How did you guys decide on your specialty?

[MonsterGod]

I’m an incoming med student at KCU and I’m currently interested in ortho since I’ve worked in that field for the past couple of years. But I know that might change once I get exposed to other specialties like ENT, derm, etc.

I want to get involved in research during med school, especially since it’s important for competitive specialties. But the thing is a lot of advice says you should do research specific to the field you want to match into. How are we supposed to know what that is early on? What if I start doing ortho research and then decide I like ENT or derm more?

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[Sidus1011]

Caveat I haven't undergone match yet, so this is contingent on that going well. I was between Psych and Neuro prior to entering school; I will be applying to Neuro later this year. I found shadowing in the first couple of years of med school to be highly underrated; a lot of people thought they were past the shadowing phase, but I found that shadowing in medical school is a bit different. People are much more receptive to showing you the good and bad of the specialty, and I felt more respected compared to shadowing in my pre-med years. I was able to get a sense of the daily life and what made the field special as I accrued more knowledge too. This allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of each field and establish early connections with individuals who will eventually become my letter writers. This coupled with my rotations just further solidified thoughts I had already had about what I enjoy about medicine and what I don't.

This is more important for highly competitive fields, as you need to figure out what you want early to get that field specific research you were talking about and to make connections to faculty who can later vouch for you.

 

[Dr. Anonymouss]

Step 1.) Do you like the OR or do you like clinic and rounding
step 2.) do you want to work a lot or a little
Step 3.) do you want a lot of money or is money not important to you
Step 4.) out of the few remaining specialties, which can you see yourself doing for 20-30 years

This is how I ended up at anesthesia

 

[hellosnd]

Do research that you are passionate about. If you can talk about it during your interviews, you will be okay.

I think a lot of people re-think their specialties after their board scores come out, granted this was back when step 1 was scored, so idk how it has been like with step 1 p/f.

You may love ortho/ent/derm etc but if you scored low, and you are coming from a DO program, you are going to have trouble matching into those specalities

 

[Ho0v-man]

I picked based on what I hated. Bc the stuff you hate about your specialty you’ll always hate. Meanwhile the stuff you love about your specialty will become mundane and routine/reflexive. So I picked something where the stuff I hated didn’t really grate on me too bad.

I hated surgery so that was easy. I hated how much administrative BS/insurance companies keeps you from practicing medicine in a clinic. I hated how much of IM is really just discharge planning. I hated that all the IM subspecialties I was interested in basically paid the same or slightly less than IM. I hated how little respect anesthesiologists get. But there was a lot I liked about all the above.

I ended up in rads bc the stuff I don’t like is pretty transient throughout my shift. Like I hate getting inundated with non-indicated imaging but it’s usually pretty straightforward when it shouldn’t have been ordered in the first place.

Edit: You also have to weigh your interests against what you’re actually capable of matching into. Most of the people who talk only about the most competitive specialties before med school realize by the end of M1 they aren’t willing to do all the crap it takes to match them.

 

[Konigstiger]

Money, lifestyle, ease of match; you can pick two at most. I valued lifestyle and ease of match most, so that is how I picked my specialty.

There is no good answer to your question about how to know which specialty you want before medical school even starts so you can jump right into relevant research, but it is true that a lot of people already know they're going to be aiming for a competitive specialty and have been training for it since high school or even before that. Some people were exposed to medicine at an early age, either through their parents or the Internet or some other means, and the rest of us just have to catch up.

 

[Roxas]

Step 1.) Do you like the OR or do you like clinic and rounding
step 2.) do you want to work a lot or a little
Step 3.) do you want a lot of money or is money not important to you
Step 4.) out of the few remaining specialties, which can you see yourself doing for 20-30 years

This is how I ended up at anesthesia

5) Did you get 1 month into medical school and realize you hate general medicine as a whole?

This is how I ended up in psychiatry.

 

[Dr. Anonymouss]

5) Did you get 1 month into medical school and realize you hate general medicine as a whole?

This is how I ended up in psychiatry.

Honestly, the first two years of medical school I enjoyed learning about everything. It wasn't until 3rd year where I started to question my decision of pursuing medicine. Learning the medicine is one thing, which I truly enjoyed, but actually doing the job on a daily basis is different. I realized there is a lot of BS involved in each specialty and that's what drove me away more than anything. The endless paperwork/notes, rounding, hurdles you have to jump through to treat patients. It's all just exhausting. I found anesthesiology mitigates 99% of the things I couldn't tolerate during 3rd year clinicals.