Making the Big decision

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wvumd

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I am a 3rd year about to start planning the fourth year and basically decide what type of doctor I want to be, at least that's how administrator make us feel. Well I am relaly interested in anesthesia but I haven't actually rotated through it yet, and I have hated everything else in the 3rd year so far. I have read a bunch about the professional and I like everything about it and have talked to a few people in the profession. However, I don't want to lock myself into something and waste my away electives on something I will end up hating. I just wanted to know if anyone had any advice or suggestions.
thanks
 
wvumd said:
I am a 3rd year about to start planning the fourth year and basically decide what type of doctor I want to be, at least that's how administrator make us feel. Well I am relaly interested in anesthesia but I haven't actually rotated through it yet, and I have hated everything else in the 3rd year so far. I have read a bunch about the professional and I like everything about it and have talked to a few people in the profession. However, I don't want to lock myself into something and waste my away electives on something I will end up hating. I just wanted to know if anyone had any advice or suggestions.
thanks
How about doing just one elective in anesthesia? If you find out you hate it, then your elective wasn't truly wasted.
 
I know you must be busy, being a 3rd year and all. If you have the time and are really worried about wasting a month on an anesthesia rotation, maybe you could set up a couple shadowing experiences with an anesthesiologist to see if it floats your boat.

Keep in mind that one rotation (and especially only 1 or 2 shadowing experiences) may not be enough to convince you one way or another. I have heard from a lot of people that med students find their anesthesia rotations to be extremely boring. Apparently you really can't understand the true awesomeness of anesthesiology until you've been in the driver's seat.
 
wvumd said:
I am a 3rd year about to start planning the fourth year and basically decide what type of doctor I want to be, at least that's how administrator make us feel. Well I am relaly interested in anesthesia but I haven't actually rotated through it yet, and I have hated everything else in the 3rd year so far. I have read a bunch about the professional and I like everything about it and have talked to a few people in the profession. However, I don't want to lock myself into something and waste my away electives on something I will end up hating. I just wanted to know if anyone had any advice or suggestions.
thanks

I signed up for a 2-week elective and, when I found I liked it, extended it into a month (thereby eliminating 2 weeks of another elective).

Additional tip: Unless the radiology elective at your school is excellent and unless you want to go into it, don't do that for more than 2 weeks either. I wanted to shoot myself after about 3 days. If you've only got limited time but must do the two, shadow radiology for a couple of days and do anesthesia for the extended period.
 
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