IM vs Ob/Gyn

[jti1229]

Hi all,

I'm a rising fourth year HPSP student looking for some advice. I loved my IM rotation - working at the hospital just felt right, and I enjoyed seeing tangible results from my efforts and getting patients better. I really enjoyed the intellectual challenge. I like nerding out about cool diagnoses and I got great positive feedback from my residents and attendings. I've thought about FM, but it seems like it would be an uphill battle to work in a hospital as a military doc (most bases don't have the option other than the training hospitals), and who knows what the landscape will be 8 years from now when I'm a civilian.

However, I've always enjoyed women's health, and I'm on my ob/gyn rotation right now and I am really liking it. Only thing is it's a pretty atypical rotation - I'm one on one with the physician and I'm just working 3.5 days/week (she spends some of her time at the local health department where she doesn't bring students). I also haven't seen any deliveries yet, but I am finding myself enjoying clinic - I don't mind pelvic exams and I like the variety of office procedures. I honestly didn't love my surgery rotation (other than the genuinely cool scrub nurses and techs!) and was super grateful it was only 4 weeks - found any procedure over an hour to be tedious and I'm not really naturally gifted at working with my hands.

I've been waffling all year on a specialty choice because I've liked most of my rotations and it's been hard to rule things out. Not to mention being HPSP, I have to figure this stuff out early and I don't have much more time to keep waffling.

Thanks for reading! I appreciate any and all advice!

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[siliso]

From what you have said, do Medicine. OB is significantly surgical although your rotation isn’t showing you all of it.

 

[jti1229]

From what you have said, do Medicine. OB is significantly surgical although your rotation isn’t showing you all of it.

Thanks for the advice! I think that's a really good point and it's why I had already scheduled IM aways - I figured I wouldn't like ob/gyn since I didn't love surgery. Do you think there are opportunities to do outpatient gyn as an IM doc?

 

[Gastrapathy]

Your OB rotation wasn’t OB. Do a real one ASAP

 

[AdmiralChz]

If you haven’t even seen a delivery yet I’m not sure how we can advise you on an entire field focused around it.

You need more experience, period. Plus there are several GYN surgeries out there too, many of which take longer than an hour.

 

[mw18]

If you didn't like surgery, you probably won't like an OB residency.

 

[gutonc]

Sounds like you need to do IM at a program with a Women's Health track, or a (non-accredited) Women's Health fellowship after IM (this PDF has a list of them from 2015).

As mentioned above, your OB rotation so far has been, essentially, woman's health, and is missing the other 3/4 of what most OB/GYN's do (L&D and GYN surgery). If you do that stuff, and still love it, then go for OB. But it doesn't sound like that's what you're actually looking for.

 

[DocWinter]

If you liked IM your best bet is to continue in that. One rather light and incomplete OB rotation you enjoy is not near reality of OB residency. Also it's 50% surgery, and you don't like surgery. No brainer right there.

I'm an entering OB intern and no way should a student match a surgical field unless you really really love surgery

 

[smq123]

Thanks for the advice! I think that's a really good point and it's why I had already scheduled IM aways - I figured I wouldn't like ob/gyn since I didn't love surgery. Do you think there are opportunities to do outpatient gyn as an IM doc?

Yes. You may have to do a fellowship, or seek out an IM program that specifically teaches you more advanced womens health, but there are opportunities out there.

If you like outpatient Womens Health, I would strongly encourage you to reconsider FM. I know that the HPSP complicates it a bit, but doing Womens Health primary care out of FM is very common and usually built into the residency curriculum.

 

[Redpancreas]

Hi all,

I'm a rising fourth year HPSP student looking for some advice. I loved my IM rotation - working at the hospital just felt right, and I enjoyed seeing tangible results from my efforts and getting patients better. I really enjoyed the intellectual challenge. I like nerding out about cool diagnoses and I got great positive feedback from my residents and attendings. I've thought about FM, but it seems like it would be an uphill battle to work in a hospital as a military doc (most bases don't have the option other than the training hospitals), and who knows what the landscape will be 8 years from now when I'm a civilian.

However, I've always enjoyed women's health, and I'm on my ob/gyn rotation right now and I am really liking it. Only thing is it's a pretty atypical rotation - I'm one on one with the physician and I'm just working 3.5 days/week (she spends some of her time at the local health department where she doesn't bring students). I also haven't seen any deliveries yet, but I am finding myself enjoying clinic - I don't mind pelvic exams and I like the variety of office procedures. I honestly didn't love my surgery rotation (other than the genuinely cool scrub nurses and techs!) and was super grateful it was only 4 weeks - found any procedure over an hour to be tedious and I'm not really naturally gifted at working with my hands.

I've been waffling all year on a specialty choice because I've liked most of my rotations and it's been hard to rule things out. Not to mention being HPSP, I have to figure this stuff out early and I don't have much more time to keep waffling.

Thanks for reading! I appreciate any and all advice!

OB is a surgical field despite the quips (made in good fun) by General Surgeons. It doesn’t seem to be something you’d enjoy and not to be a damper but that HSPS is a huge factor. The military training will probably not be anything close to civilian training for a surgical field and on top of that who knows if the military will even need OB when you apply...whereas IM is probably safe in that the military always will allocate spots for that.