Interventional Cardiology vs. General Surgery

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kora@123

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I am a 3rd year medical student, in love with both General Surgery and Interventional Cardiology. These have been my favorite clerkships, by far. I love the thought of being able to immediately fix problems and I love doing things with my hands. I don't love clinic, but I enjoyed surgery clinic more than cardio clinic. I would still like to have some outpatient practice time, but definitely more inpatient.

In cardio, I loved the Cath lab and being able to see patients on all floors of the hospital. I LOVE the heart. I love the challenge of the heart.

In surgery, I absolutely loved being in the OR. Every single surgery was amazing to me, to watch. I was able to assist in a couple Lap Choles, but I have never actually operated or done anything hands on besides suturing. So how do I know if I would enjoy/be good at operating?

The thought of doing either a PCI or a Lap Chole, are both so exciting to me. But I have never actually done either. So how do I know for sure??? I am definitely planning on doing sub-I's in both next year.
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kora@123 said:
I am a 3rd year medical student, in love with both General Surgery and Interventional Cardiology.
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That's a world of a difference. Aside from both being inpatient, both sometimes sharing patients (in the SICU, PCI to CABG, etc), they're very different specialties with very different routes. Do some more research. Sounds like you like procedures, that's great. You can cross off psychiatry and neurology.

Sometimes picking your medical specialty of choice is an elimination game.
 
I can relate. Loved surgery, but more orthopedic surgery than general. Loved cardiology, but really the lab is the only place to be. Ended up going for ortho. Didn't match and took a transitional year. Moved into an IM program and took my electives in cardiology. Matched into cardiology then interventional. The rest is history. My co- fellow in cardiology did the exact same path. We're both happy. IC is a great career. It'll take time but I hope to groom out my general cardiology patients over time and do less rounding. Other than that IC is basically the best thing ever as long as you can deal with the outcomes and call. I think go for your number one and make sure to have an excellent backup.
 
Go general surgery. If you match, you'll be a surgeon. If you decide on cardio, you'll have to do IM, research and try to match cardio. Don't add hassle into your life
 
kora@123 said:
In surgery, I absolutely loved being in the OR. Every single surgery was amazing to me, to watch. I was able to assist in a couple Lap Choles, but I have never actually operated or done anything hands on besides suturing. So how do I know if I would enjoy/be good at operating?
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Go surgery. Cardiology is one of the 4 IM fellowships you can't guarantee matching into
 
I’m a bit confused here.

You’re a third year. Usually third years don’t do cardiology as a clerkship, unless your institution does sub specialty rotations that year (mine and many other med schools don’t).

The real question for you right now is not if you like surgery vs interventional cardiology (which is a fellowship on top of a cardiology fellowship on top of a residency) - it’s whether you like surgery or IM. Because that’s the next decision point that’s coming in your life, and if you match IM you may never match cardiology down the line to start that process.

Usually surgery types and IM types are very different people, with different mindsets. Have you done an IM rotation yet? Did you like it?

Also, remember that there is more to choosing a specialty than just doing the job. I also thought some aspects of surgical procedures were really cool…but the lifestyle completely sucks, and I had no desire to work 80+ hours a week like a pack mule for the rest of my life. IM has many more lifestyle friendly options available too.
 
Just dropping in to say… 80+ hours is typical for surgery training, not for post training, unless you WANT to do that because of money, ego, whatever. Most practicing surgeons do NOT work 80+ hours a week on average.

Also call depends a lot on the acuity of where you work and also any subspecialty. I would argue that IC STEMI call can be just as hours-intensive as some trauma call.

But agree that first you need to decide if you want to do IM or surgery.
 
dozitgetchahi said:
I’m a bit confused here.

You’re a third year. Usually third years don’t do cardiology as a clerkship, unless your institution does sub specialty rotations that year (mine and many other med schools don’t).
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I mean, my peds residency hospital would have med students rotate on the hospitalist service for 2 weeks and then a subspecialty team for 2 weeks (including cardiology), mostly because there were so many medical students. It's not inconceivable that the OPs school had students do a subspecialty rotation as part of their core IM rotation.
 
In line with what others are saying, this decision seems to be as much about really figuring out what you like as it is about also figuring out where you rank. If you're a super-rockstar (top med school, go to top IM residency, able to do all the other hoop jumping that it takes to get in to Cards while balancing everything else) then the Interventional Cards path is a lot more feasible. GS is easier/more guaranteed from the standpoint of competitiveness/matching.
 
GS and the route to IC is very different, though I will say GS residency and cardio fellowship may be just as demanding
 
Prehealth1011 said:
Go surgery. Cardiology is one of the 4 IM fellowships you can't guarantee matching into
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I've always heard that matching cardiology SOMEWHERE is close to certain if you are from a Top 30 IM residency (as long as you don't have any red flags). But yeah if you aren't from an academic IM residency you can't guarantee it.
 
kora@123 said:
I am a 3rd year medical student, in love with both General Surgery and Interventional Cardiology. These have been my favorite clerkships, by far. I love the thought of being able to immediately fix problems and I love doing things with my hands. I don't love clinic, but I enjoyed surgery clinic more than cardio clinic. I would still like to have some outpatient practice time, but definitely more inpatient.

In cardio, I loved the Cath lab and being able to see patients on all floors of the hospital. I LOVE the heart. I love the challenge of the heart.

In surgery, I absolutely loved being in the OR. Every single surgery was amazing to me, to watch. I was able to assist in a couple Lap Choles, but I have never actually operated or done anything hands on besides suturing. So how do I know if I would enjoy/be good at operating?

The thought of doing either a PCI or a Lap Chole, are both so exciting to me. But I have never actually done either. So how do I know for sure??? I am definitely planning on doing sub-I's in both next year.
Click to expand...

TBH, I'd take a step back and really think about what you're enjoying on these rotations.

It's my belief that the abrupt transition from the classroom to the hospital skews people's first impressions about rotations and ultimately what specialty they think they want to match into. Some people are 'thinking specialities' all the way. Some people are proceduralists all the way. But there's a large number of people in-between who get excited by the more hands on nature of procedural specialties early on just because they've been cooped up in a library and are eager to do something more active.

I was interested in surgery during clinicals but ended up in radiology ultimately and probably couldn't be happier.

I'd say think long and hard if you're actually excited by surgery/IC or just can more easily picture what you'd be doing on a day to day basis. That was my blinder early in the specialty selection process.
 
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