In your interviews, did they ever ask about specialty?

[monkeyMD]

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In general, how do you approach such questions if they come up?
What if you do not have a specialty in mind? Do most people have one in mind by the time they apply?

 

[235009]

yea i got that question a few times times

i said EM or ID (infectious disease) ...but made sure to say that i was unsure. Whatever you do make sure it makes sense and/or you have a reason...those were my interests because I had extensive shadowing/research in the ER and was an EMT and had extensive work experience i HIV.

DEFINITELY don't go in there and say "derm" or "plastic surgery" unless you have solid and very extensive experience in either of those fields and even then i would strongly recommend you never say either of those and to a lesser extent "neurosurgery". If you are interested in a surgical sub-specialty say surgery.

Some schools might be looking for people interested in primary care but if you truly aren't interested in that don't lie to get in cause you might be miserable once you get there.

EDIT: now that i've taken micro in med school it is highly unlikely that i'd end up in ID

 

[addo]

all the time.

I honestly dont have a specialty in mind, but went ahead and said that i was leaning more towards something surgery related because blah blah blah.

 

[NickNaylor]

I got asked this at several interviews. You can probably give whatever answer you want, though there seems to be the idea floating around SDN that giving a particular specialty might be a bad thing.

 

[anfleisch]

The idea behind this is that you may be idealistic about what medicine and medical school is really like and just heard that people in those fields make a lot of money or are in the movies. If you have real extensive experience than it can be another story. But this does not include hanging out with a single doc for a day.

 

[Charles_Carmichael]

It wasn't really outright brought up in my interviews, but my research history was brought up at all interviews and that led to a discussion of what field I'm interested in.

I agree with others that it's best to point out that while you're currently interested in a certain field, you're open to change based on clinical rotations, etc, since that generally seems to be true anyways (ex. a significant number of people who enter med school with a specialty in mind end up doing something else).

 

[deleted357625]

In general, how do you approach such questions if they come up?
What if you do not have a specialty in mind? Do most people have one in mind by the time they apply?

just say your keeping all options open etc

 

[yamaraja808]

I got asked this at several interviews. You can probably give whatever answer you want, though there seems to be the idea floating around SDN that giving a particular specialty might be a bad thing.

It is usually best to say I am uncertain in most cases. If one is applying to a school that is primary care oriented and one wants to be a radiologist (the school even has this as a clerkship option), then it would not be a good idea to answer the question with certainty.

If one can make the case that this speciality can be applied to primary care or researcher (depending on the schools orientation), then it is okay to give a certain answer.