is why people lie who gun for honors every rotation. So his thought process is that you don't care yet you do all the things someone who does care would do and go above and beyond to work hard and respect the rotation. Therefore, you should be judged harshly due to your professional career aspirations. Lol at that. On the other hand, there were times I had people treat me with more respect because they saw me busting my ass in a specialty I straight up hate(but articulated that I knew the importance of.)
 
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I hated this but even worse were the tools that said they wanted to go into whatever specialty they were rotating on just so they could feign interest.
this! Funny story, while on peds rotation with another student that throughout MS3 just said he was going into whatever rotation we were on [was gunning for gen surg], he started bashing peds as "glorified babysitters" when he though the attending left the area; she was actually right around the corner txting a friend...he ranted for like 5-10min about he wouldn't go into peds if thats all he could match into; I was silent the entire time. Sure enough when he stopped talking, the attending came right around the corner and said "glad to know how you feel, I will be sure to tell the other babysitters on the service how you feel"....it was priceless!
 
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this! Funny story, while on peds rotation with another student that throughout MS3 just said he was going into whatever rotation we were on [was gunning for gen surg], he started bashing peds as "glorified babysitters" when he though the attending left the area; she was actually right around the corner txting a friend...he ranted for like 5-10min about he wouldn't go into peds if thats all he could match into; I was silent the entire time. Sure enough when he stopped talking, the attending came right around the corner and said "glad to know how you feel, I will be sure to tell the other babysitters on the service how you feel"....it was priceless!

Oh man... How does one even show their face on that rotation again????
 
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Oh man... How does one even show their face on that rotation again????
he did and acting like what he said was not a big deal, he got pissed when his eval had a lot of bad thing to say...he pulled similar stuff in gen surg like rounding on other peoples patients, telling the patient different treatment plans/ other hospitals have better technology to do a better procedure to patients, the list goes on and on. On the bright side, it made me look great so theres that lol
 
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I was talking about the Harvard/Boston thing. I agree with you about the specialty question.

I understand not wanting to say "Harvard" because people will look at you differently, but if you say "Boston" then the next question is "oh, which school?" and you still have to say it, plus they infer that you thought they couldn't handle hearing that you went to Harvard.

My perspective is the same for that question. I don't owe somebody the answer to that question. If someone keeps prying I would just politely decline to answer.
 
My perspective is the same for that question. I don't owe somebody the answer to that question. If someone keeps prying I would just politely decline to answer.
I get that and totally agree in principle, but in a casual social situation I find it more trouble than it's worth to refuse to answer.
 
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I essentially pan honored M3, I did not initially disclose my specialty choice on first rotation because I did not have my step 1 results back yet. After I had my step one results back I would also say that I was generically interested in something surgical, and if asked more I would talk about my interest in neurosurgery.

You dont have to hide your competitive interest from people, just dont rub it into people's faces that their specialties bore you etc. Just be a normal human being putting in effort to learn while you are on the wards. Yes there were instances when people gave me **** about my specialty choice, or were though on me,or tried to convince me to go into a different specialty, but there is no reason to believe they wouldnt have done the exact same anyway. Most of the time the core rotation residents and doctors would point me in the direction of something that was related to my interests.

There was a guy who would always say he was interested in the specialty he was rotating in. I doubt this dude honored any more rotations than if he had just been honest.
 
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I think there's a lot of assumptions people make when you disclose the specialty you are interested in so I don't blame people who want to keep it on the DL. For people who are interested in competitive specialties and there's also a chance they won't match in it, it is also perfectly understandable to not want to disclose and in order to not have to deal with the potential situation of having everyone know that you didn't match to your specialty of choice. At the beginning of third year I was somewhat undecided but I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted, so I experimented with different approaches, namely telling people I was undecided, that I was thinking Psych or that I was thinking Peds (my two choices at the time). Saying that I was undecided was definitely the safest choice, and no one judged me negatively for it ever. Saying I was interested in Peds also usually had a good reception. Saying I was interested in Psych, on the other hand, quickly brought up the stereotypes and several attendings just couldn't hide their dislike for the field. Once I decided for sure I wanted Psych I was sually just upfront with everyone and that led to attendings assuming I wasn't super interested and getting off my back/letting me go home early from rotations, etc. which worked out great for me, but I wasn't gunning for honors so I don't know if that would've hurt me if I was.
 
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