I want to go to med school and eventually become an Oncologist/Hematologist. I was just wondering how exactly does this work in med school, does one go into med school and complete the four years of a wide-range of different topics or do you go in declaring what you want to do and then take classes tailored to that or do you do specialization after med school? I tried searching online and on this forum but I couldn't find my answer.
Specialization
- Thread starter MatttF
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Medical school, Internal Medicine residency, Heme Onc fellowship.
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Correction: At this point, you're really interested in hem/onc and you're excited about exploring it further in med school. You can't know for sure right now.
In med school, you have required pre-clinical courses, electives, and speciality rotations.
At most schools, the specialty rotations occur in the 3rd year. Certain rotations are required (such as medicine, ob-gyn, surgery, and peds) while others are electives. Not sure about hem/onc though.
You should check out this thread (I posted 3 sample curricula schematics):
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/abbreviated-pre-clinical-curriculum.1096067/
In med school, you have required pre-clinical courses, electives, and speciality rotations.
At most schools, the specialty rotations occur in the 3rd year. Certain rotations are required (such as medicine, ob-gyn, surgery, and peds) while others are electives. Not sure about hem/onc though.
You should check out this thread (I posted 3 sample curricula schematics):
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/abbreviated-pre-clinical-curriculum.1096067/
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1) Medical school: two(ish) years of classroom work, 1 year of 'core' rotations, and 1 year of electives. You might get a taste of heme/onc on your core electives, depending on how your IM and Peds rotations are set up, but you'd likely explore this further in fourth year. 4 years total.
2) Decide whether or not you want to do adult or peds heme/onc. Do a residency in either IM or Peds (3 years), or both (4 years).
3) Heme/Onc fellowship (3 years)
Or you could up and change your mind and decide you really like surgery. That's 5-7 years of residency. Or maybe OB/GYN (4 years).
2) Decide whether or not you want to do adult or peds heme/onc. Do a residency in either IM or Peds (3 years), or both (4 years).
3) Heme/Onc fellowship (3 years)
Or you could up and change your mind and decide you really like surgery. That's 5-7 years of residency. Or maybe OB/GYN (4 years).
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The training of medical school is general and is not really designed to prepare you for the actual field of medicine you want to practice short of giving you the basics. Coming out of medical school, you should possess a broad body of knowledge that gives you an understanding of the basics for the major fields of medicine. As an example, you won't know the best treatment modality for a particular form of cancer, but you should be able to recognize symptoms that suggest a potential cancer diagnosis and know the very basics of how to work-up (diagnose) that problem.
Typically during the fourth year you'll have the opportunity to do electives so you could potentially get some exposure to whatever field you're interested in, but even then that's not so much about giving you formal training as it is a general exposure to the basics and being able to recognize more common conditions.
Once you're in residency, you'll get more specific exposure to those fields as you rotate through them during your training.
Typically during the fourth year you'll have the opportunity to do electives so you could potentially get some exposure to whatever field you're interested in, but even then that's not so much about giving you formal training as it is a general exposure to the basics and being able to recognize more common conditions.
Once you're in residency, you'll get more specific exposure to those fields as you rotate through them during your training.
