PM&R or IM

[wjs010]

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Hi, I'm a 4th year. I have about 1 week to figure out what I will do for the rest of my life (no pressure). In the first two years of med school, I was all about IM and thought I would go straight through without looking back. However, I was a kinesiology grad and do have interests in that regard, which prompted me to do an elective in PM&R as a 4th yr. to finally found out what you guys do. I don't necessarily crave the idea of outpatient ACL stuff, but wouldn't mind dealing with some of it either. I just completed an inpatient PM&R rotation. It was hard work, but I am 1/2 glad and 1/2 annoyed that I did the rotation, because I liked it quite a bit. I definitely liked seeing the team aspect of the inpatient side and also liked seeing patients go from not so great and then improve literally day by day. My dilemma is that I also like the varied aspects of IM. I just don't know if I could be happy doing mainly diabetes and CHF forever. In PM&R, there seems to be a big variety in what you can do and see. I'm glad I finally got to see what it is that PM&R docs actually do. To note, it was striking how much my preceptor loved his job. It's always nice to see that. So how do I go about making this decision? i don't really know how to do it. Any tips?

 

[Jitter Bug]

I think of it this way. What body parts do you think are more interesting? IM is all about the box (organs inside the torso) and PM&R is outside the box: brain, spinal cord, nerves, muscles, joints etc.

Either specialty you could do all inpatient, or all outpatient, go solo or be employed. PM&R probably has more procedures (botox, joint inj, trigger points,) and diagnostics (EMG's) that can be done outpatient. Inpatient IM has tons of procedures, but outpatient may have less.

If you love them both, then just flip a coin and you will probably be happy either way.

 

[OrthoRehab33]

I was similar between pm&r and IM bUT after my inpt pm&r I felt like I got enough IM to keep me satisfied (COPD, CHF, pneumonia, uti, cellulitis etc) but they were stable enough where they were less likely to crash then acute IM setting which was a plus for me

 

[SSdoc33]

if you want to be a PCP, go into IM. if you want to be a cardiologist, etc, go into IM. if you dont know, go into IM.

given your background, you would probably be more interested in the musculoskeletal aspects of PMR, which is primarily outpatient. Something like 70% of PMR grads do outpt stuff. your inpatient rotations didnt seem to expose you to most of what we do.