Surgery from another specialty

Started by tigermike37
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tigermike37

tigermike37

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15+ Year Member
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Do people ever switch into general surgery from other fields, say IM for example? I hear of IM and Peds people switching to ER and Rads (along with surgery residents as well), but I've never heard of someone switching to general surgery from a different medical specialty --- just curious to see if you guys know of people who've done it.
 
Usually people that switch out of G Surg go to:

*Path
*Rads
*Anesthesia
 
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I know a Plastic surgeon in St Paul/Minneapolis who completed a FM residency before joining a general surgery residency.. followed by a plastics fellowship..
 
i know of quite a few IMGs who are doing IM or FM now & trying to convert to Gen Surg...but not too many are successful! I too thought of going the IM route & then applying to GS after an IM residency instead of the prelim surgery route ( & some people do that) but I was advised against it..
on the other hand i know of 4-5 attendings who shifted to GS after doing an IM residency & they said there was no problem at all..
i don't know if you're an IMG or not, but what I heard was that it's not looked at very favorable if u're an IMG cuz it's understood/assumed that u wanted surgery from the start but were willing to settle for something else, so it appears that you're not whole heartedly willing to do what it takes...i was surprised when i heard that, but after 3-4 people (attendings & 1 PD) told me that i figured it might be the general opinion
 
When I was a 3rd year med student there was a surgery resident who had switched from FP after his intern year, but I think they made him do another intern year.
 
Yeah, people don't seem to understand that doing a whole 'nother residency doesn't "improve your chances."
 
I'm not an IMG nor am I trying to get into Gen Surg --- I'm beginning IM in July --- just curious to see if people actually went into Gen Surg after starting something else, because I've never seen it happen nor have I heard of it happening.
 
Hamilton Bailey said:
I know a Plastic surgeon in St Paul/Minneapolis who completed a FM residency before joining a general surgery residency.. followed by a plastics fellowship..
Click to expand...

A CT surgeon I worked with in med school was board certified IM, then did Gen Surg at Yale followed by CT at Cleveland Clinic.

This guy was ridiculously full of knowledge. It was great to watch him argue with/own the Cards fellows in our combined IM/Surg conferences.
 
I would gladly give away my left and right nuts, AND ***** myself to big fat old women to get into general surgery. But when it came time for me to decide between Prelim surgey and IM/FM/PEDS, I choose FM (for now).

Why?

-Security. If I do Prelim surgery,there is no guarantee that I will get a cat. spot down the line. I KNOW people (IMGs) who did prelim surgery for 2 years, and ended with nothing in the end. One of them is now desperate to get into ANY residency, because he did his prelim years as a very malignant surgey program, and got bad evaluations...Now no residency wants him because of this (in addition to the fact that it has been > 5 years since his med. school graduation), while 2 years ago he had many offers from peds.

-Way to prove myself. I am a IMG who "stuggled in the past. Step 1 = 91, Step 2 = 87 (s/p 1 failure). Had only 2 LORs from surgical attendings from community hospitals. I only managed to get prelim. surgery interview offers.
I got many IM, FM, and Pediatics offers.

I choose not to go into IM or Peds because their residency does not involve FORMAL surgical training. Also IM and Peds residents do not do much procedures, sutturing, and cutting like Family Medicine residents do. As an intern in my unopposed FM program, I remove skin lesions, do I&D, drain and inject knees, suture wounds, place casts on a DAILY basis in the OP clinic and ER. In OB I 1ST assist on CS, and do episiotomies, repair 2nd, 3rd amd 4th degree tears, and do circumcisions like a peace of cake. On surgery rotations, I am the surgical resident and 1st assist on all surgeries. Now I have mastered all my hand knots and ties...just after being on the OB/GYN service for 8 weeks!

What sold me to do FM, instead of IM or peds, is this. When I was rotating with an IM attending in adult OP clinic that is affiliated with our hospital, a 19 yo male came in with an abcess on his hip. The attending, who is a well respected internist at that hospital was very reluctant to do the I&D himself, and sent the patient to the ER, where one of my fellow FM interns did it.🙄

-My goal is to do all my electives in surgery, in addition to the required surgical rotations in my program. I want to excell as a FM resident, and take this time to perfect my suture and procedural technique. I want to get stellar LORs from the general surgeons, orthopods, and gyn surgeons I work with, and apply to GS, agian, in 2 years.
 
SLUser11 said:
A CT surgeon I worked with in med school was board certified IM, then did Gen Surg at Yale followed by CT at Cleveland Clinic.

This guy was ridiculously full of knowledge. It was great to watch him argue with/own the Cards fellows in our combined IM/Surg conferences.
Click to expand...

awesome. that just pumped me up a little.
 
Calm down there, hoss.

Leukocyte-- best of luck-- you sound like a fantastically dedicated resident.

I knew a neurosurgery attending who had done a neurology residency first. He too was amazingly knowledgeable, and incredibly dedicated to his patients.
 
I'm not saying he's not good. I'm saying if PD's get a whiff of English like that they may not be so kind. All I'm saying is some fine tuning wouldn't hurt.
 
Criminy, the guy wrote six paragraphs in eloquent, idiomatically correct English. It's obvious he's a native speaker. Two misplaced vowels / one homonym does not a red flag raise.

It appears that the take-home message is to run your PS through spell check and don't treat it like, I dunno, a hastily typed message on an internet forum.
 
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BlondeDocteur said:
Criminy, the guy wrote six paragraphs in eloquent, idiomatically correct English. It's obvious he's a native speaker. Two misplaced vowels / one homonym does not a red flag raise.
Click to expand...

BlondeDocteur, you need to learn to speak/write correct English before you post any further. Just so you know, it's "does not raise a red flag", not "does not a red flag raise".
 
mosfet said:
BlondeDocteur, you need to learn to speak/write correct English before you post any further. Just so you know, it's "does not raise a red flag", not "does not a red flag raise".
Click to expand...

That's a correct use of the expression. For example, this article is called "A perfect correlate does not a surrogate make."

It's just a different form of syntax.
 
Thank youu all forr me support!

BlondeDocteur, be my friend, will you? You seem sugar like flower.😍

Spead, thankk u for good luck wish. Me wish luck you too.
 
leukocyte-sorry if i was being presumptious. i had seen you failed a step and were from a different country. i thought perhaps english was the barrier that was preventing you from getting a surgical spot. but im sure you type/speak fine. the internet isn't often grammatically perfect, so if i presumed anything, i apologize.
 
Off topic, but did anybody catch Tiger's round yesterday? That guy is a freak. With his focus and hand-eye coordination, I bet he would have made a fantastic surgeon.
 
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DrDre311 said:
Off topic, but did anybody catch Tiger's round yesterday? That guy is a freak. With his focus and hand-eye coordination, I bet he would have made a fantastic surgeon.
Click to expand...

That last putt was amazing, especially given the circumstances.

Tiger also looks like he has gained about 20 pounds of muscle. When did he become a weightlifter?
 
Playmakur42 said:
That last putt was amazing, especially given the circumstances.

Tiger also looks like he has gained about 20 pounds of muscle. When did he become a weightlifter?
Click to expand...

I don't know, he's been pretty buff since his late 20's. I've heard he can bench 315 lbs or so. What a freak...I wish I could play golf like that. I knew that last putt was going in even before he started chasing it down there.
 
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