Surgery.... with 2nd thoughts to Gas? How-to?

[thebeatgoeson]

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Hello,
I'm a MSIV planning on surgery right now, but I am entertaining other thoughts.

As of right now, I will not be able to do an anesthesia rotation until October. My goal is to apply to surgery and enter a surgical residency. But, I have a deep intuition I will love anesthesia when I rotate in October.
I think I will apply to both fields just to be safe. If I don't like anesthesia in October I won't rank programs/decline interviews, etc.

So what would be my best course of action? Take a surgical Cat vs. Prelim position and apply to anesthesia positions my PGY-1 year? Would it be better (for me personally) to "take" a Cat surg spot even though I may switch out of it?
Or apply to anesthesia this year? Categorical? Advanced positions with a surgical intern position?

Step 1 226, Step 2 226. Good school. Good grades and letters.
My biggest problem is that I would not have an anesthesia LOR until Nov 1-ish. Yikes. Would any program even entertain the idea of interviewing me?

And yes, I did search and read similar posts on the forum. Thanks for the help! I'm not asking for help on delineating between these two career choices. That I can do on my own. I'm just a late comer to the anesthesia game and am curious on the nuts and bolts of applications. Thanks!

 

[RxBoy]

Hello,
I'm a MSIV planning on surgery right now, but I am entertaining other thoughts.

As of right now, I will not be able to do an anesthesia rotation until October. My goal is to apply to surgery and enter a surgical residency. But, I have a deep intuition I will love anesthesia when I rotate in October.
I think I will apply to both fields just to be safe. If I don't like anesthesia in October I won't rank programs/decline interviews, etc.

So what would be my best course of action? Take a surgical Cat vs. Prelim position and apply to anesthesia positions my PGY-1 year? Would it be better (for me personally) to "take" a Cat surg spot even though I may switch out of it?
Or apply to anesthesia this year? Categorical? Advanced positions with a surgical intern position?

Step 1 226, Step 2 226. Good school. Good grades and letters.
My biggest problem is that I would not have an anesthesia LOR until Nov 1-ish. Yikes. Would any program even entertain the idea of interviewing me?

And yes, I did search and read similar posts on the forum. Thanks for the help! I'm not asking for help on delineating between these two career choices. That I can do on my own. I'm just a late comer to the anesthesia game and am curious on the nuts and bolts of applications. Thanks!

Just talk to your anesthesia program director. Shadow an anesthesiologist at your institution for a day or 2. See if you like it plus those are 2 great LOR potentials right there. . Don't blindly apply, only to realize you hate it. Waste of money and time. Also for your sake, if you made it blantly obvious to the surgeons that wrote your LORs that you want to go into surgery, refrain from sending those LORs to anesthesia programs. THey will most likely conclude with "and this is why he will be an excellent SURGERY resident".