Specialty with least responsibility

[Jay Leno]

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Why not Pathology? You won't kill anyone...directly, anyway. No prelim year required either.

Sorry, just read your OP in full about not being able to "work with cadavers".

So to sum up - you are unable to work with either the living or the dead? Dude, change fields. Medicine is not it for you.

You know, I'm starting to appreciate that they make it so difficult to get into medical school in this country. Sure, it's 4 years of undergrad hell and there's the MCAT, and then you'll blow several thousand dollars on applications and wait for a year to know where you get accepted, but ultimately, it make you think about whether or not you really want to practice medicine. The hoops that the Adcoms make us jump through seems almost rationale when faced with the fact that you will be holding people lives in your hands in the future.

 

[bigmike7104]

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/549

I don't know if you have read in recent years, but lots of research has shown that relaxation techniques, specifically mindfulness meditation can rewire the brain in the area of the disorder over a certain amount of time and signficantly reduce symptoms, especially combined with therapy. In the link, the fourth paragraph down is about OCD. You can find a lot of studies on this searching brain plasiticity in google. I'm not in medical school, but I believe if you truly want to become a doctor that you should be one once you get everything manged. Is it possible you can take a year off?

 

[Desperatemed]

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/549

I don't know if you have read in recent years, but lots of research has shown that relaxation techniques, specifically mindfulness meditation can rewire the brain in the area of the disorder over a certain amount of time and signficantly reduce symptoms, especially combined with therapy. In the link, the fourth paragraph down is about OCD. You can find a lot of studies on this searching brain plasiticity in google. I'm not in medical school, but I believe if you truly want to become a doctor that you should be one once you get everything manged. Is it possible you can take a year off?

Well I have taken 9 months off already so I wouldn't really want to take another year off.
BTW I think my psychological condition is really hindering me and I'm already in therapy and on meds. The thing is neither the therapist nor anyone else can predict the outcome so I'm kinda unsure what to do.

I'll probably give it another few months before making the call. BTW out of all the possibilities, if I were to remain in medicine I still think derm would be the specialty I could cope bets with. I still can't see what major screwups you could do there.

I'd be treating skin condition who rarely are life threatening etc. but I have no experience there so I could be wrong.

 

[cartoondoc]

I don't know if you plan to practice in this country, but derm is *incredibly* competitive in this country. You have to be at the very top of your class to match, and even then, it's difficult.

 

[Dral]

"but it's got a good lifestyle and low risk of liability"

In reference to derm. People tend to not realize how much litigation results from Melanoma. Granted, pathologists are often involved as well.

Don't forget about cosmetics as well. If you charge cash for a cosmetic procedure, you better damn well make sure you do it right...and doing it right is subjective.

 

[Tiki]

Why not Pathology? You won't kill anyone...directly, anyway. No prelim year required either.

Sorry, just read your OP in full about not being able to "work with cadavers".

So to sum up - you are unable to work with either the living or the dead? Dude, change fields. Medicine is not it for you.

Regardless of whether or not he likes working with cadavers (which is actually a pretty small part of what a pathologist does), pathology has it's moments of stress.

When you are looking at a frozen section of a tumor margin (that most likely has tons of artifact) and the surgeon is breathing down your neck wondering if he needs to take out more lung (or pancreas, or colon, or liver, or mandible...), it can be pretty darn stressful. Your decision has an immediate impact on whether or not the patient has more surgery.

 

[Knicks]

They will ease you into it. Zero responsibility at first, and gradually more and more as third year goes on.

You mean 3rd year of residency?

 

[OpalOnyx]

OMG, I think a little tear just rolled down my cheek...

OK, I may be heartless, but if my patient were actually VOMITING on me, I could imagine plenty of other places I'd rather be.... like ANYWHERE ELSE.

😛

this is too funny, i literally started a thread seconds ago... regarding vomiting patients. and patients in general who like to leave souvenirs on my clothing...


OP, I think you should take your time in trying to figure out a best fit for you. Next year, rotations may shed a lot of light on what you can and maybe can not do. What the mind thinks is one thing.... but practice is entirely different once you're placed in the situation. So - while you may predict that certain fields/procedures may be great challenges for you - you wont know whether or not you can step up to the plate until you are given the opportunity in 3rd year. Just relax, take a step back, and let things unfold as they should. Wait and see.

 

[deleted103644]

I wouldn't say it's completely without responsibility, but palliative care might be an option for you. The outcome is already pretty much guaranteed, your job is just to help the person prepare and keep them as comfortable as possible in the meantime.

 

[TexasTriathlete]

There is one specialty where your only responsibility is to make sure that your patient has a good-looking hairline when you're done with him. That specialty: medical hair restoration.

That is what I intend to go into, and it has been a dream of mine ever since I was a little kid. I remember watching ER during its first season and thinking "man, these ER docs on tv really work hard, but what if someone comes into the ED with emergent baldness? Shouldn't sterile processing pack up a hair transplant tray to go along with the airway stuff and the thoracotomy tray?"

That's going to be my gig. Emergency hair restoration. To me, that's what medicine is all about. It really makes you feel like you made a difference.

 

[Law2Doc]

There is one specialty where your only responsibility is to make sure that your patient has a good-looking hairline when you're done with him. That specialty: medical hair restoration.

That is what I intend to go into, and it has been a dream of mine ever since I was a little kid. I remember watching ER during its first season and thinking "man, these ER docs on tv really work hard, but what if someone comes into the ED with emergent baldness? Shouldn't sterile processing pack up a hair transplant tray to go along with the airway stuff and the thoracotomy tray?"

That's going to be my gig. Emergency hair restoration. To me, that's what medicine is all about. It really makes you feel like you made a difference.

A lot of the folks who go into hair transplantation start in plastics, and plastic surgery is anything but stress free.

 

[TexasTriathlete]

A lot of the folks who go into hair transplantation start in plastics, and plastic surgery is anything but stress free.

You don't have to do plastics. Not by a longshot.

 

[reedman]

medical examiner.

 

[Rendar5]

medical examiner.

He said no to pathology.

 

[TBS12]

I wouldn't count out too many specialities just yet. You are forgetting that educating yourself and all of the preparation/training you get in residency prepares you for these tough decisions. That's why our system of training is set up the way it is. So if there is a field that you like but it has a lot of "responsibility," don't count it out. A lot of the decisions that are made anyways can pretty much be found in an algorithm.

 

[cpants]

You mean 3rd year of residency?

No MS.

 

[GMed]

I would go with Physical medicine and Rehab or Psych (patients are crazy already anyways).

Both are pretty chill and with inpatient psych, just write your med orders and you are done with the day.

Or maybe sleep specialty, I think thats in neurology (I could be wrong, don't know too much about it. Sounds nice though!).

 

[Droopy Snoopy]

I would go with Physical medicine and Rehab or Psych (patients are crazy already anyways).

Both are pretty chill and with inpatient psych, just write your med orders and you are done with the day.

Or maybe sleep specialty, I think thats in neurology (I could be wrong, don't know too much about it. Sounds nice though!).

Pulm is more common, but you can get there from psych, FM and neuro too.

 

[SplenoMegastar]

Pulm is more common, but you can get there from psych, FM and neuro too.

You can get to sleep med from ENT, too.

 

[kdburton]

Hey guys, I still have another 2 years to go till graduation but are already contemplating my options. I'm deciding between going into a completely other field upon graduation or trying to find a specialty I can cope with. What I don't like is having the responsibility of tough life/death type decision or doing surgery so a high percetage of specialty are out of the question.

I figure all types of surgery,internal medicine,family medicine etc. are all out of question. I also can't work on cadavers etc. so pathology etc. are also out of the question. Research is possible but I don't know if I'm interested enough to justify a life in laboratory.

I just wanted to make sure if there isn't anything I'm not contemplating or thinking about. Suggestions?

trauma surgery

 

[Ruination]

Why not Pathology? You won't kill anyone...directly, anyway. No prelim year required either.

Sorry, just read your OP in full about not being able to "work with cadavers".

So to sum up - you are unable to work with either the living or the dead? Dude, change fields. Medicine is not it for you.

Autopsies comprise less than 5% of what we actually do in real life-- most of us don't particularly care for them, but we do them and move on. The OP should at least try to observe a post-- usually peoples' impressions with respect to being able to "handle it" are completely overblown and most don't find it a problem.

Call can be challenging, particularly when having to make critical decisions while reading frozen sections taken in the OR (i.e. if you call something X, a patient gets a huge surgery with a high morbidity/mortality rate vs if you call something Z). If you work at a center that does a lot of organ transplantation, you may also have to make the critical "rejection vs no rejection" call which can have serious consequences. These things aren't trivial, but its definitely not like being in the ICU taking care of really sick patients.

 

[iwumd07]

In most fields, you still have to do part of residency in some sort of medicine where you take care of the issues of which you are afraid. This is part of what makes a good physician. However, after residency you can teach medical school (usually Path is most fitting).

 

[masterofmonkeys]

Scottish chap brought this up as well but psychiatry is also a good option if you don't like to do doing operations or procedures.

Yeah umm if you don't think psych can be life or death you're not working with people who are very mentally ill. Leaving aside the issue of suicide, a great psych doc can be the difference between a life of ruin or a reasonably well put together one. Also of import is that when you are serving a less well-off and mentally disorganized population, you may be the only doc these people see, and thus have to be on your toes about even basic medical crap like DLD, HTN, DM2, etc. One of the reasons seriously mentally ill people live twenty years less than others is that it's easier for both themselves and for doctors to ascribe their physical ailments to 'oh well they're crazy anyway' or just ignore them altogether.

 

[ApothecaryReady]

http://www.cdc.gov/employment/menu_mopp.html

Check this out - though just accepted to school, I've been working at the CDC. Depending on what they're hired for or where they're assigned, CDC medical officers may not even treat patients at all! I can't speak for the stresses of their job, but I get the feeling that they rarely make life-or-death decisions.

 

[Jay Leno]

Yeah umm if you don't think psych can be life or death you're not working with people who are very mentally ill. Leaving aside the issue of suicide, a great psych doc can be the difference between a life of ruin or a reasonably well put together one. Also of import is that when you are serving a less well-off and mentally disorganized population, you may be the only doc these people see, and thus have to be on your toes about even basic medical crap like DLD, HTN, DM2, etc. One of the reasons seriously mentally ill people live twenty years less than others is that it's easier for both themselves and for doctors to ascribe their physical ailments to 'oh well they're crazy anyway' or just ignore them altogether.

Nowhere did I say that psychiatrists don't make life and death decisions. It's just that unlike say, neurosurgery or cardiothoracic surgery, the outcomes are usually better and you are less likely to contribute directly to a patient's death. Same thing with pathology, dermatology, etc. None of these are as risky or as invasive as the surgical specialties, hence the liabilities are lower. There are no medical specialties without inherent risks or responsibilities. It's just that in some specialties, the cases that you will handle are usually more manageable and the patient's chances of survival are better.

 

[Mattchiavelli]

Didn't you guys ever wish you were in a profession were you could wake up ,go to work without having to make big time decisions that might haunt you for a long time?To me it just seems like such a huge stressor but then again I definitely am a little compulsive/obsessive so maybe I just don't think like a normal person.

Very rarely, but I worked a paper-pusher office job for a year before I went to med school and I realized that it is just as mind numbing and soul crushing as it's depicted on Office Space (one of the better movies of all time).

The way I look at it is if you want to make an omelette you have to break a few eggs in the process. As long as I am doing what I know to be my best, deferring to higher ups when necessary, I consider myself to have all my ducks in a row. The way I see it is patients chances for a good outcome without me = 0 and chances with me = >0. As a gambling man I like those odds.

And honestly my armchair psychiatrist's evaluation is if you don't deal with thesse underlying personality issues they will hold you back no matter what career you end up in.

 

[noobD0c]

Radiology! 🙂

 

[Orthodoc40]

I kinda agree w/Law2Doc. Public health or research would probably be a better fit for you. It might be a combination that is both satisfying to your parents that seem to be pushing it on you, but something you would intrinsically be more comfortable with...

 

[avatarftw]

a

 

[BozoSparky]

Radiology! 🙂

they make critical diagnostic reads! I realized how un-chill radiology was when I was calling them at 3AM for a wet read....a huge responsibility.

 

[smq123]

Radiology! 🙂

If you read 75 films in one day, those are 75 patients who can sue you if you miss something small that ends up becoming important. That's more patients than the average Internal Med physician sees in one day.

(And yes, we have a patient in our practice who is currently suing a radiologist for missing something on a CT scan. Don't think it doesn't happen.)

 

[Darkskies]

I apologize if I am reviving an old thread but I feel that I am in similar shoes to the OP's. The exceptions being that I am a US pre-med and I don't think I'd particularly mind working with cadavers. I'm more ambivalent about procedures but as of right now I believe I'd prefer to be in a more cerebral specialty. My main fears are being able to cope with life and death situations along with the huge responsibilities. Unlike the OP I do not suffer from any psychological ailments. I often wonder if my fears are unfounded and whether I will just learn to adapt to these situations as I go through medical school. Were you eased into all of the responsibility and decision-making as you progressed through medical school and residency? As of now, I'm looking into PM&R(might shadow a doc in the specialty here). So would my only choices be PM&R, pathology, and psychiatry? What sort of stressors are present in FM/IM/Peds? Thanks in advance!

Darkskies

 

[Darkskies]

Anyone?

 

[Darkskies]

Sorry for bumping this up a third time but I would really appreciate some responses. Maybe I should have created a new thread but the issue addressed in this thread is so similar to mine.

 

[goodmansk]

There's no specialty with less responsibility.

 

[shreypete]

There's no specialty with less responsibility.

👍👍

Even fields like Pathology have a lot of responsibility when it comes to diagnosing a biopsy!

 

[Ammara]

I'm a first year medical student in Pakistan. I wanted to know about Aviation Medicine. Like what exams you have to sit for it? Is it there on USMLE boards? What exactly you have to do in this field? Pros and cons. Institutes offering specialty in aviation medicine.