Rheumatology questions for Med. students

[scrappydawg]

I was curious as to what current student think/feel about Rheumatology as a specialty. I am very interested in this field, especially in the area of autoimmune disease treatment such as Systemic sclerosis, Lupus, RA etc. What have you all experienced in terms of shadowing. Do I go into medical school next year and start gearing myself towards this or to I try to experience as many areas as possible and then focus in my third year.

I've had many diverse life experiences with friends/family members with these diseases, plus I'm really interested in why the immune system fails to deliniate between self and non-self. I believe that already I would enjoy this specialty.

Thanks for the imput

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[Samoa]

The actual practice of rheumatology is still more art than science, which is frustrating if you're a patient. I think many rheumatologists are much too conservative in their approach to treatment, and I think that's because they don't themselves feel how profoundly this disease can affect your day-to-day life. Plus they're used to accepting that patients with severe disease are inevitably going to lose function, and so they don't fight that as hard as they have the arsenal now to do.

 

[edmadison]

I was quite interest in it for a while. The biggest drawback is like any non-procedural subspecialty reembursement sucks.

Ed

 

[Blade28]

Originally posted by edmadison
I was quite interest in it for a while. The biggest drawback is like any non-procedural subspecialty reembursement sucks.

*cough cough Rads cough cough*

 

[chinchilla]

hi there,

i hadn't really thought about rheumatology (not knowing anything about the field when i came to med school), but it's now a real possibility. the experience that brought me to this conclusion was getting a fellowship from the ACR (american college of rheumatology)- they have summer clinical and research fellowships that you can apply for, so you might want to consider trying this to get an idea what rheumatologists do firsthand. (i did the clinical one)- here's the info:

http://www.rheumatology.org/ref/awards/summerclinical.asp?aud=ref

good luck!

 

[edmadison]

Originally posted by Blade28
*cough cough Rads cough cough*

Rads is a specialty, it is not a sub-specialty

Cough Cough Cough Cough

Ed