Sorry for the length:
I agree with
@wingedscapula completely, but I would like to emphasize a few points: First, it is very likely that with more exposure to various specialties, you may change your mind about the specialty that you're interested in. With more exposure, you may decide that you don't like surgery after all. Next, I agree completely that if you will be having children, you will need a flexible spouse. Many, but not all, of the female surgeons that I work with have stay-at-home husbands. That's not absolutely necessary, but it helps. Otherwise, you will need a grandparent who is available 24/7 for emergencies, or an extremely reliable nanny. There are services available that you can sign up with that will provide drop-in day care or nannies on an urgent basis, but they generally don't keep surgeon's hours. What worked best for us was a daycare ( ours was on the grounds of a medical center, although I didn't work there ) that allowed drop-offs as early as 6 am, and closed at 6 pm. It sounds like your husband will be available for drop offs and pickups, so I suggest you look into that option. It's expensive, but in my opinion, it was far better for the kids than a nanny, a grandparent, or parents, because they were kept busy, socalized all day, and got a great pre-school education. Ours was a large, well regulated, and highly professional facility, and was the best of many that we looked at. Our youngest was there from 7 weeks of age until kindergarten. As you will see, though, if a child is ill, everything falls apart, and someone will need to stay home with the child. If you're a surgeon, it can't be you.
There won't be a good time to have kids, but you definitely want to start by 30, because fertility starts to drop off precipitously after 35, and you don't want to wait until then to start trying, because if you end up needing fertility treatments, it may be too late. Many of the surgeons I know sought infertility treatment, not always successfully. You options on when to have kids are all bad: during the pre-clinical years is bad, the clinical years are worse, internship even worse, later in residency bad, and of course, it's really bad when you're starting your practice. So, any time ends up being as good as another.
While almost any surgical specialty can be fully elective when you get into practice, your residency will be at least 5 years, and they will be more intensive, stressful, and time consuming than non-surgical residencies . You really won't have much time for your children as a resident, but you will get a better look at the lifestyle as a med student.
I agree with the poster above that you should consider derm. They do small procedures ( not at all surgery by a surgeon's standards ) but if you can do derm and a Mohs fellowship, you would be doing very challenging skin reconstruction procedures in your office. However, derm is extremely competitive, and a Mohs fellowship afterwards very hard to get into as well. But then, the surgical specialties are just as hard to get into, especially ortho, ENT, and plastics.
Regardless of your specialty, if you are employed in a very large group, you will have more regular hours. In the large groups I'm familiar with, medicine and pedes took no call, so those doctors worked 9-5. They earn less, and aren't surgeons, but you might find that lifestyle trumps specialty. Even in large groups, surgeons took a lot of call, and generally could not opt out of call or design their practices to be lifestyle friendly. So I think non-surgeons have better lifestyles in a group, but not so for surgeons.
If you do decide to be a surgeon, for example, you could do general surgery and specialize in breast, which will have close to no emergencies. However, it might be hard to set up such a practice. In your early years, when you will need better hours the most, you will have less flexibility in your practice. Ortho can be elective as well. Just do elective joint replacements, or elective hand, etc. But it will take a while to finish residency and fellowships, and again, when you look for a job, the groups you join will want you to take call. And setting up your own practice will take time and require you to do emergencies if you want money.
Plastic surgery is the same. If your goal is to do cosmetic surgery, you'll have a lot of competition, and you'll need to do a lot of emergency reconstructions for many years before you can have an elective practice. Even then, and in any specialty, patients can go bad post op and require you to go back to the OR in the middle of the night. By the time your practice can be fully elective, regardless of specialty, you will be several years into practice and your kids may already be grown.
You'll have to see what you like, but I would consider the lifestyle specialties: derm, psych, PM&R, radiation oncology, radiology, or psych or neurology or medicine followed by a sleep medicine fellowship ( the best kept secret in medicine ). I'm sure I'm missing some. You don't want to spend your whole life regretting that you didn't go into surgery, but you don't want to regret not seeing your kids grow up, either. I would pick the kids,, but that's just me.
