Medium Size Town and Specialties

[buddym]

Hello everyone! I am a third year student and trying to decide on a specialty. I have decided to live in a smaller town (18,000 pop, 1 large hospital, a couple outpatient clinic/after hours clinics). I am curious if that should be a consideration in which specialties I choose. Are there any specialties that require one to live in a major city with a big population base??

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[doc05]

neurosurg, peds surg, CT surg, and peds subspecialties are better off in larger cities.
p.s. it's better to choose a specialty based on what you actually enjoy.

 

[buddym]

neurosurg, peds surg, CT surg, and peds subspecialties are better off in larger cities.
p.s. it's better to choose a specialty based on what you actually enjoy.

Thanks for the input! Luckily, I do not want to do any of those. As for picking something that I enjoy, that too is important. I guess I just figured that community was something that I did not see talked much about, but that was important to me.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Most towns need and internist/family practitioner, pediatrician and an Ob-Gyn, and someone to work in the ER (which doesn't necessarily mean an EM trained professional).

As noted above, most subspecialties require a larger population base to have a profitable practice.

 

[Pilot Doc]

most subspecialties require a larger population base to have a profitable practice.

That having been said, in some rural areas, a modest size town will be a regional referral center. I grew up in a town of 30,000 which has a 600 bed hospital and currently supports five CT surgeons, several neurosurgeons and a robust array of adult subspecialists. (Apart from neonatalogy, there are no peds subspecialits, though.)

 

[buddym]

Thanks for all the input. Please keep the responses coming. I acutually thought of EM before coming to med school. I am also interested in rads and FP. I like EM because I enjoy it (like to see lots of patients), it seems to be in need everywhere, and there is no call, so I can commute to a large city for work and still live in a smaller area.