Endocrinology, neurology, psychiatry, surgery... PhD/MD...

[Mel Belle]

These are the specialties I'm interested in. Since I'm a freshman in undergrad I know I have plenty of time to figure this out, but I was curious about what people have to say about these specialties.

Unbeknownst to me, I entered college not knowing how popular an interest in neurosurgery was. Perhaps for some people it's the money. I mean, I definitely wouldn't be opposed to a salary like that (Louboutins!), but I just love the nervous system. And I love dissections. Fixing things. Painstakingly tedious work. I thought it would be something I'd like to do. Even working that many hours. Until I realized how many hours I wouldn't have to spend with the future family I'd like to create. I'm not necessarily giving this dream up, but I am looking to explore the other possibilities. Either way, if I'm aiming for something as difficult as neurosurgery it will keep me working hard in medical school.

Neurology by itself I feel like I have less interest for. Actually, I feel as though I have less interest for specialties in general that aren't surgery... But I imagine the lifestyle for physicians in neurology, endocrinology, and psychiatry are better than a neurosurgeon, at least if you look at hours a week. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) I love the nervous system, but being just a neurologist and not at all a surgeon doesn't seem as "fun" to me. I use the term fun lightly because I'm well aware that surgery is not an easy field. But I do like it.

I've also, for some time, had intentions of going PhD/MD. I haven't given up those intentions. I haven't given up anything, really, because I'm still figuring out exactly what specialty I'd like to do... And it will likely change in some way during medical school anyways. I love research... But I don't just want to be a research scientist. Because I also love medicine and the idea of fixing/helping people. I know you don't need a PhD to do research... But now I'm trying to remember what the point of doing PhD/MD is if you don't need a PhD for research. Just to look cool with two doctorates? Haha, kidding. Could someone enlighten me?

When I think about doing research in medicine, I immediately think of psychiatry because it's such a young field still. But, I'm not so sure how much I would enjoy being a psychiatrist. It's probably typical of me to say, but it seems kind of... Scary. I would like people to give me reasons to not think it's scary. Reasons that I should want to become a psychiatrist. I've observed psychiatric wards before and it was really intimidating. Knowing about the history of lobotomies and whatnot also didn't help. So someone please give me some positives to balance out these negatives. And also important negatives I didn't mention. While I think psyciatry is a legitimate field that needs research to be done, I kind of have to like it before I can do that haha. (As an aside, I took the medical specialties quiz and I was matched 100% with psychiatrist, so that's why I'm asking.)

Endocrinology I've always loved. I love chemistry and I'm sure I'll love biochemistry once I get to it. I've been to an endocrinologist before and I was fascinated by what he was telling me. I've studied anatomy and physiology in high school and it was one of my favorite systems to study. I actually chose biochemistry as a major partly because I'm interested in endocrinology. I'm not sure I have a list of things to say about it, though. It seems like a physician job that I would enjoy. But in looking to endocrine surgery it seemed a bit boring... Compared to neurosurgery I guess, haha. Only three glands to work on? Lame! Just kidding. I fear this may sound like a silly question but... Do endocrine surgeons have regular (non-surgery) office patients like endocrinologists? I ask this because I know OBGYNs have office patients that don't require surgery but they do surgery. Also, neurosurgeons only have patients that require or are being evaluated for surgery and don't have non-surgical patients like a neurologist would. My guess would be that this has to do with the intensiveness of the type of surgery.

I really appreciate any insight you guys have for me and I look forward to the interesting things you have to say!

Edit: Does anyone have anything to say about cross disciplinary fields? Such as neuroendocrinology, neuropsychiatry, etc. Because combining the things I like the most doesn't seem like a bad idea to me. It actually sounds more interesting in a sense. What about academic medicine?

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[jd989898]

At this point (freshman in undergrad), I think the most important decision to make is whether or not you want to simply go into the medical field. It seems like you've clearly decided on your interest, so at this point the best things you can do are take classes that interest you, shadow doctors in the fields you're interested in, involve yourself in varied extra curriculars to explore your interests, and give 100% to everything you do. I'm a freshman in undergrad too, but this is the advice I've sort of picked up from lurking here for a few months. From what I can tell, many medical students don't have any better of an idea than you do about what specialty they want to go into, and their minds are made up once they do their clinical rotations in the 3rd year of med school.

 

[mcloaf]

Relax. Focus on getting into medical school, not what you think you'll want to do once you get there.

Shadow physicians in fields that interest you and get involved early in research to see if you'd actually want to add a PhD to your training.

 

[deleted127837]

Freshmen in undergrad - just like people who were just accepted to medical school - really have no business debating the nuances of specialties they won't experience for several years yet.

Keep initial interests in their place - initial interests - and don't assign any overriding importance to things or make decisions on how you feel about fields you haven't been in yet. It'll make it that much more difficult when you decide in your 3rd year of medical school that you kinda really like urology, and you debate the lifelong goal vs. the actual interest.

Everyone's advice here is good - shadow, get some exposure, but now's not the time to be making decisions.

--

I don't have time to directly address your textual wondering aloud, but:

But now I'm trying to remember what the point of doing PhD/MD is if you don't need a PhD for research. Just to look cool with two doctorates? Haha, kidding. Could someone enlighten me?

Some people really like research, and want a research-oriented career, but also want to be able to treat patients. They want the best of both worlds, and this cockamamie MD/PhD idea developed. The grad school admins love it because they're not "losing talent to medicine," and the med school admins love it because they're usually getting a top-class candidate for these positions.

For the students? They get 6~9 years to explore whatever they want, fully paid for, and still get an MD at the end of it. Not a bad deal if you're inclined to burn time liberally like that. In my opinion, the only reason to even think about an MD/PhD is if you have both a) a strong, strong interest in doing primarily translational research, right on the line between basic sciences (PhD) and clinical work (MD), and b) have the personality where you have to do everything yourself.

For me personally? I think it would be a huge waste of time. If I decide I hate medicine and want to do research, I can always go back and get a PhD. If someone hates research, they could always go and get a medical degree. But I think for most people they'd be more than happy with one or the other (depending on how much patient contact they want), and many of the people pursuing it either can't make up their mind, want the money, or fit well into A or B above. Or they really, really love academia.

Maybe that's cynical. Oh, SDN, what have you done to me.

When I think about doing research in medicine, I immediately think of psychiatry because it's such a young field still. But, I'm not so sure how much I would enjoy being a psychiatrist. It's probably typical of me to say, but it seems kind of... Scary. I would like people to give me reasons to not think it's scary.

I have never met someone who says psychiatry is scary.

Edit: Does anyone have anything to say about cross disciplinary fields? Such as neuroendocrinology, neuropsychiatry, etc. Because combining the things I like the most doesn't seem like a bad idea to me. It actually sounds more interesting in a sense. What about academic medicine?

It's viable. It's just a matter of how many decades you're willing to not make a real salary, or be in a position to support a family. When you're in your 5th year of neuroendocrine psychodermatology or whatever, and your fellow graduates have had a stable income for almost a decade while you've been on a borderline resident's salary...

 

[487806]

Relax. Focus on getting into medical school, not what you think you'll want to do once you get there.

Shadow physicians in fields that interest you and get involved early in research to see if you'd actually want to add a PhD to your training.

 

[TriagePreMed]

I know you don't need a PhD to do research... But now I'm trying to remember what the point of doing PhD/MD is if you don't need a PhD for research. Just to look cool with two doctorates? Haha, kidding. Could someone enlighten me?

MD/PhD is designed for people that want a career in basic research. You don't get the experience necessary or the amount of publications for a career in basic sciences with just an MD. If you just want to conduct clinical research, you can do this with an MD only or preferably MD/MS.

Unlike others here suggest only to calm down. I suggest somewhat of the opposite. If you think MD/PhD with a career in basic sciences is what you want, you need to start getting into the research world as an undergraduate.

 

[LizzyM]

At this point, the best things you can do to help pave your way into medical school are to work hard in your classes and earn grades of not less than A- and engage in an activity that helps the needy for an average of 2 hours/wk. This need not be an activity with patients. If you want to help people, show us that you have already developed the habit of helping people.

Sometime in the next 24 months, shadow some physicians to see what they do.

The summer after your sophomore year, get a full-time laboratory project, either at your own school or as a visitor at another school. If you like research, continue through your junior year and consider a thesis in your senior year.

If you like research after having engaged in it for at least 12 months, consider if you would like a career of writing grants, conducting investigations, assessing results, writing papers, making presentations about your research, writing more grants and supervising and mentoring students and post-doc fellows (plus sitting on committees, peer reviewing others' work, and writing some more). If you'd like to spend 80% of your time on those activities for the next 30-40 years of your career, then a PhD should/could be part of your career plan either alone or with an MD.

After seeing what physicians do, you have to ask yourself if you want to devote 20-100% of your working life to the care of the sick and/or those at risk of becoming ill. You can do research as an MD without a PhD although many earn a certificate, or an MS or similar degree at some point during their training to acquire skills not acquired in medical school and through graduate medical education. As a physician, most of your time is going to be spent gathering information from patients and in some cases high tech examination techniques, assessing that information, making a treatment plan, communicating that plan to the patient, carrying out interventions or referring the patient to another for an intervention, and assessing the patient's response to the intervention. Rinse and repeat. In many situations, you are going to work as part of a team with different members of the team having different responsibilities.

What specialty you choose should come later. Medicine will change a lot in the next 7 years so that the time you become a fourth year medical student and are thinking about residency, you will use information that is not yet available to you, including your own experiences in your third year clerkships.

To recap: Work hard now and find a way to help people on a regular basis. The rest will work itself out in due time.

 

[amazing tekkers]

I guess it's just a case of, when the time comes, you'll know.

 

[Mel Belle]

At this point, the best things you can do to help pave your way into medical school are to work hard in your classes and earn grades of not less than A- and engage in an activity that helps the needy for an average of 2 hours/wk. This need not be an activity with patients. If you want to help people, show us that you have already developed the habit of helping people.

Sometime in the next 24 months, shadow some physicians to see what they do.

The summer after your sophomore year, get a full-time laboratory project, either at your own school or as a visitor at another school. If you like research, continue through your junior year and consider a thesis in your senior year.

If you like research after having engaged in it for at least 12 months, consider if you would like a career of writing grants, conducting investigations, assessing results, writing papers, making presentations about your research, writing more grants and supervising and mentoring students and post-doc fellows (plus sitting on committees, peer reviewing others' work, and writing some more). If you'd like to spend 80% of your time on those activities for the next 30-40 years of your career, then a PhD should/could be part of your career plan either alone or with an MD.

After seeing what physicians do, you have to ask yourself if you want to devote 20-100% of your working life to the care of the sick and/or those at risk of becoming ill. You can do research as an MD without a PhD although many earn a certificate, or an MS or similar degree at some point during their training to acquire skills not acquired in medical school and through graduate medical education. As a physician, most of your time is going to be spent gathering information from patients and in some cases high tech examination techniques, assessing that information, making a treatment plan, communicating that plan to the patient, carrying out interventions or referring the patient to another for an intervention, and assessing the patient's response to the intervention. Rinse and repeat. In many situations, you are going to work as part of a team with different members of the team having different responsibilities.

What specialty you choose should come later. Medicine will change a lot in the next 7 years so that the time you become a fourth year medical student and are thinking about residency, you will use information that is not yet available to you, including your own experiences in your third year clerkships.

To recap: Work hard now and find a way to help people on a regular basis. The rest will work itself out in due time.

Well, so far my grades are great. And I'm constantly learning some tricks on how to study more efficiently, so I'm hopeful I can keep that up. The only thing that's not an A is history, which I got a B+ in. That shouldn't be that damaging, right? As long as my grades tend to be As, especially in sciences, yes? I know classes are only going to get harder... But I'm also going to be getting smarter and working harder.

As for shadowing and research... In high school I shadowed a combined 100 hours worth of various specialties and also the OR. I still plan to do even more of that and see specialties I have yet to see. I was also part of a science research class in my high school where we got to work with university professors on their research. But my college has a program that's joint with the med school I would ideally go to where I would stay at the med school and do research during the summer between my junior and senior years. (Pretty convenient, right? Haha.) I'm hoping I can find some way to be involved with research before that, if I can.

As for the helping people on a regular basis... What sort of activities count? I have no transportation to anywhere off campus, so I'm not sure how I could do the 2 hours a week thing. But perhaps that's something I can ask my adviser about. When I'm home I certainly will have transportation and could drive to volunteer at hospitals and clinics. It was actually suggested to me by a nurse that I do EMS as a job during the summer for some resume-building instead of getting a job at say, my favorite retail store Express. I would like to do that and I'm working on getting information on how to go about it. But I assume that would count, right? I have a friend who is a commuter and he's an EMT. How much I would love to do that if I could actually go and do that, haha. Any ideas on things to do for this other than what was mentioned? I know it might vary between location but who knows, I may be able to do it.

I'm not trying to solidify a specialty at this moment, of course. I'm just curious to learn more about the fields I'm interested in. I'm a very open-minded person... If I ended up loving cardiology in med school then I'm certain I would go for that instead of something I was "planning" to do like maybe endocrinology.

 

[Mel Belle]

I have never met someone who says psychiatry is scary.

From experience at a psychiatric ward, the things some of the patients say can be pretty unsettling. That's minor. But people have also talked about the risk of a patient getting violent while seeing their psychiatrist. And I'm sure everyone is familiar with the things you see in the media about shock therapy and lobotomies.

But I mean, what do I know. I'm not claiming to really know anything about it, which is the purpose of this thread. I would like to learn about how a psychiatrist's experience is with patients.

 

[sevenmints]

You sound a bit like many of the precocious pre-meds at the institution where I earned my undergraduate degree. As a sr. medical student... let me say that the road is long. It is long but it is ORDERLY and going out of order is NOT appreciated or productive in a highly hierarchical profession like medicine.

Before you become sub-specialized attending physician, there is fellowship, preceded by residency preceded by clinical clerkships preceded by USMLE Step I preceded by pre-clinical medical school preceded applying to medical school preceded by getting letters, grades, experiences, MCAT, etc... all interspersed with exhaustion and self doubt in no trivial quantity.

You are at step 1: getting grades. Focus on that and moving on to getting experiences. If you would like more details about how to successfully get into medical school and some good reasons and some bad reasons to pursue medical school, then PM me.

 

[Mel Belle]

You sound a bit like many of the precocious pre-meds at the institution where I earned my undergraduate degree. As a sr. medical student... let me say that the road is long. It is long but it is ORDERLY and going out of order is NOT appreciated or productive in a highly hierarchical profession like medicine.

Before you become sub-specialized attending physician, there is fellowship, preceded by residency preceded by clinical clerkships preceded by USMLE Step I preceded by pre-clinical medical school preceded applying to medical school preceded by getting letters, grades, experiences, MCAT, etc... all interspersed with exhaustion and self doubt in no trivial quantity.

You are at step 1: getting grades. Focus on that and moving on to getting experiences. If you would like more details about how to successfully get into medical school and some good reasons and some bad reasons to pursue medical school, then PM me.

I appreciate it. But I already know that from the 500 other people who have told me that. I am focused on my grades which my transcript will attest to. Yeah, I don't have much on it, but I just started college. The important thing is that I am focused and hard-working. This thread's purpose was to learn more about the fields I have interest in, not choose a specialty. But from what people have told me, I do need to have a little bit of focus set aside for deciding whether I want to do PhD/MD or just MD. Because there's a lot extra I'd have to do for that prior to applying from what I've been told.

For the record, I'm definitely not trying to undermine what you're saying just because other people have already told me. I really do appreciate it when current medical students have advice for me. Just sometimes it's a little frustrating when it's assumed that I, as a pre-med, have little or questionable focus on my schoolwork just because I'm asking a question out of curiosity.

I would certainly be unopposed to hear what you have to say about successfully getting into med school, though.

 

[LizzyM]

Well, so far my grades are great. And I'm constantly learning some tricks on how to study more efficiently, so I'm hopeful I can keep that up. The only thing that's not an A is history, which I got a B+ in. That shouldn't be that damaging, right?

You want to be aiming for a gpa of 3.7 or better, so keep your eye on that goal.

As for shadowing and research... In high school I shadowed a combined 100 hours worth of various specialties and also the OR. I still plan to do even more of that and see specialties I have yet to see.

Good because shadowing in HS doesn't count for much, everyone wants to know how you have done since HS graduation.

I was also part of a science research class in my high school where we got to work with university professors on their research. But my college has a program that's joint with the med school I would ideally go to where I would stay at the med school and do research during the summer between my junior and senior years. (Pretty convenient, right? Haha.) I'm hoping I can find some way to be involved with research before that, if I can.

The summer after junior year is too late -- you'll be applying that summer and will want to have some research on the application you submit the first week of June at the end of your junior year... so take my advice and do some research in summer 2014.

As for the helping people on a regular basis... What sort of activities count? I have no transportation to anywhere off campus, so I'm not sure how I could do the 2 hours a week thing. But perhaps that's something I can ask my adviser about. When I'm home I certainly will have transportation and could drive to volunteer at hospitals and clinics. It was actually suggested to me by a nurse that I do EMS as a job during the summer for some resume-building instead of getting a job at say, my favorite retail store Express. I would like to do that and I'm working on getting information on how to go about it. But I assume that would count, right? I have a friend who is a commuter and he's an EMT. How much I would love to do that if I could actually go and do that, haha. Any ideas on things to do for this other than what was mentioned? I know it might vary between location but who knows, I may be able to do it.

What I was suggesting was tutoring poor kids, working in a soup kitchen, homeless shelter or pantry, being involved 8 hours once a month with Habitat for Humanity, or any other non-clinical activity that shows that you walk the walk of wanting to help people. If you have done some shadowing, don't worry too much about volunteering in a clinical setting if it isn't something you can do in your college town. Some school-based clubs have transportation to off-campus sites or have programs that bring needy kids to the campus for tutoring.

I'm not trying to solidify a specialty at this moment, of course. I'm just curious to learn more about the fields I'm interested in. I'm a very open-minded person... If I ended up loving cardiology in med school then I'm certain I would go for that instead of something I was "planning" to do like maybe endocrinology.

Good luck to you!

 

[Mel Belle]

You want to be aiming for a gpa of 3.7 or better, so keep your eye on that goal.

That's good, because my GPA is still higher than that! Hopefully there will be no more blips like that. The B+ history class was a 2 week class, so after getting a not-so-good grade on one thing I only could've gotten an A with a 100 on my last two grades. History is not my forte, haha. The next and final history class I'll be taking will be 5 weeks... So hopefully that will make it less of a, "If you screw up once, you're torched," situation.

The summer after junior year is too late -- you'll be applying that summer and will want to have some research on the application you submit the first week of June at the end of your junior year... so take my advice and do some research in summer 2014.

That's the only "official" research opportunity I know of that my school offers. I am working on getting an appointment with my major adviser and pre-health adviser to try and get into some project. I'm not sure if there's any loophole to get into that summer research program early, but I could try to find that out.

Thank you! Your advice is much appreciated.

 

[sevenmints]

http://www.fhcrc.org/content/dam/public/education/internships.pdf <--- you can always do a program outside of your home institution. These are usually awesome experiences!

 

[Mel Belle]

http://www.fhcrc.org/content/dam/public/education/internships.pdf <--- you can always do a program outside of your home institution. These are usually awesome experiences!

Thank you!

 

[HeartArtist]

If you are going to be a neurosurgeon I hope you can stomach losing LOTS of patients. I heard Dr. Ben Carson speak, and he said he killed like 13 people before he finally got a procedure to work. Just sayin...

As for MD/PhD, you better LOVE the lab. Because from what I have seen, the majority of them spend most time in the lab, very little if any seeing patients.

Other than that, just keep your interests in mind and wait until you get to see them up close and hands-on before you go running around telling everyone the ten specialties you have interest in. It makes you sound indecisive and impulsive. Keep an open mind and proceed with your education until you get that "Ah-ha" moment.

 

[Mel Belle]

If you are going to be a neurosurgeon I hope you can stomach losing LOTS of patients. I heard Dr. Ben Carson speak, and he said he killed like 13 people before he finally got a procedure to work. Just sayin...

As for MD/PhD, you better LOVE the lab. Because from what I have seen, the majority of them spend most time in the lab, very little if any seeing patients.

Other than that, just keep your interests in mind and wait until you get to see them up close and hands-on before you go running around telling everyone the ten specialties you have interest in. It makes you sound indecisive and impulsive. Keep an open mind and proceed with your education until you get that "Ah-ha" moment.

Thank you. I can't say I'm going to be a neurosurgeon, though. I wouldn't mind working long hours in a career I enjoy, but the fact that a good family life would be difficult... That alone makes me want to back off a bit. As much as I love medicine, I don't think I'd be happy seeing my future children growing up pretty much without me. Or the idea of possible divorce, since apparently divorce rates are high among neurosurgeons. But who knows. The field of neurosurgery may be completely different once I get to the point where I would go into a specialty. I'm not crossing it off the list of possibilities just yet.

But I think it's slightly contradictory when you say it makes me sound indecisive and impulsive to have interest in a few specialties while you're telling me to keep an open mind. I can understand why you might say indecisive (though I can't be decisive right now, right?) but I am curious to know why you think that would be impulsive. Is it because you think I just decide a specialty is worth going for the minute I learn about it? I'm just wondering.

Do you think my mind is really "closed" if I'm interested in more than one specialty? You know, not being hard-set on one? Just sayin'. Like I said earlier... I like learning about all the body systems. If I didn't, I doubt I'd make it to med school. If I go to med school and discover that colonoscopies are my calling, I'll go for it.

 

[darklabel]

That's good, because my GPA is still higher than that! Hopefully there will be no more blips like that. The B+ history class was a 2 week class, so after getting a not-so-good grade on one thing I only could've gotten an A with a 100 on my last two grades. History is not my forte, haha. The next and final history class I'll be taking will be 5 weeks... So hopefully that will make it less of a, "If you screw up once, you're torched," situation.




That's the only "official" research opportunity I know of that my school offers. I am working on getting an appointment with my major adviser and pre-health adviser to try and get into some project. I'm not sure if there's any loophole to get into that summer research program early, but I could try to find that out.

Thank you! Your advice is much appreciated.

History shmistory, you're sciGPA (which is arguable more important than overall) won't even consider it so you have all A/A-'s (which is awesome).

As for MD/PhD, definitely try and get some real time in the lab at either your institution or somewhere else. I worked at a research lab and I thought I wanted a PhD in Immunology, but found out that I hated research in general so I'm just trying to get into medical school.

Best advice I got here is lurk SDN as much as you can. Seems like you got your grades good so read around here for good tips on the MCAT and ECs.

Good luck!

 

[Mel Belle]

History shmistory, you're sciGPA (which is arguable more important than overall) won't even consider it so you have all A/A-'s (which is awesome).

As for MD/PhD, definitely try and get some real time in the lab at either your institution or somewhere else. I worked at a research lab and I thought I wanted a PhD in Immunology, but found out that I hated research in general so I'm just trying to get into medical school.

Best advice I got here is lurk SDN as much as you can. Seems like you got your grades good so read around here for good tips on the MCAT and ECs.

Good luck!

Thank you very much for the advice! I'll definitely be talking to my adviser ASAP about research opportunities! That's a start. And I'll supplement with the link sevenmints posted, of course.