Can you even narrow it down to surgical vs non-surgical?
I've heard advice from my dad and family friends (I'm a hospital brat, so lots of friends are doctors) that even if you enjoyed surgery, if there's something else you enjoy, do something else. (Very similar to the advice about med school.) However, if you don't think you can do anything like medicine, and only surgery will make you happy, look into the surgical subspecialties.
What subjects did you like in the 1st two years? Did you like the anatomy of the abdomen and thorax? Did you like cardiac phys? What about endocrine phys? Then there's micro and immunology. Are you good at physical exams and hearing things in the stethescope.
I'll use myself as an example. I came to med school with a list of possible specialties being: orthopaedic surgery, cardiology, emergency med, endocrinology and dermatology.
1st semester M1 year:-I learned that I loved the anatomy of the extremities, the muscles, nerves, vessels, etc. The lectures on those in anatomy fascinated me.
-When we got to the abdomen, the anatomy was easy, but I hated it. It was boring. I'm on a very selective gen surg rotation right now, and I hate life, even though, as a rule, I like surgery (I liked the gyn part of OB/gyn). It's gastric bypasses and small/large bowel stuff.
-The heart still fascinated me
2nd semester M2 year:
-Cardiac phys was awesome, so much fun and it made sense to me.
-Endocrine phys, I liked it in college, and I liked it in med school.
-Phys of skel muscle not as cool as cardiac
-Histo, cool all around, I loved that class
M2 year
-Path of the heart was still cool. There aren't too many things that go wrong with it, just permutations of similar things.
-Clinical exam -- I can't hear the difference in murmurs, breath sounds, heart sounds. Everything sounds normal. I decide that cardiology is not for me.
-Heme/onc -- awesome. I love blood stuff, it makes sense to me too, and it's so cool to look at.
-Derm path stuff... I learn what's actually invovled in derm and I scratch it off my list.
-Endocrine -- still interests me, but I realize I have a short attention span.
-I like path of bones and muscles.
-Pharm -- the entire subject is awesome
M3 year -- I wanted to give all specialties a shot because, well, I want to have a family at some point and ortho -- my dad's an orthopaedist, and I know how much he works.
-After psych/neuro, I learned I can't sit around and wait for tests and just talk to people, I get bored and start to space out.
-OB/gyn -- hate OB love gyn --> surgery confirmed
-FP -- I get bored seeing people for the same HTN and DM stuff. I was excited when arthritis and carpal tunnels came in. I dreaded all well child checks.
-Ortho -- that elective confirmed that I loved it. I'd stay at the hospital for hours and be happy.
-Anesthesia -- actually added it as my 2nd choice after loving my ortho elective so much knocked everything else off, and my attending wrote on my grade sheet that he wants me to do anesthesia.
-Surgery -- CT surg -- coolest surgery I saw -- rib stabilization, I got to put screws on a plate on a chick's broken ribs
gen surg -- I hate the abdomen and it's anatomy. I'm bored.
I still have to suffer through peds and internal medicine. NOT looking forward to either of those.
OK. That may seem long winded, but it's basically my thought process. I get bored easily; I need to be doing stuff. Medicine is not for me, even though I find some aspects cool. My friends who saw me on my ortho rotation told me I always looked happy.
I went through a very similar process when I decided to go to med school. I looked at all the classes I took, what I liked/didn't like about them, and then figured out I liked human health, not ecology, and medicine would be a better fit than either marine biology or a PhD in immunology.
), and in about a week's time, I'll be able to sit down and let all of my impending 4th year really sink in...
