Everybody and their dog.....
Started by ScootDoc
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
I hear ya. MS1 here and not killing classes like everyone else either, but not stressin about it either. Hopefully got a nice summer research gig lined up, will bust my *** next year, hopefully kill boards, and 3rd year. Everything seems so cookie cutter for residency heh.
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Why is this? I've noticed this myself during MS1.
Better question is why not?
Though I don't have personal experience, the field of ortho seems awesome. From what I've seen in my class and from these boards, sports background is a huge factor for many since plenty of people have had their own personal injury stories. It's a field a lot get semi-exposed to early on in life (compare to something like path., anesthesiology, or rads or something)
The work seems fun, it's hands-on'ey. You get to play with toys. For the most part, you save lifestyles, not lives. To me, that's a huge +. There are a ton of subspecialties (i.e. sports med, hand, And the salary is on the upper end. Orthopedics FTMFW.
And I agree, once board scores come around I bet plenty (hopefully not me) will be giving up the dream.
So here's my perspective, having been an MS1 in a class where a good 40% of the men and maybe 10% of the women were at some point "thinking ortho" and now being a near-done MS2 (for us, end of clerkship year) whose classmates are now more "thinking rads".
You come in, you're a fairly big dude, you've always been the guy on the sports team who was "the one with the brain" but you don't really like the idea of giving up the jock-like lifestyle. Or you're the girl who's a guy's-girl and did some sort of varsity sport and got along way better with dudes than dudettes your whole life; maybe you were even one of those "honorary" frat members. Maybe you've busted your ACL at some point in the game. You like to keep active and likely still do some kind of running/swimming/triathalon type business not because you're in a team or a club but because you really like it. You get to med school and you're not the smartest one in the bunch but you've got a good work ethic and you like to work with your hands. So you show up to med school and realize that a lot of people in medicine are huge dorks who like to play "let's who can come up with the most ridiculous possible diagnosis" or like to talk for 3 hours about hypernatremia. You, on the other hand, really like dissecting your cadaver and think it's pretty cool when you find out how bones remodel in response to different stress vectors respond and figure out how to draw muscles in terms of levers. You do your surgery rotation and realize that general surgeons work way too hard and don't get paid nearly enough, and then you finally get on your orthopedics rotation and learn that they go out to bars on Fridays, almost never kill anyone, and typically have patients that (get this) get better. Usually the patients are pretty happy with what gets done to them, too, especially if it's a joint replacement. You may not save lives, but you definitely make them BETTER.
If most of this is true, you'll probably be a great fit for orthopedics.
However, some people on the line fall off into a number of different paths. They might realize they LIKE that intellectual showboating and ENJOY dropping rare eponymous syndromes to exemplify how much they studied. They might realize that they LIKE treating sick patients and hate cancer and decide to dedicate their life to the noble but sad crusade against it. They might realize they hate the sun and do radiology, or hate people and do pathology.
Most frequently, though, what I've noticed is that people realize ortho isn't all sports medicine and becoming the "team doctor" for your favorite NFL program. There's cancer. There's really sad traumas. There's fiddly little hand surgeries and big giant amputations. There's crazy scoliosis surgeries on kids. There's a LOT of joint replacements on really really old people.
There's trauma call.
There's a surgical intern year.
There's the fact that a large number of people who want to do orthopedics don't match into it.
And there's the boards.
And frankly I think it ends up being a lot more hard work than some people are willing to put in.
You come in, you're a fairly big dude, you've always been the guy on the sports team who was "the one with the brain" but you don't really like the idea of giving up the jock-like lifestyle. Or you're the girl who's a guy's-girl and did some sort of varsity sport and got along way better with dudes than dudettes your whole life; maybe you were even one of those "honorary" frat members. Maybe you've busted your ACL at some point in the game. You like to keep active and likely still do some kind of running/swimming/triathalon type business not because you're in a team or a club but because you really like it. You get to med school and you're not the smartest one in the bunch but you've got a good work ethic and you like to work with your hands. So you show up to med school and realize that a lot of people in medicine are huge dorks who like to play "let's who can come up with the most ridiculous possible diagnosis" or like to talk for 3 hours about hypernatremia. You, on the other hand, really like dissecting your cadaver and think it's pretty cool when you find out how bones remodel in response to different stress vectors respond and figure out how to draw muscles in terms of levers. You do your surgery rotation and realize that general surgeons work way too hard and don't get paid nearly enough, and then you finally get on your orthopedics rotation and learn that they go out to bars on Fridays, almost never kill anyone, and typically have patients that (get this) get better. Usually the patients are pretty happy with what gets done to them, too, especially if it's a joint replacement. You may not save lives, but you definitely make them BETTER.
If most of this is true, you'll probably be a great fit for orthopedics.
However, some people on the line fall off into a number of different paths. They might realize they LIKE that intellectual showboating and ENJOY dropping rare eponymous syndromes to exemplify how much they studied. They might realize that they LIKE treating sick patients and hate cancer and decide to dedicate their life to the noble but sad crusade against it. They might realize they hate the sun and do radiology, or hate people and do pathology.
Most frequently, though, what I've noticed is that people realize ortho isn't all sports medicine and becoming the "team doctor" for your favorite NFL program. There's cancer. There's really sad traumas. There's fiddly little hand surgeries and big giant amputations. There's crazy scoliosis surgeries on kids. There's a LOT of joint replacements on really really old people.
There's trauma call.
There's a surgical intern year.
There's the fact that a large number of people who want to do orthopedics don't match into it.
And there's the boards.
And frankly I think it ends up being a lot more hard work than some people are willing to put in.
Great post.
That was a great post. One of the main reasons everyone seems interested in ortho is that it is something that they have been exposed to in their life. Most people by the time they are 22 have had some sort of orthopedic injury, while many have never seen what the other fields of medicine are really about. So when on rotations, I think many people see what else is out there and decide on one of those specialties. Oh and of course the boards is always a factor.
Very well said. The work ethic factor/perseverance factor is what will separate the men from the boys.
...
*checks pants*
Nope, still no wiener. Where does that put me? 😳
*checks pants*
Nope, still no wiener. Where does that put me? 😳
Everything changes when you get out on the wards. There's a marked difference between the practice of a specialty compared to its intellectual "allure" in the classroom.
And you get a taste for the peoples' personality in each specialty. i.e., delivering babies sounds cool, hanging around other Ob/Gyns however is anything but
And you get a taste for the peoples' personality in each specialty. i.e., delivering babies sounds cool, hanging around other Ob/Gyns however is anything but
Seems like every guy in my class went through an ortho phase. I was there too first year. Most are going into other fields. I'm going into ENT myself. Guess I did too well on the boards. haha jk... ortho guys are great to hang out with though. its probably a work hard play hard kind of residency.
Similar threads
