PLEASE HELP! Question on specializing

[cheapdate]

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Hi everyone,

I'm a little confuse about specializing in a certain field. If I want to specialize in, for example, geriatric or pediatric, do I have to select a medical school (during 1st 4 years) that offer this program? Or does specialization occur after the 4 years of med school... during residency and post-doc. The medical school that you go to is just a general study right? Since you've already been through the process, I hope you can give me some suggestions. If someone could please give me some detail about the whole process from entering med school to the day you finnish your residency. I would really appricieate some comments. Thank you for your time and help.

 

[Long Dong]

Hi everyone,

I'm a little confuse about specializing in a certain field. If I want to specialize in, for example, geriatric or pediatric, do I have to select a medical school (during 1st 4 years) that offer this program? Or does specialization occur after the 4 years of med school... during residency and post-doc. The medical school that you go to is just a general study right? Since you've already been through the process, I hope you can give me some suggestions. If someone could please give me some detail about the whole process from entering med school to the day you finnish your residency. I would really appricieate some comments. Thank you for your time and help.

You go to any med school and in your 4th year you apply for a residency (peds, surgery, internal medicine etc.)

 

[flash]

exactly, you apply for residencies that interest you. You take a nationwide exam in yr2 and yr4 (known as Step 1 and 2). These scores play a big role in what residencies you are competitive for (for both the specialty and the particular hospital). Opthamology is much more competitive than say internal medicine. Internal medicine at Columbia Presbyterian in NY is more competitive than a community hospital in the middle of know where.

The process of residency placement is run by a nationwide process where you interview at places you're interested in, rank your top choices, the hospitals rank you, and on one day in the spring of 4th year, everyone finds out where they "matched". Hopefully, you match at one of your top 3 choices.

Certain specialties have their own separate "match" process - don't know which ones off hand.

Now, some specialties require further training beyond residency. E.G., to be a cardiologist, GI or kidney spec., you do an internal medicine residency for 3 years, then apply again for cardiology or other fellowships (i think it's called fellowship). If you want to do invasive procedures in cardiology you have to do an additional yr or two beyond this cardiology fellowship.

Don't worry too much, learn a little bit about this stuff now. sounds like you are a bit a way from the med school application process. Focus on med school application process. You have plenty of time to explore specialties.


If you're interested in learning more, scroll down the main forums page to the "Graduate Medical Forums [ MD / DO ]". They have all specialties with FAQ section that I believe explains specifics.