Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Vs. Anesthesiology

[spreesbeers]

what are the pros and cons of PM&R and anesthesiolgy?

what do u see in the future of these 2 fields, lets say 10 years from now? thanx for the input.

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[lilycat]

Um, you seem to be pretty curious about PM&R. I'll do what I can to get Stinky Tofu back around here, and maybe he can answer some of your questions.

 

[Stinky T]

This is obviously a biased view, but many of my firends/classmates did go into Anesthesia so I know some of their reasoning.

Anesthesia:

Pros: Lifestyle, hours, pay, and benign residency.
Cons: Working with surgeons, little patient interaction, and lack of respect from surgeons and sometimes nurses -- this does not occur frequently, but when I did my GenSurg, Ortho, Neurosurg rotations, I did get that feeling.

PM&R:

Pros: Lifestyle, hours, pay, and benign residency. I liked working as a team with ST, OT, PT, etc. PTs and OTs are pretty cool and fun to hang out with too.

Cons: Most medical students or Pre-meds know little about the field since there are very few PM&R residencies and even fewer good residencies. I think the main con is that their is a lack of understanding about what a Physiatrist does.

Why I chose PM&R?

I didn't really like to work with surgeons. I am interested in Interventional Pain Managment, but that's not all I want to do. I wanted to do a little bit of Sports, IDETS, SNRBs, and EKGs. My wife is an OT so I knew much more about PM&R than most medical students otherwise I might not have known about the field and would've chosen something else. I also plan on opening my own clinic and the only way I could do that with Anesthesia would be to open a Pain Clinic and that would get boring and frustrating after awhile. Also with an aging population and very few PM&R residencies, the outlook looks good for a physiatry -- especially for someone who comes from a good program.

 

[fiatslug]

Stink! You're back! Yea.

What kind of research would you recommend for a soon-to-be-second-year interested in PM&R? This summer I'm doing a clinical research thing in the ED, hoping to focus in on some gneuro projects. What do you suggest? What journals should one read?

Thanks.

 

[Stinky T]

Fiat - Are you finally done with your first year at UCI? I guess you won't be hanging around the wonderful world of OCo this summer, huh?

PM&R is a really broad field and you could do research in a variety of areas that you are interested in. Areas include sports med, Traumatic Brain Injury, Spinal Cord Injury, Pain Management, Neurosurgery/Neurology, Ortho, etc. Personally, I worked with a Neurosurgeon and a physiatrist on a paper about indications for shunting. While at UCI, I mainly did research in the ER and Neuro department as well.

I mainly read journals in the field I was interested in -- Pain, Sports Med, and TBI. I didn't subscribe to any of them, but just read them at the library when I had time. I forgot the name of the journals, but by your third year if you are still interested in PM&R, you might want to join the AAPMR and/or Association of Academic Physiatrists. I can't remember the exact name of the journal and probably won't for sometime. I'll be breathing, dreaming, living, and dreading General Surgery for the next couple of months.

I think the more interesting areas of research are TBI and Pain because they are still a relatively new field. There is still a lot of research to be done in the area.

 

[fiatslug]

does the phrase "bat out of hell" mean anything to you? Yep, I'll be heading up to Northern Cal with my love this Saturday, after the anatomy final Friday and attendant drunken debauchery that evening.

Hey, I was wonderin'--are there any PM&R PGY-1 internship years that an MD grad could do at a DO hospital to learn OMM? That would be cool.

 

[drusso]

Originally posted by fiatslug:
•

Hey, I was wonderin'--are there any PM&R PGY-1 internship years that an MD grad could do at a DO hospital to learn OMM? That would be cool.•

Fiat, check out university of Michigan's PM&R program. They have lectures in OMM as part of their core curriculum. Also, I hear that RIC teaches OMM to their residents too.

http://www.med.umich.edu/pmr/edu/resprgm.htm#didactic_curriculum

--dave

 

[spreesbeers]

id like to hear from people who are currently do their residency in PM&R or from those who have completed their residency and are now practicing physiatrists.

why made you decide to go into PM&R?

are u happy with choosing PM&R?

is there anything unpleasant/pleasant in PM&R that you have encountered that you wish you had known before?

any advice for someone considering PM&R?

any application advice?

thanx for the input.

 

[fiatslug]

Originally posted by drusso:
•Fiat, check out university of Michigan's PM&R program. They have lectures in OMM as part of their core curriculum. Also, I hear that RIC teaches OMM to their residents too.

http://www.med.umich.edu/pmr/edu/resprgm.htm#didactic_curriculum

--dave•

Thanks Dave!