GI vs Urology

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dirtybob

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Hey guys, i'm having a difficult time deciding on which field to pursue....I'm a first year med student at UCSD and they require us to complete a research project...problem is, i can't decide whether i love the penis or the ass. NO JOKE!!

Both are very procedural fields, and i would love to do either one, but I just can't decide. I know its premature to think about this, but if anyone could shed some light on how to come up with an answer, please help.

Patient contact and long term patient relationship is a factor too...do any of you guys know which of the 2 fields have that potential patient relationship?

Thanks guys
dirtybob

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in GI you have patient relationships. If a person has a conditions that require longterm GI care, you do get a chance to see them in your office often. Hepatitis care, Crohns patients, CUC, etc etc.

As far as procedures, well that depends. IF you do GI, you better like playing with scopes! As was pointed out to me as a student already, "yes, doing a GI rotation is fun and seeing all of the scopes is cool, but imagine how it feels after you've done about a million scopes, its may not be so fun or cool anymore!"

But if that is what makes you happy go for it!

As far as urology, you may get a chance to do a larger variety of procedures. But you probably are not going to be seeing patients long term
 
Originally posted by bustbones26
As far as urology, you may get a chance to do a larger variety of procedures. But you probably are not going to be seeing patients long term

Not exactly. I have a friend who is a urologist, and he has a great long-term relationship with many of his patients. Many of them have chronic conditions that require them to visit fairly often, and he gets to know them quite well.
 
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The most important issue is to first ask yourself if you would rather do surgery or IM. You won't have any true idea till the end of your third year (you may love anatomy, but surgery is much much more than the OR).

The degree of relationship you want with a patient is partially up to you. However each specialty has definite long term relationships. For example, in GI you have your IBD/HepC folks who keep comming back. In Urology you'll have your prostate/interstitial cystitis(lots o psych too, what a bonus!) folks who keep comming back.
 
Urology - Sugery
GI - Internal medicine

both specialties have lots of procedures, both use scopes regularly, both have very good patient interaction, urology has 5-6year residency, GI has a 3 year residency and 2-3 year fellowship

first answer the following question and you are half way there: are you a surgery person or a medicine person?

be aware: Urology residency is much more competetive to pursue than internal medicine residency
 
dude, if you are having difficulty choosing between the 2 why don't ya just go with ORTHO? that's what i would do...
 
Originally posted by BOTB
be aware: Urology residency is much more competetive to pursue than internal medicine residency

True, but a GI fellowship isn't available for anyone doing IM. In fact, I'd say it's at least as hard to get into as urology is. If you want to have a good chance of getting a GI fellowship, you should try and get into a very competitive IM program.

That's one reason I decided not to go for cardio, b/c it's 3 more years of having to compete in an application process to get into your field. If you do urology, after med school you have your spot and are all set.
 
getting into a fellowship is all about how you perform as a resident. Getting into a residency is all about how you perform as a med student.

my point is simply: that as a M2 he should make sure to excel in med school to get into urology, since time is already short. Whereas if he decides to go into GI - it is 100x more about his work as an IM resident than his 3rd year clerkship grades, meaning he is currently under less pressure and has more time to figure things out..
 
Originally posted by BOTB
getting into a fellowship is all about how you perform as a resident. Getting into a residency is all about how you perform as a med student.

my point is simply: that as a M2 he should make sure to excel in med school to get into urology, since time is already short. Whereas if he decides to go into GI - it is 100x more about his work as an IM resident than his 3rd year clerkship grades, meaning he is currently under less pressure and has more time to figure things out..

But, when applying for a fellowship, your residency program is heavily taken into account. If you bust you butt in medical school to get into a prestigious IM program, you'll have a much better chance of matching into GI later. So medical school performance is still important (albeit indirectly) for getting into GI fellowships.
 
if you go to a decent IM program and do well there - you can get one of the 350+ GI fellowships, just like if you go to a decent med school and excel you can get one of the 210+ urology spots.

I agree that having a fancy name definately helps, but most of the GI people (just like most of the urology people) don't come from hallowed halls. And just becasue you have a fancy name program does not make a guarantee for anything.

the bottom line is still:
to get into URO - you must do well in school now
to get a GI fellowship - doing well now will help get you into better residencies, but how you perform as an IM resident is still 100x more important than your GPA.
 
I did rotations in both GI and Urology. Both are great fields.

I found GI to be a more interesting in the medical aspect than urology. Although many patients have peptic ulcer disease or want colon cancer screening, you also see everything from patients with Inflammatory Bowel disease who may have symptoms like skin disease or arthritis to the young patient with Irritable Bowel Syndrome who needs some reassurance. Research in GI is on the cutting edge right now especially with treatment of hepatitis. Also with GI, you will be very knowledgable about medicine so you're not left confused when someone asks you about their chest pain or what the side effects of some medications they're on. There are also a number of procedures you can do with the scope. At the beginning, many GI's might take an hour or something to do a scope, but after several years of training, you can do it in 10 min and bank whatever it pays for ($1000?). You can also select your practice to involve no patient care and just scoping all day from referrals, the result is a huge bank account.

I think total training in GI is 5 yrs. It seems like a tougher residency/fellowship at my institution than Urology. THe easiest way to get in is to do well in med-school and get into a higher ranked internal medicine program. If you don't do well in medical school and go into internal medicine, you can renew yourself by doing well in the residency.

Urology has more interesting procedures than GI. Alot of it involves cystoscopy which is scoping through the urethra into the bladder, but you also get to do things like open the abdomen for a radical nephrectomy. I also saw lasering kidney stones in the ureter which is almost like playing Asteroids, or sitting in for an Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy where the urologist just stands there for 45min watching the technicians doing the work while the urologist goes home with a nice check. But the medicine side of it seems pretty boring, even for me who finds penis interesting. The erectile dysfunction patients are interesting, but this is not the bulk of the specialty. And unfortunately many urologists seem clueless about general medical issues, but this goes for several surgical specialties. I think the hottest research right now in urology is in the management of prostate cancer, right now there is much controversy on this subject.

I think total training is 6 yrs. To get in, you need to do well in medical school.


Okay, I could right a novel
 
the moral of this story is....
people who give advice are biased, so make your own decisions and don't beleive everything you read/hear.

experience both fields, take in information from outside sources, then make up you own mind as to what fits you best.
 
If you can't make the choice between the penis and the ass, well, you might as well go with urology. Half the time, you've got your finger up someone's ass checking the prostate anyways...
 
Originally posted by Galaxian
If you can't make the choice between the penis and the ass, well, you might as well go with urology. Half the time, you've got your finger up someone's ass checking the prostate anyways...

good point, you can think of it as the best of both worlds!
 
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