Is internal medicine/family medicine better than a more specialized field?

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I'm wondering if pursuing an internal medicine or family medicine residency afford you with more "transferable skills" or a better point of leverage over pursuing a more specialized residency (e.g. psychiatry, pediatrics, etc.). I know it all depends on what the person wants to do career-wise, but what about from the perspective of jobs like Locums, urgent care job placements, etc.; basically, those broad spectrum healthcare jobs. Do they prefer someone with an internal medicine/family medicine residency over someone who is going into psychiatry or pediatrics?

I'm having trouble putting my thoughts into words, so I hope you guys get the gist of what I'm trying to ask. Thanks in advance!

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I don’t really understand what you’re asking. If you want to practice a specialty like psychiatry or pediatrics, you should tailor your application towards those and apply for them. If you want to do primary care, or one of the specialties that comes after IM or FM, you should apply for those. Locums agencies are not looking for IM docs to fill pediatric positions, nor are they likely to hire a psychiatrist for IM hospitalist work. I could see where some jobs, like an urgent care wanting to see both adults and children, might prefer to hire a broadly trained FM doc who has experience with both populations - is that what you mean?
 
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I don’t really understand what you’re asking. If you want to practice a specialty like psychiatry or pediatrics, you should tailor your application towards those and apply for them. If you want to do primary care, or one of the specialties that comes after IM or FM, you should apply for those. Locums agencies are not looking for IM docs to fill pediatric positions, nor are they likely to hire a psychiatrist for IM hospitalist work. I could see where some jobs, like an urgent care wanting to see both adults and children, might prefer to hire a broadly trained FM doc who has experience with both populations - is that what you mean?

Yes, that is what I'm asking.
I know that speciality residencies lead to their own respective positions and jobs. I was just curious as to whether or not recruiters or organizations prefer someone with a broad knowledge of FM/IM rather than a specialist. Coming from someone that is interested in doing multiple different things and not wanting to be stuck in the same routine and position for a long time, I just want to know what would make me more marketable for positions such as Locums or urgent care jobs (just a couple examples). Obviously, specialists are trained to be specialists and practice in their field. But I want to have enough broad spectrum experience where I have those transferable skills of an IM doc, but specializing in psych or something like that.
Yes, I also know there are combined residencies and I'm looking into those as well!
 
Yes, that is what I'm asking.
I know that speciality residencies lead to their own respective positions and jobs. I was just curious as to whether or not recruiters or organizations prefer someone with a broad knowledge of FM/IM rather than a specialist. Coming from someone that is interested in doing multiple different things and not wanting to be stuck in the same routine and position for a long time, I just want to know what would make me more marketable for positions such as Locums or urgent care jobs (just a couple examples). Obviously, specialists are trained to be specialists and practice in their field. But I want to have enough broad spectrum experience where I have those transferable skills of an IM doc, but specializing in psych or something like that.
Yes, I also know there are combined residencies and I'm looking into those as well!
No you can't go from IM to psych or anything of the like. With IM and no fellowship you'd be limited to hospitalist, primary care doctor, private specialty clinics (weight loss, etc), and urgent care. FM is more or less the same with some more leeway given in rural areas to do inpatient medicine, deliver babies, and whatnot.

You didn't mention a country, the default when a country isn't mentioned is typically the US on the forums but if you are a med student in the US then you've got some researching ahead of you before matching lol.
 
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If I understand your question correctly...,Yes the job prospects for FM specifically are much broader than for someone super specialized in general. Outpatient, in patient, urgent care, telemedicine, schools, prisons, local health department, etc are all places one can work as FM while a pediatric ophthalmologist wouldn’t have all those options for example.
 
Yes, that is what I'm asking.
I know that speciality residencies lead to their own respective positions and jobs. I was just curious as to whether or not recruiters or organizations prefer someone with a broad knowledge of FM/IM rather than a specialist.
I think you have a misconception about what locums tenens is and what recruiters do. Asking whether recruiters prefer FM/IM vs say, orthopedic surgery is a nonsensical question. That's like asking "do humans prefer to date men or women?" There is no "correct" answer to this question. Some recruiters are looking to hire FM/IM docs. Some are looking to hire specialists. It entirely depends on what their needs are.

But I want to have enough broad spectrum experience where I have those transferable skills of an IM doc, but specializing in psych or something like that.
That isn't a thing. If you are an IM doc, you can't "specialize" in psych. If you want to do psych, do a psych residency. If you want to do IM, do IM.

You've previously posted that you want to do counseling/guidance related to psychiatry. If you have no interest in the pharmaceutical side of things or any of the other aspects of psych, you can accomplish all of this without an MD. You could be a clinical psychologist or simply a "life coach." These are both radical departures from becoming a physician, but as you've previously expressed a desire not to complete a residency, these may be useful options given your goals.

Given your post history, I would seriously consider a long hard conversation with friends and family about what your actual goals are. I'm not telling you to give up on medicine, but I am saying that there are a lot of miserable docs out there who completed med school and residency for all the wrong reasons and are now stuck in a career they dislike just so they can pay down their med school debt.
 
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But I want to have enough broad spectrum experience where I have those transferable skills of an IM doc, but specializing in psych or something like that.
Just echoing what others have said, this isn't a thing. Psych is its own residency because you get a completely different skill set from IM. No matter how desperate a locum recruiter may be to have a psychiatrist, they won't hire an IM doc who doesn't have the necessary skills.

If the underlying issue is that you're realizing that it's going to be hard to match psych from a Caribbean school, that is accurate. But if that's what you really want to do and wouldn't be happy doing something else, then you need to figure out how to do well enough on step 1 to make it happen.
 
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Agree with the above. Also want to point out that locums doesn't mean "we just need a doc here now!". It means, "we need an FM/OB/ENT/EM/Ortho/Psych/Whatever at this location for these dates". So if you're FM, and they need Ortho, or Psych, that's not happening for you.
 
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Are you asking which specialties are in greater need? Like how many locums positions in a given specialty there are? If so, FM and Psych are likely among the most "in demand" in this regard.

If you're asking which specialties have the most options of work settings, FM, IM, and EM are likely to have the most.

I suspect the question you should be asking is, what do I want to do/what can I stomach? Because either way, you'll have to put in ungodly hours into all of these fields during residency. Its easier to stomach when you're working 50 hrs a week on Psych than say 75 hrs a week on FM, IM, or EM inpatient/ICU rotations.
 
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