I've been going back and forth regarding specialty choices for quite a while now after finishing the clinical clerkship year. Due to the COVID situation, many of the electives and Sub-I's at my school got cancelled so I am currently on a research gap year before re-entering 4th year next June and applying the following cycle, which gives me some more time to figure things out. I found that during my clerkships neurology stood out as the most interesting rotation for me. Wouldn't say I am a huge fan of early morning rounds in general, but did find myself much more engaged for neuro than other medical subspecialties. I appreciate that a lot of the thinking and diagnosis is rather logical, follows a well defined anatomical approach, cool disease process, imaging, relatively slower outpatient pacing, and enjoy the careful observation involved in the physical exam as well. I also feel like I can easily integrate with the specialty's culture. However, I do have some reservations given a number of attendings I've come across do seem really burnt out, and it is hard to ignore the fact that neuro is deemed to be one of the field with the highest burn out in the long run. I enjoyed most of my experiences during the few weeks on service, but I didn't work anywhere near resident/attending hours to know what the realistic picture will be like once finished with training. I also didn't happen to come across as much GBM/ALS diagnoses, and do wonder if working with a conditions that have little treatment would be difficult to do in the long run.
For rads, I had a short subspecialty rotation. It was a very different experience from any other clerkship given it was purely analyzing images, which is just so different than formulating differentials from reading/listening to a full patient history. To be honest it took the majority of the rotation to get used to the way of thinking, and it was rather passive in nature since I was just watching over the attending/fellow's shoulders for a handful of cases (2-3 hours) and they'd send me home to do independent reading. I have little clue what it would be like to read cases independently for a full 12 hour non stop night shift as one would do residency or on the job. I'd imagine it would be a lot more engaging/interesting after one gets past the learning curve? Is it really stressful or fun to be fully focused and crunching through studies non stop in the real world? What does draw me to the specialty is that while I appreciate aspects of one on one patient care, I am still rather introverted by nature and do feel kind of sapped of energy after long rounds, writing extensive notes, and working through ton of SW calls on the inpatient context. I think I'd be pretty happy reading through studies all day, relaying information to other providers, doing small procedures (I've always liked fields that afford procedures w/o having to take on a surgical career), and just focusing more on the medicine/diagnosis, even though it wasn't what I imagined myself going into at the beginning of med school.
There is also the related question of interest in the content. I am conflicted because I find myself enjoying reading about neurology and even the research side of neuro more than reading about imaging search patterns or how CT/MRI works or the imaging research (I attend a very research heavy school, so it's kind of required to do projects and overall it has skewed my impression that you have to be passionate about learning the book content). I suppose the question is, does it make sense to go into the field that you are more interested in to learn/research in or pursue the field where you feel like the nature of the day to day job is more consistent with your personality. People have often told me to focus more on the latter, but the purist in me is conditioned to think the former lol. (I'm pretty open to either academics or non-academics at this point).
I'm currently choosing a research project that'll lead up to to sub I's next year. The literature in rads is really dense (lol have little familiarity with any of it, so it's hard to get engaged compare to neuro literature). Is this a bad sign if I like the clinical side of reading studies in rads more than managing an inpatient ward, but haven't developed that much interested reading rads literature?
Steps1/2 are ~240 (eh ck didn't turn out too good, not sure if it'd cut it well for DR). Honored rotations, ~10 pubs in various basic/clinical projects (basic science, some neuro, other subspecialties, no rads), top 10 school. I think with these stats, I'd have a decent chance for academic program in major city for neuro, but much less likely for rads (maybe mid tier or community?). Would finding a project specifically in rads make that much difference at this point if steps can't be changed I have already published in other fields (doesn't seem like rads care about research nearly as much as step1/2).
Any sort of insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
For rads, I had a short subspecialty rotation. It was a very different experience from any other clerkship given it was purely analyzing images, which is just so different than formulating differentials from reading/listening to a full patient history. To be honest it took the majority of the rotation to get used to the way of thinking, and it was rather passive in nature since I was just watching over the attending/fellow's shoulders for a handful of cases (2-3 hours) and they'd send me home to do independent reading. I have little clue what it would be like to read cases independently for a full 12 hour non stop night shift as one would do residency or on the job. I'd imagine it would be a lot more engaging/interesting after one gets past the learning curve? Is it really stressful or fun to be fully focused and crunching through studies non stop in the real world? What does draw me to the specialty is that while I appreciate aspects of one on one patient care, I am still rather introverted by nature and do feel kind of sapped of energy after long rounds, writing extensive notes, and working through ton of SW calls on the inpatient context. I think I'd be pretty happy reading through studies all day, relaying information to other providers, doing small procedures (I've always liked fields that afford procedures w/o having to take on a surgical career), and just focusing more on the medicine/diagnosis, even though it wasn't what I imagined myself going into at the beginning of med school.
There is also the related question of interest in the content. I am conflicted because I find myself enjoying reading about neurology and even the research side of neuro more than reading about imaging search patterns or how CT/MRI works or the imaging research (I attend a very research heavy school, so it's kind of required to do projects and overall it has skewed my impression that you have to be passionate about learning the book content). I suppose the question is, does it make sense to go into the field that you are more interested in to learn/research in or pursue the field where you feel like the nature of the day to day job is more consistent with your personality. People have often told me to focus more on the latter, but the purist in me is conditioned to think the former lol. (I'm pretty open to either academics or non-academics at this point).
I'm currently choosing a research project that'll lead up to to sub I's next year. The literature in rads is really dense (lol have little familiarity with any of it, so it's hard to get engaged compare to neuro literature). Is this a bad sign if I like the clinical side of reading studies in rads more than managing an inpatient ward, but haven't developed that much interested reading rads literature?
Steps1/2 are ~240 (eh ck didn't turn out too good, not sure if it'd cut it well for DR). Honored rotations, ~10 pubs in various basic/clinical projects (basic science, some neuro, other subspecialties, no rads), top 10 school. I think with these stats, I'd have a decent chance for academic program in major city for neuro, but much less likely for rads (maybe mid tier or community?). Would finding a project specifically in rads make that much difference at this point if steps can't be changed I have already published in other fields (doesn't seem like rads care about research nearly as much as step1/2).
Any sort of insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
