Hey man,
I'm currently finishing up my intern year b/c I initially thought I was gonna do Trauma Surgery. But very early on in the year it became clear that Surgery was not for me. I have outside interests. I like sleep. I like free time. I like people. I don't like big egos. Etc. So I applied to EM (which still sees a lot of trauma, if you select your program carefully), and went to the ERMA Residency Fair a few months. I can tell ya that a NUMBER of Program Directors told me not to be dissuaded by the fact that I will inevitably receive many rejections early on, b/c many EM programs are not Surgery resident friendly (granted this is because I actually WANTED to do Surgery first, then changed fields). This may be different for you, if you've always wanted to do EM, and just wanted to do a "filler" year until you match to EM. But for what it's worth, I found what they said to be true. Smaller programs weren't exactly excited to hear I was initially interested in Surgery, and gave me the boot. In fact, I had a PD tell me to my face that EM guys are snobby in that they don't like people who were interested in something else first, and as such, pretty much denied me an interview. The ironic part is, the larger programs w/ higher acuity patient populations LOVED me (presumably because they want and need ppl w/ some experience on their shoulders), and most of the PDs I spoke with at the fair were either previously in Surgery themselves or had faculty who initially started out in Surgery before "seeing the light." And I'm happy to say I successfully matched in EM this year 😉
Having said that:
- Surgery is P-A-I-N-F-U-L. And pre-lim Surgery is the PITS, because they KNOW you're not staying, so will often give you the toughest schedule, the hardest rotations, and the worst call schedule.
- On the flipside, being that this year is almost over, I can honestly say I have learned SOOO much this year, that will help me in sooo many ways. From being the SOLE provider managing 30+ critically ill patients to running codes to knowing what to look for when seeing ED consults (which will help you work up & triage appropriately as an EM doc), I feel like I'm gonna hit the ground not just running, but SPRINTING come June, God Willing.
- The downside is, w/ Surgery, you're great at managing surgical issues as well as their medical complications (pneumonia, wound infxn, sepsis etc), but not so strong w/ some basic medicine stuff like asthma haha. So there are pros & cons to everything.
Hope that helps some 🙂
