I had a really difficult time picking a field in medical school. Every time I did a rotation, I thought to myself that I could do this for the rest of my life and be happy (except psych).
When it came time to pick, I couldn't figure out between peds and IM. Both are similar in that they are a very general field with lots of specialty choices. I wasn't smart enough to apply med-peds and I don't like OB or women's health enough to do family medicine. I ended up applying to EM because there is a decent amount of contact with both adults and kids and it seemed like a fun field where you see everyone who comes in the door no matter what their problem. In 4th year, I started to have doubts, but I told myself to get on with it.
3 months in, I don't like EM enough to do it for the rest of my life. I do like parts of the job like the wide variety of patients and pathology which can be emergent, urgent, or even just matters of convenience. I like working up people, ordering labs, looking at images, and treating, so on and so forth. But I dislike some very integral parts of the speciality like shift work. I didn't like it as a student and I thought I would just get used to it but I hate it. I hate the uncertainty of all these different shifts. I like routine. The second thing is clinic. I miss clinic, I want to have patients of my own who I follow for a while. There's a certain freedom in knowing this is your patient and any decisions made are between you and them and if you need to change something, it will be only up to you two to change it.
I don't know which field to pick between IM and peds and Sept 15th is around the corner. I honestly like both. I have a personal statement written for IM but not for peds yet. I would probably only be able to do 6-7 interviews which is not enough for two fields.
Forgive the rambling, I was on night shift. Haven't slept yet.
When it came time to pick, I couldn't figure out between peds and IM. Both are similar in that they are a very general field with lots of specialty choices. I wasn't smart enough to apply med-peds and I don't like OB or women's health enough to do family medicine. I ended up applying to EM because there is a decent amount of contact with both adults and kids and it seemed like a fun field where you see everyone who comes in the door no matter what their problem. In 4th year, I started to have doubts, but I told myself to get on with it.
3 months in, I don't like EM enough to do it for the rest of my life. I do like parts of the job like the wide variety of patients and pathology which can be emergent, urgent, or even just matters of convenience. I like working up people, ordering labs, looking at images, and treating, so on and so forth. But I dislike some very integral parts of the speciality like shift work. I didn't like it as a student and I thought I would just get used to it but I hate it. I hate the uncertainty of all these different shifts. I like routine. The second thing is clinic. I miss clinic, I want to have patients of my own who I follow for a while. There's a certain freedom in knowing this is your patient and any decisions made are between you and them and if you need to change something, it will be only up to you two to change it.
I don't know which field to pick between IM and peds and Sept 15th is around the corner. I honestly like both. I have a personal statement written for IM but not for peds yet. I would probably only be able to do 6-7 interviews which is not enough for two fields.
Forgive the rambling, I was on night shift. Haven't slept yet.
