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Pick a Specialty
Started by 7starmantis
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No one is getting (insert specialty here) tattoos at this stage (are we?). And yeah, maybe some/many premeds will change their minds, does it matter? It's normal and healthy to have some idea of what aspect of medicine motivates a person to go down this road. It's a lot better than figuring medicine is a good career for the money *cough*, prestige *choke*, or because that's what mom and dad expect.
What I love about pathology, particularly forensic pathology is that the scope is sufficiently broad and also sufficiently narrow. I love the interplay of organ systems, the deeper and more complex, the better. (Also pertains to CCM). Had the fortune to shadow 2 autopsies- very cool.
And yep, I do love microbio. As far as pay goes for ID, I wouldn't be choosing medical school if making money was my top priority- I would be doing something along the lines of business/investing or hell, becoming a CRNA. Of course everyone wants a proportional return for their time and expense of education, but that's not how the real world works.
if obama passes the damn bill we are all @#!$&%.
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peds!
REI and MFM are 3 years, I'm not sure about Gyn-Onc and Urogyn surgery. If you do a combined thing like MFM/Medical Genetics it would be 4 years, I believe (OMG this sounds SO interesting but I wouldn't be practicing til I was 38! 😱).
Even when/if marriage and kids come into the picture, I believe some of the fellowships have a better lifestyle. Something that interests me a lot is a laborist position. Basically an Ob/Gyn hospitalist that handles L&D (and sometimes Ob/Gyn patients in the ED). I believe you typically make less than a regular Ob/Gyn, but it's SHIFT WORK, the hospital covers your malpractice, and you have no office overhead to worry about. It's a relatively new model, but it is catching on as they believe it has a lot of positives. Less physician burn-out (on both sides, office docs and the laborists), and better patient outcomes (fewer C-sections/more VBACs since doctors are always available, for example) are often cited.
The big caveat I heard about is that after working as a laborist, it can be difficult to get a position as a regular Ob/Gyn again, since you're rusty in some regards (I read this somewhere but I can't remember where... it was awhile ago.) And for me, I might miss having a longer, established relationship with my patients, but if it gets to the point where there are office Ob/Gyns and laborists Ob/Gyns and that's the standard, I think rather have the laborist job.
PM me if you want me to dig up more links on it. 😀
I am quite proud of that one. And you are my SDN sister, for realsies.
Yup, in agreement once again!
I think a reasonable amount of people change their choices in 3rd year, but that seems hard for some specialties simply because you don't rotate through them! A lot of med students only get peripheral exposure to specialties like anesthesia, rads, derm, optho, neonatalogy, path, etc until 4th year.
Isn't this why flexibility in building your 3rd and 4th year schedule is considered an advantage? You could stuff your 3rd year, to an extent, with things you're interested in before you go out for residency interviews.
Even rotations that are built in like neurosurgery (part of surgery rotation), it's scary to think how people can want to be neurosurgeons for the rest of their lives after only observing from a distance for 2 weeks. I mean, how hands-on can you possibly get to a patient's brain and spinal cord!?
Not completely sure yet, but OB/GYN, Pediatrics or General Surgery. Possibly sub-specializing in Neonatology.
whats REI?
Most med students pick their specialty after they get their step 1 scores.
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Yup!http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproductive_endocrinology_and_infertility
It's a three year fellowship in addition to 4 yrs of Ob/gyn so it looks like a pretty intense path.
Ob/gyn sounds pretty interesting, but I think the hours would kill me. I guess you never know until you try it out though.
Post the mal-practice cost and the hours of an OB?? I kno I'm the competition, but those are scare off the faint of heart
. haha j/k
I think the military will take anyone they can get their hands on. Check out the Military Medicine forums.
Post the mal-practice cost and the hours of an OB?? I kno I'm the competition, but those are scare off the faint of heart
My shadowing experience was great and I love the anatomy and physiology involved, but yeah...I know nothing of what it's like to get up in the middle of the night to deliver a baby.
i like that chart but it seems ophtho is in the wrong place. isnt that a pretty hard one to get into? i thought the lifestyle was really good. it i can get into it without being hardworking, i'll take it! 🙂
as a chick it probably depends on whether i decide i want to have kids or not. at the moment my heart is set on a surgical specialty like plastics or neuro but um, i don't want my life to be hell. so if i decide to go for kids, i'll probably pursue something less demanding. guess it also depends on my grades!
it'll be fun to look back on this thread in 4 years . . .
edit- re-read the chart and i like that hardworking + mean = surgery. haha
as a chick it probably depends on whether i decide i want to have kids or not. at the moment my heart is set on a surgical specialty like plastics or neuro but um, i don't want my life to be hell. so if i decide to go for kids, i'll probably pursue something less demanding. guess it also depends on my grades!
it'll be fun to look back on this thread in 4 years . . .
edit- re-read the chart and i like that hardworking + mean = surgery. haha
Kids are the devil. Hungry, crying brats. ;p
OB/GYN, emergency medicine (trauma surgery), family practice, or ID. it all sounds so good!
Yeah but they love the everliving crap out of you.
Emergency medicine is not the same as trauma surgery. Trauma surgery is a sub specialty of general surgery whereas emergency medicine is its own specialty.
There are definitely doctors out there who are scared of kids, so you aren't alone! My boss had a kid with an abscess to drain. The second the kid started screaming and flailing around, he ran out of the room and said they are done in the office... send them to pediatrics emergency. haha I guess he didn't sign up for that when he signed up for Dermatology.
Yup, with angry illogical screaming parents. 3 patients for the price of 1? no thanks!
I got called for a hard stick one time (as a lab tech) and it was a baby. The parents literally wanted to fist fight me 🙄
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Guys, the person that was talking about kids that Than quoted was talking about whether she wanted them herself, not that she was going into Peds.
lol wut? I didn't even understand your post. lol
Are you referring to me? If so you got your facts wrong, terribly wrong (last time I checked). 😀
I have no idea at this point, but this is exactly why I'm going to think Derm right from the beginning.
Work super hard so when I change my mind I'll still have good scores for anything else. Won't have the problem of switching from FM to something like Rads after taking it easy.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I know you're not a chick! Let me try to clarify.
Mary Lennox said...
Then Thamsenman quoted her and said...
And I said,
Then I think you and ducki got confused and thought we were talking about going into pediatrics, not talking about having kids ourselves (which is what Mary and I were referring to, anyway).
In my case, i should become a neurosurgeon, it has nothing to do with whether i like other specialties or not. I know in the summer i will go to my country or origin to be the jack of all trades, i will perform surgery of all kinds, deliver babies, do the family doctor consultations etc hell i do that now as a med student in the summer with a supervising doctor of course, but i dont operate, i do assist in operations, however i do a lot of work in my country of origin that an intern would never be allowed to do here in the west, i know it makes me a lot more experienced in taking history etc but i do feel very sorry for the patients, i guess being born in the wrong part of the world sucks 🙁 i dare to believe better a loaf of bread than none.
Haha, sorry for the confusion. I want kids personally, but dont want to work in peds!! lol
emergentology! 😉
Will very most likely change in the future of course, but I like
IM sub-specializing in cardiology or endocrinology or just remaining IM. I could definitely see my self doing peds but only if I sub-specialize. Don't think I could care for general peds much.
IM sub-specializing in cardiology or endocrinology or just remaining IM. I could definitely see my self doing peds but only if I sub-specialize. Don't think I could care for general peds much.
I am fascinated by ID, but I think its more of a hobby type interest and not a career. Plus I'm an old fart and need to make lots of money to start saving for retirement, I have less time to contribute than most!! lol
i suppose to do ID you really have to have a big interest in infectious disease. i would argue that any physician specialty is a career because being a physician is the career. not to be cliche, but as doctors i've talked to said, you have to pick a specialty you will enjoy doing and not the one that will pay you the most. with that said i will still like to make over 150k, just feel all the effort and loan debt i will develop, i should be awarded financial security (live comfortably and be able to pay those hefty loans back). not that money is the only thing a doctor is rewarded in (i.e. personal satisfaction, respect, etc.). It truely is a great career.
are you a guy or girl?
i am all for having a house-husband to raise the kids, but the whole gotta-be-pregs for 9 months, breast feeding, etc throws a significant wrench in the deal. not to say it isnt hard to be a resident and a dad, but its definitely more complicated for moms. even though people make it work, ultimately i think i would just feel guilty if i had kids and wasn't home a lot. thats why i mentioned peds, i have heard they are more family friendly in this way. but who knows, maybe other specialties will catch up by the time i am ready to breed 😀
and now back to the topic . . . carry on
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I'm a man (not a guy 😉) but I didn't mean to respond to your guys posts as trying to interject in your conversation. I just saw the conversation about peds and threw in my opinion. 😀
BTW, I do know several people (male and female) who have had kids in many different specialties at many different times (all years of med school and residency). Life is what you make it, everyone just has to decide what is important and follow their heart! 👍
I think choosing a specialty is probably the hardest decision a medical student has to make; there are so many different possibilities with different challenges and most people like several different areas! I know I do! even if you chose internal medicine, you can again decide to specialize and then you have to ask what would you want to specialize in! I mean, unless you choose something like neurology, or OB/GYN, or family medicine, you always have further choices after residency!
I know myself, I have interests in cardiology, allergy/immunology, endocrinology, infectious diseases, and pulmonary care. I wouldn't know what specialty to choose because I have interests in each of those areas and like each of the different lifestyles they have.
That is one of the major reasons why I am considering going the PA route rather than MD, yes I know it isn't as prestigious, you can't be called doctor, you don't get paid as much, etc etc but I don't care about all that because I'm only concerned with learning medical sciences and helping people. Also, the PA route allows you to specialize and in almost anything. If you want to work with a endocrinology group for years and then switch to neurosurgery, you can. That is something that really appeals to me because I don't know if I could choose any one specialty to work my entire career in, which the MD and DO degree's require you to do, where PA you do not. Plus, my GPA are much more competitive for PA school then med school, even if I went the Med School route, I would def have to do a SMP in order to get any chance in hell of getting a interview! Plus, even if I ever did go to med school because of my inability to choose, I most likely would just do internal medicine and become a internist in primary care so that way I would get to experience a little bit of everything and just send my patients off to specialist when I needed too.
I know myself, I have interests in cardiology, allergy/immunology, endocrinology, infectious diseases, and pulmonary care. I wouldn't know what specialty to choose because I have interests in each of those areas and like each of the different lifestyles they have.
That is one of the major reasons why I am considering going the PA route rather than MD, yes I know it isn't as prestigious, you can't be called doctor, you don't get paid as much, etc etc but I don't care about all that because I'm only concerned with learning medical sciences and helping people. Also, the PA route allows you to specialize and in almost anything. If you want to work with a endocrinology group for years and then switch to neurosurgery, you can. That is something that really appeals to me because I don't know if I could choose any one specialty to work my entire career in, which the MD and DO degree's require you to do, where PA you do not. Plus, my GPA are much more competitive for PA school then med school, even if I went the Med School route, I would def have to do a SMP in order to get any chance in hell of getting a interview! Plus, even if I ever did go to med school because of my inability to choose, I most likely would just do internal medicine and become a internist in primary care so that way I would get to experience a little bit of everything and just send my patients off to specialist when I needed too.
Yeah, but his point is that you really have no idea. I mean, you have interests, but at this point you really cannot even match that to specialties. It takes a lot more exposure to something to see what it's really like to be doing that. And you can't dismiss the realities of medicine. You may end up loving pathology, but do you love the fact that their job market is horrible and many residents have trouble finding jobs? Maybe you like kids, but if you have $300,000 in debt at the end of residency, do you really want to try and make it off $150,000 salary?
It's good to have interests and aspirations, just know they really are just shots in the dark at this point until you get more exposure. Then there is the reality that you don't always get what you want. You might want to go into radonc or derm or optho, but many simply won't be able to get in. There's plenty of time, just keep your mind open to the possibilities.
1. Ophthalmology
2. Neurology
3. Neonatal
2. Neurology
3. Neonatal
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