Specialty?

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Survivior

Survivior

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I hope people don’t mind answering this question. I just wanted to know which specialty you guys are going into and why?

Thanks
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Survivior said:
I hope people don’t mind answering this question. I just wanted to know which specialty you guys are going into and why?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Any premed that knows which specialty they are going into is probably wishing more than anything.
 
Survivior said:
I hope people don't mind answering this question. I just wanted to know which specialty you guys are going into and why?

Thanks
Click to expand...

even if you are dead set on a speciality...the reality is that 90% premeds change their mind when they are in medical school...
 
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Note: SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Neurology, Psychiatry, neuropsychiatry, forensic psychiatry, etc. Anything to do with the brain and behavior.
 
I'm probably going into FP or Peds. (yes well aware that this will probably change between now and my 4th year). But long-term care and free clinics are a huge part of what brought me to medicine - so whatever I do will encompass both. There aren't too many specialties that do that, so I doubt it will change much.
 
Cardiology (or some other IM subspecialty), anesthesia, neurology....um, i don't know. I'll do a lot of thinking from now until fall of fourth year. It's funny that as a pre-med before medical school you have your heart set on soemthing and you're 100% sure that's going to be it....then all of a sudden, there's a whole lot of uncertainty.

I know what I DON'T want to do: urology, ob/gyn, peds, plain general surgery (gallbladders, hernias, appendectomies)... so I guess that narrows it down a bit.
 
peds, path, IM, ent, derm (yearight)

never psych. heck no.
 
EM, critical care medicine, anesthesia, interventional cardiology, neurosurgery, ENT, or pathology. The only thing I'm dead set against is primary care or OB/GYN.
 
yeah, they also say that the majority of college students change their major 3 times before graduating. i'm sure there are some of us (myself included) who ended up graduating in the major we decided upon in high school.
 
99.8% sure that I will go into surgery. I love working with my hands and being able to help people in a direct way. Fixing things has always been fun... so now I want to fix bodies. What kind of surgery, though, is totally up in the air. As a junior in college, I think it would be silly for me to set on a subspecialty. I'm sure I'll find something I love :)
 
I've been interested recently in surgery and transplantations. I'd love to work in a university health network.
 
BRAIN SURGEON. just kidding. infectious disease or oncology, probably...
 
Most probably Internal Medicine and then do a fellowship in something...I'm thinking Infectious Diseases....

I'm also considering Pediatrics, Neonatal/Perinatal Medicine or Maternal Fetal Medicine
 
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neonatal psychiatry
 
Interested in surgery but I can't get my hands to stop freaking shaking. Thus: I'm trying to keep an open mind.

Cardiology and EM seems like great alternatives.
 
remarkal3le said:
Interested in surgery but I can't get my hands to stop freaking shaking. Thus: I'm trying to keep an open mind.

Cardiology and EM seems like great alternatives.
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Don't sweat the shaking too much, unless you discover it's a problem in the OR. Even then, there are more folks taking beta-blockers for this than you realize.
 
I don't even know what I'm going to have for breakfast tomorrow. Applying to med school was almost a spur of the moment thing for me so I'd suspect picking a specialty later on will be a spur of the moment also...
 
Tired said:
Don't sweat the shaking too much, unless you discover it's a problem in the OR. Even then, there are more folks taking beta-blockers for this than you realize.
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If one's required to take beta-blockers to stop the shaking, does that person necessarily have a serious neurological problem? Just curious. :confused:
Also, do you think all surgeons have perfectly still hands and fingers while they perform surgery or is it just an issue of getting experience/practice?...
 
Tartheheel said:
If one's required to take beta-blockers to stop the shaking, does that person necessarily have a serious neurological problem? Just curious. :confused:
Also, do you think all surgeons have perfectly still hands and fingers while they perform surgery or is it just an issue of getting experience/practice?...
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No, it just functions to decrease the tremor that is inherent in all people's hands to some degree without clouding your ability to think. It also tends to blunt the sympathetic response that tends to increase tremor when the adrenaline starts to flow.
 
Okay, I am thinking Neurosurgery but I have been thinking about a few other specialties lately as well. I might like EM or Cardiothorasic. But who knows for sure where I will get in at.
 
Peds (I love the kids, but the parents can be a %$#@!!! sometimes)

Ob/Gyn
 
Mac11 said:
neonatal psychiatry
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hahaha. amazing.

for me... 90% sure psychiatry, either mood disorders or child and adolescent. we'll see though.
 
Haha, yeah, I may only have a vague idea of what I DO want to do, but I know what I definitely DON'T want to do.

I don't want to do primary care, general surgery, OB/GYN, or pediatrics (I love kids, but sick kids would just depress me too much). It's up or down with emergency medicine for me. I'm curious about a lot of things, though, such as cardiology and neurology, but I'm just going to see where med school takes me.:)

~Silk and Steel
 
Surgery, any kind coz i love it
 
PEDIATRIC ONCOLOGY.


Just kidding. I don't know yet, but I have some *idea*, although this idea is very much subject to change once I go through my clinical rotations:

Pathology, Radiology ( am I that antisocial? We'll find out), Internal Med w/subspecialty (endocrinology, cardiology, I don't know), ophtalmology (if I manage to match into it).
 
Infectious Disease, baby! Then off to far flung places to be a emerging disease hunter... to find, and probably die of, interesting new microbes.
 
etf said:
yeah, they also say that the majority of college students change their major 3 times before graduating. i'm sure there are some of us (myself included) who ended up graduating in the major we decided upon in high school.
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It's very different. You don't often continue to do your college major for the next 45 years and few college majors restrict your ultimate career goal. You can go to med school as an english major or law school as a biochem major etc. But if you don't choose the right specialty for you there are actual impediments (in terms of time, cost, etc) to getting back on track, if you even can.

Thus people try their best to find what they like with the result that they usually change their mind as they gain exposure to new things. The statistic stated above, that about 90% of med students will change their mind about specialty is, from what I've seen and heard, pretty accurate. Some determine (after eg Step 1) that they simply don't have the credentials for certain things and rule them out, others find in third year that what they thought a certain specialty was all about wasn't exactly right. Others find that what sounded cool on paper wasn't their cup of tea in reality. Others find role model mentors in certain specialties who excite them about a certain field they never considered (or vice versa, decide they don't want to be in a malignant specialty full of abusive A-holes). Still others take on spouse, family and other outside obligations while in med school that make certain life-style paths more appealing.

Thus, go into med school with an open mind, and decide what you want when you have to and not before. The major thing you learn in med school is how little you really know. And as a premed, you know even less, you just don't realize it yet.
 
I'm sorry but a lot people seem to be saying that they're dead seat against ob/gyn. Why is that? (I'm just asking because that's one of the speciality that I would like to do. I've been fascinated with it since 7th grade so I was just wondering why everyone else doesn't like it)
 
tamarmd said:
I'm sorry but a lot people seem to be saying that they're dead seat against ob/gyn. Why is that? (I'm just asking because that's one of the speciality that I would like to do. I've been fascinated with it since 7th grade so I was just wondering why everyone else doesn't like it)
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It has very rough hours, lots of night call and the highest medmal insurance costs, so income tends to be lower. So there's nothing wrong with it, and delivering healthy babies is probably one of the more joyous outcomes in medicine, but it tends to be a low pay and poor lifestyle career.
 
Oh well then thanks for letting me know. Delivering babies has always been so interesting to me that I never really took everything else into account.
 
tamarmd said:
I'm sorry but a lot people seem to be saying that they're dead seat against ob/gyn. Why is that? (I'm just asking because that's one of the speciality that I would like to do. I've been fascinated with it since 7th grade so I was just wondering why everyone else doesn't like it)
Click to expand...

Because people don't like getting sued. thanks to lawyers we probably will run out of ob/gyns in the future.

IMO let the nurses do that stuff
 
sirus_virus said:
Because people don't like getting sued. thanks to lawyers we probably will run out of ob/gyns in the future.

IMO let the nurses do that stuff
Click to expand...

The lawyers don't drive this train, they are just a vehicle - Patients and their families are the ones who sue the doctors. And in OB/GYN expecially, the death or injury to a newborn tends to be enough for patients to cry foul (whether right or wrong) without any lawyer suggesting a suit.
 
Plastic surgery. 100%
 
Cardiology: Interventional

I once saw an angioplasty and I know that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Then I became pro-active and shadowed a cardiologist and fell more in love.

My mind is still open though, but whatever specialty I decide (if not cardiology) must make me feel almost, if not better, that they way I first felt. It must be love at first sight/surgery.
 
Law2Doc said:
The lawyers don't drive this train, they are just a vehicle - Patients and their families are the ones who sue the doctors. And in OB/GYN expecially, the death or injury to a newborn tends to be enough for patients to cry foul (whether right or wrong) without any lawyer suggesting a suit.
Click to expand...

Have you not seen those commercials where some greasy blood-sucking parasite that calls himself a lawyer basically begs people to come sue?

The fate of obg/yn as a specialty is already decided IMO, and that is where society will see the effects of this hostile legal atmosphere that doctors have to work with.

BTW your username makes me uncomfortable:)
 
sirus_virus said:
Have you not seen those commercials where some greasy blood-sucking parasite that calls himself a lawyer basically begs people to come sue?

The fate of obg/yn as a specialty is already decided IMO, and that is where society will see the effects of this hostile legal atmosphere that doctors have to work with.

BTW your username makes me uncomfortable:)
Click to expand...

The greasy parasite does this because your elected officially appointed supreme court said he could, as otherwise injured people without access to a lawyer wouldn't know their rights. At any rate, you never see lawyers advertising about obgyn matters. Lawyers get aggressive in ads when the public shows it is receptive to such. If people weren't running to lawyers to try and sue, lawyers would largely stay out of personal injury/medmal altogether. There is no case without a willing plaintiff. Or a medical expert as a witness.
 
Definitely NOT: psychiatry, peds, geriatrics, family.
 
Immunopath, internal medicine, or endo.

Do not want to do Ob/gyn above all else.
 
I'll get back to you once I get my Step 1 scores.

Survivior said:
I hope people don’t mind answering this question. I just wanted to know which specialty you guys are going into and why?

Thanks
Click to expand...
 
I'd say I am most interested in anesthesia and orthopedic surgery. This is mainly because these are the specialties I've spent the most time around. Both have their pro's and con's, but I think I would be happy in either. Also who knows what I'll end up in, probably neither, but for now it's what I use for motivation :laugh: .

Disclaimer: I also realize orthopedics is exceptionally difficult to get into, so it may be off the list once I take step 1.
 
nephro, non-interventional cards, child/adolescent psych, neonatology, interventional rads, MFM (at least the parents are prepared for the worst :D), i'd consider critical care if i wasn't so burnt out from it

definitely NOT surgery, neurology, anesthesia, geriatrics
 
tamarmd said:
I'm sorry but a lot people seem to be saying that they're dead seat against ob/gyn. Why is that? (I'm just asking because that's one of the speciality that I would like to do. I've been fascinated with it since 7th grade so I was just wondering why everyone else doesn't like it)
Click to expand...

There's a scut monkey cartoon that reveals the hidden agony of such a career move--for me atleast. For me I've ruled this field out before entering med school. Too much female hormones. You ever walk into an OB/GYN ward? You can smell the the estrogen. The nurses and the doctors and the patients all look the same...like new mommies. And they're not all happy about it--they kind of look at you a little vengefully...I don't know if its because I'm a man or what....In S.F. there's alot of lesbians in that field, which is cool but I don't want to the one idiot with a pair of nuts in an environment like that. And the father's walk around like whipped hounds...its all rather horrible really.
 
Nasrudin said:
There's a scut monkey cartoon that reveals the hidden agony of such a career move--for me atleast. For me I've ruled this field out before entering med school. Too much female hormones. You ever walk into an OB/GYN ward? You can smell the the estrogen. The nurses and the doctors and the patients all look the same...like new mommies. And they're not all happy about it--they kind of look at you a little vengefully...I don't know if its because I'm a man or what....In S.F. there's alot of lesbians in that field, which is cool but I don't want to the one idiot with a pair of nuts in an environment like that. And the father's walk around like whipped hounds...its all rather horrible really.
Click to expand...

http://theunderweardrawer.homestead.com/obgyn1.html
 
I would rather flip burgers than go into OB/GYN.
 
Something hospital based. Either IM/criticalcare with a hospitalist group or Emergency med. Something where I work roughly the same hours as nurses, and when I give report and go home, I don't have to come back (except in the case of a disaster, see my most recent thread, but even then they still kept just one hospitalist on for the night!)
Plus, it has all the altriusm of family practice as far as serving the poor, making a difference, but is slightly more exciting.

of course, this is subject to change...
 
Maybe: OBGYN, Cardiology, Derm, Peds
No: Surgery, Anesthesiology, FP, Radiology
 
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