Sleep/lifestyle

[Monkey Jones]

I am debating between IM and Neuro, and believe I enjoy both equally. I am currently an M4.

I was hoping someone could compare the lifestyle during residency for both of these. I have heard that Neuro has a highly stressful prelim year, followed by three years of average stress residency. I was also told that IM has three years of highly stressful residency (like the prelim year for Neuro). The one advantage is that residency is done an entire year earlier for IM.

This is important to me, because I am already in my late 20's and want to have at least some resemblance of a normal life during residency. Some tell me to just suck it up and enjoy life after residency, but I have lived by that motto the past 8 years already.

Any advice/info is appreciated. Thank you.

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[smq123]

Moving to allopathic.

 

[J ROD]

Instead of worrying about residency for the next 3 or 4 yrs, I would be more worried about picking the right specialty for me.

Do you want to do neuro or IM? IM fellowship?

Let that make your decision and not residency. It is just a means to an end.

 

[survivordo]

Seriously, this is pretty short sighted. I wouldn't trade 3 or 4 years for the rest of your working career. I suspect either one of these programs can be laid back or hard core depending on where you do your residency. Pick which specialty you prefer based on it's MERITS then find a residency program that fits your desired lifestyle!

Survivor DO

 

[Kal EI]

The residency arguments of 3 vs 7 years of 100 hrs a week surgery vs 50 hrs a week whatever... that's something to consider.

But 1 year difference with minimal difference in hrs. Is IM really that much more stressful?

Pick your favorite field. If they are tied, then pick the easier residency.

 

[e30ftw]

shadow a neurologist who has a lifestyle that you could envision yourself living. Then shadow a similar IM-trained physician.

go from there.

seriously they're quite separate fields. what do you want to do with IM, fellowship? hospitalist? outpt IM? what do you wanna do with neuro? create in your mind an ideal career scenario, choose a specialty which most embodies it, then pick a career and don't look back.

The key to being satisfied with your choice is being able to have the insight to understand that with any decision of this magnitude you will experience hardship, but to push through and keep focused on the positive aspects of your choice and you can find happiness anywhere.

choose your love, love your choice.

jmo but neither medicine nor neuro is exceptionally stressful.. and both residencies really aren't bad.. the IM and neuro residents I know have decent lifestyles and really don't encounter stressful situations regularly.

then again i'm EM so we have a beautifully flawed lifestyle and stress in that field is something of a continuum between obese blue patients with no neck requiring emergent intubation and pts with a chief complaint of "toe pain".