Dammit I spent too much time on that post to have it languish on page 2 of 3.
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Cytotech27 you are about to get my full efforts here...I like cytotechs they are underappreciated.
I'm not sure why they tell you that...I think it's reasonable to express an interest in whatever field you choose. However, you have to be careful to qualify that with a willingness to try new things. If you say you are only interested in pathology and know you want to go into it, they might not be too impressed. It is similar to someone who goes in and says their lifelong ambition is to be a pediatric nephrologist and they can't even think of any other possible careers. Many med schools are looking for people who have an interest in primary care, in particular "serving the underserved." The problem is that TONS of people go into interviews paying lip service to this, and in actuality may believe it themselves. But then they get well into med school and those plans get shot to ****. But then again, I would also say that anyone entering med school who absolutely does not want to consider primary care probably has no business going to med school. The purpose of being a doctor is to help people, after all.
You certainly don't want to go in to an interview with a "well gee I guess I might like internal medicine the most" attitude. Med schools like people who are potential leaders of the future, who have leadership skills, problem solving skills, and a love of learning and enthusiasm. What they really want to hear is that you have thought about it. Med school is 4 years long, after which comes many years of lots of work with little pay before you are truly a "real doctor." They want to make sure you are not going into it lightly, that you have thought about the sacrifices and rewards it entails, and that you have considered what your life might be like as a result. Thus, only reasonable that they ask you what your plans for the future might be. Be honest. They don't expect people to have had enough clinical experience to be able to fully grasp what it is like to be in a certain field.
You are a different sort of premed - so don't take anything I say here and following personally. You actually have tangible experience in a field. More than the typical college premed who volunteered in a NICU and thus "knows" that they want to be a neonatologist even though they haven't seen any procedures, dealt with the metabolic and infectious complications, or figured out if they enjoy dealing with some of the sickest patients on earth. Your experience will definitely color your future, so acknowledge this in interviews. You like pathology because you have had lots of exposure to the field. That's great!
I get a kick out of lots of other premeds who feel like they have to be definite with their career choices, as if they have the slightest clue about not only what the field they aspire to is like, but whether it is suited to their personality and their mental makeup. Sure, express an interest in dermatology, but understand that it is an interest to find more about the field. You can't go through med school doing all your rotations in different specialties. You have to explore, and you will learn from all of them, some more than others. There will come a time when all med students start to refine their life and career goals so that picking a specialty becomes important. You will start to weed out potential careers early on (like I said a big NO to a career in endocrinology VERY early on) while others may seem attractive but lose luster (like me with geriatrics) once you see what the field is really like. Others may come at you in unexpected ways and you have to be open to realizing the benefits.
So, long story short (too late!), I wouldn't necessarily play down your interest in path, but don't necessarily play it up either. Use it to your advantage. Play the game. Be the compromise candidate! Be Henry Clay! (obscure 1800's American political reference)
BTW, your observation about non-path docs being confused by slides is very accurate - many med schools are now, unfortunately, minimizing the traditional teaching of seeing tons of slides and having tons of lab time. In exchange, they are getting touchy-feely and opening up cans of EVIDENCE BASED MEDICINE whup-ass too often. A lot of med school now is not spent on the pathophysiology of things like cancer or CHF, but instead on multiculturalism, sensitivity training, etc, all stuff that is somewhat important to be sure but is so patently obvious to most semi-intelligent individuals that it insults the intelligence to spend so much time on. I want my freaking doctor to understand my health problems and know how to treat them. That is paramount to me. Frankly I don't care if he doesn't understand completely that Polish jokes are potentially insulting and hurtful to me. They should be able to weed out the losers and misfits along the way. By all means spend time on learning how to interview patients and other "social" aspects, but in moderation please. The best doctors and patient advocates are that way because of their life experiences and their own personalities, not because someone talked to them for an hour about "listening" to the patient better. Duh. If you aren't listening to the patient and forming an impression based on that then what the heck are you doing?
So let it be written! So let it be done!
