Mentioning why you don't want to go into a certain specialty in the PS

[obgyny]

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[learnmdabc]

What if the person reading your essay is an ER doc? As an applicant, you shouldn't close any doors before they are even opened for you. Focus on the doors you hope to open.

I volunteer in the ER, and although the ER is cool at times (variety of patients and variety of illnesses/injuries), I know that I wouldn't want to be an ER doctor. Once the patients are stabilized, they are often transferred to another department. I never get to find out what happens to them. I think I would prefer a specialty where I could get to know my patients and be able to see them throughout their course of treatment. Which is why I'm more interested in fields such as primary care, neurology, oncology, etc. Would that be okay to mention in the PS?

 

[obgyny]

What if the person reading your essay is an ER doc? As an applicant, you shouldn't close any doors before they are even opened for you. Focus on the doors you hope to open.

Good point, I didn't even think about that. Thanks!

 

[wingiv]

I would avoid doing that in your PS, since it probably doesn't add to why you want to be a doctor. You could say that you want to be able to connect with your patients and follow-through with your patients from your experience in the ER. You could also mention that in your interviews, but I would try to avoid that. Going into medicine with a specific idea of what specialty is hard since you don't know much still about the culture or such yet. You won't get that until medical school.

A cardiac surgeon at Stanford told me that he didn't even know what specialty he wanted to do until the end of his 3rd year in med school. Also, from my own experience, I told one of my interviewers that I didn't want to be a surgeon because of the culture, and she got really mad at me and became really hostile towards me. I obviously didn't get in.

So you probably should avoid saying what you don't want to be right now. So try to be open-minded, otherwise it might come off as close-minded in your application. First get into the school, then you can pursue your interests or what is not in your interest.

If you want to follow-up with the patients that you see in the ER, you should be able to do so. Just talk to the clerk and ask them where they got transferred. Just make sure to the patients' first and last name and the last 4 of their SN. I do it all the time at various hospitals that I've volunteered at, and you should be able to do so if that's in your interest.

 

[NTF]

Here's the danger of using that as a PS topic. My first thought as an interviewer or as someone looking at your app would be, "ok. well once you found that out from your ER experience, what did you do to investigate fields of medicine where you'd have longer patient relationships?" or "In many specialties like neurology or hem/onc you're asked to consult on patients so you won't really be their primary doctor but just one doctor in a whole team of specialists. How would you feel about those interactions? Would they be less satisfying?" So if you don't have a lot of shadowing hours w/ primary are docs or ECs involving patients in longer term care settings you leave yourself up for a trap.

If you don't have that in your app or have a ready answer for it in an interview, it sets you up for a sideswipe. You can still talk about your passion for patient relationships or particular specialties w/o dogging another specialty or verbally limiting your options.

In general, I always think the more prudent course in the app process is to talk about what draws you toward something rather than what you're trying to avoid.

 

[drizzt3117]

In general, until you've matched, it's a pretty good idea to be noncomittal about what you want to go into, this is even more true as a premed who has little or no exposure to what the practice of medicine is like. If you were a surgical PA with 10000 hours of clinical experience, then fine, but otherwise, I'd just stick to the "I'm sure I'll get exposure and be able to see what I want to do during rotations" line till you're a m4.

 

[obgyny]

Here's the danger of using that as a PS topic. My first thought as an interviewer or as someone looking at your app would be, "ok. well once you found that out from your ER experience, what did you do to investigate fields of medicine where you'd have longer patient relationships?" or "In many specialties like neurology or hem/onc you're asked to consult on patients so you won't really be their primary doctor but just one doctor in a whole team of specialists. How would you feel about those interactions? Would they be less satisfying?" So if you don't have a lot of shadowing hours w/ primary are docs or ECs involving patients in longer term care settings you leave yourself up for a trap.

If you don't have that in your app or have a ready answer for it in an interview, it sets you up for a sideswipe. You can still talk about your passion for patient relationships or particular specialties w/o dogging another specialty or verbally limiting your options.

In general, I always think the more prudent course in the app process is to talk about what draws you toward something rather than what you're trying to avoid.

I think that makes a lot more sense. Thank you for the advice everyone. I'm definitely not set on any one specialty yet. Although I tend to be more drawn to the fields in which you'll get to know your patients better.