Interested in EM, don't think I have the right personality

[BeastInfection]

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I feel like I'm more suited to something like psychiatry or neuro. I like thinking about things for awhile and mulling them over, exploring different options. I don't think in particularly great at making rapid decisions "on the fly" (though I've never been asked to). The thought of having an endless stream of people waiting to be seen stresses me out a bit. I'm not a particularly high energy person. And I honestly question how I'd handle a truly emergent situation.

However, I have a blast in the ER. It's where I spent my premed volunteer days that encouraged me to keep going, and I've been lucky to spend a good chunk of time in the ED on my peds and surgery rotations (we were only supposed to spend a few evenings there, but ended up swapping a bunch of other stuff so that I could hang out in the ED), and seriously enjoy my time there. I had never seriously thought about EM since I figured I wasn't cut out for it, but in recent moths it has risen to the top for me.

I'll do an elective in it next year, but was hoping to get some thoughts about the type of person and personality EM is best suited for. Any opinions?

 

[shopsteward]

Is this a case of opposites attracting? Perhaps you are finding that ER stimulates you to speed up your thinking, and your energy levels feed off the activity of the ER. Perhaps a more "reflective" specialty would lead your natural tendencies further in directions you have already gone down far enough.

The way to deal with emergencies is to have the appropriate training and experience. The proportion of people who are good in an emergency without either training or experience must be vanishingly small. Armed forces, police, fire, all depend entirely on training and experience to get the job done. Same with emergency medical staff.

As for an endless stream of people to be seen? The demand for healthcare will always outstrip supply. It may not be as obvious as an ER waiting room, but the same demand will be there whatever field of medicine you go into. It's just that in other specialties the crunch comes before the waiting room, for reasons such as no doctor available in the locality, not enough money to pay doctors, failure to recognise need to see a doctor, and so on. The fact that the demand is hidden from you when you are on the front line in specialties other than EM does not mean it is not there.

 

[dchristismi]

If it makes you feel any better, I'm great with life-or-death decisions.

But I mull over menus for ages, and then, when it's the last minute, make my snap decision.

The only way to truly know is to rotate. I knew by the end of my 2nd shift. You learn the rest - that's the training.

 

[RustedFox]

1 or 2 of these threads pop up every year. Warning to all haters: these sorts of questions are what this board is for, at least in part.

In the end, only you can make that decision. Maybe you just like 'being a spectator' in the ED; that's the way I was on the IM floors. I loved my IM days; spent a lot of extra time there to listen and learn and shoot the breeze and...

... when it came time for me to DO something, I would rather not be on a medicine floor; and I found my way to the ED invariably.

 

[Tentacular]

I'm kind of in the same boat. EM has been at the top of my list throughout med school. Highlights of the first 2 years were all while shadowing in the ED. Always have pictured myself as an ED doc. Then third year rolled around, and I really loved IM and neurology. Now starting to question... wondering if I need time and quiet to focus. Do I think fast enough? Is my skin thick enough? Am I a good negotiator? I finally just had to tell myself that when I do my ED rotation, I will know. Which is tough because I have a lot of inertia going towards EM, making a last second change would be tough. I'm hoping I love it and everything falls into place!

 

[BeastInfection]

Thanks for all the insightful replies. Really encouraging. I guess the only thing I can really do to be sure is to rotate through it next year. I've had good experiences in the ED so far with attendings letting me see patients on my own/present/do any (med student appropriate) work up/etc, so it hasn't been totally spectator based. While I see the educational value of all of the rotations, being in the ED has been one of the only experiences that I have found downright fun.

Lots to think about, thanks all for the input.

 

[Groove]

Go with your gut. These "Do I have the right personality?" threads are all over this forum and the general consensus is that there is no sine qua non "EM personality" requirement to be successful in this specialty, per-say. I tell med students to quit analyzing the pay, lifestyle, hours, and countless other variables into some nebulous algorithmic flow chart to help you choose what you want to do with your life. If I had done that... the flow chart would have told me to go into derm....and I would be checking into the ER every week for SI needing a psych consult. Go with your intuition. In my life, I've found that hyper analyzing myself OUT of a strong gut intuition is, in general, a red flag for me.

The only consistent personality trait that I've seen among EPs is that we all tend to have a few screws loose. Good luck.