Does shadowing as a M1/M2 help you figure out what specialty to pursue?

[whenthelightsgo_OUT]

All I've heard is to keep all your options open and that most people don't really decide until end of M3 after you finished the core clerkships.

Why does shadowing earlier not help you decide? And if does, how does it help you?

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[TelemarketingEnigma]

It helps for sure, especially for some big broad decisions (OR or not? Inpatient or outpatient? Etc) But since you usually only do it for at most a couple hours, and are typically not doing any actual work yourself, it doesn’t give you as full of a picture of what it is like to do that specialty every day as your job.

I would say most of my classmates had a decent idea at least if what general realm of medicine they wanted to be in by mid 3rd year if not earlier, maybe just choosing between two related specialties, with only a few late surprise complete changes

 

[SunBakedTrash]

Shadow stuff you won’t have a chance to see in M1-M2. Think radiation oncology, pathology, radiology, derm, outpatient IM specialties, surg subspecialty stuff. No point in seeing gen surg or obgyn if you have to spend 12 weeks in it as an M3. By M4 it’s pretty much too late if you don’t have an idea.

 

[SpinShady]

a physician once told me that the most important thing to figure out is whether you want to:

a. do procedures
b. see patients
c. both
d. neither (radiology)

use shadowing during MS1/2 to narrow this down. If you already think you know which you would prefer from the choices above then you can start shadowing the specialties that fall within the category.