Switching from Lifestyle-friendly specialty to OB/GYN?!

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CognacMonnet

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Call me crazy but am seriously debating switching into OB/GYN even though already in a lifestyle-friendly residency at great institution and already did an internal medicine prelim. Am bored with this specialty and miss working in something I find interesting: OB/GYN. Imagine that! But as an MSIV I decided to give myself a chance to be in a 9-5pm specialty hoping I would grow to like it. Didn't happen.

Would appreciate feedback from OB/GYN residents or attendings or people who have or are planning to do a similar switch. Am I crazy? How do you know if you're cut out for surgery? (watching is different from doing) I know I like L&D. As a PGY-3, do I apply for OB/GYN outside the match to a PGY1 position but with hopes of getting some credit for the Internal Medicine months I've done?

Hope this makes sense. Feel free to PM me with specific feedback and also if there are openings at your program!

Thanks. :confused:

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Just curious .. what is the "life style friendly" specialty you are talking about !!

Also ... I take it you are PGY3 at the moment and are looking to apply for the match this year .... well if you start residency next year you would have done 3 years of your residency in the present specialty ... even if you want to switch to OB ... would you not want to just wait another year and complete your residency and then apply to OB .. at least this way the 3 years would not be wasted ... not really sure how much credit you will get in OB a medicine prelim year.

Also if you are doing an internal medicine residency, completing it will prob work to your advantage in places which are OB residency but IM heavy....I think Yale is pretty IM heavy ... they ask for an IM LOR !!
 
Call me crazy but am seriously debating switching into OB/GYN even though already in a lifestyle-friendly residency at great institution and already did an internal medicine prelim. Am bored with this specialty and miss working in something I find interesting: OB/GYN. Imagine that! But as an MSIV I decided to give myself a chance to be in a 9-5pm specialty hoping I would grow to like it. Didn't happen.

Would appreciate feedback from OB/GYN residents or attendings or people who have or are planning to do a similar switch. Am I crazy? How do you know if you're cut out for surgery? (watching is different from doing) I know I like L&D. As a PGY-3, do I apply for OB/GYN outside the match to a PGY1 position but with hopes of getting some credit for the Internal Medicine months I've done?

Hope this makes sense. Feel free to PM me with specific feedback and also if there are openings at your program!

Thanks. :confused:

I personally think you are insane. I work with obgyns regularly and they are generally the most dis-satisfied specialists edging out the general surgeons. Their schedule is crazy.. a lot of nights and weekends and odd hours on obstetrics.. its dirty.. laden with lawsuit issues.. reimbursements are down and going down further.. dont do it my friend.. you want excitement.. take up an extreme sport or something
 
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I personally think you are insane. I work with obgyns regularly and they are generally the most dis-satisfied specialists edging out the general surgeons. Their schedule is crazy.. a lot of nights and weekends and odd hours on obstetrics.. its dirty.. laden with lawsuit issues.. reimbursements are down and going down further.. dont do it my friend.. you want excitement.. take up an extreme sport or something

what specific reimbursements are going down? i haven't heard this before other than across the board reimbursement cuts that apply to most specialties.
 
what specific reimbursements are going down? i haven't heard this before other than across the board reimbursement cuts that apply to most specialties.

aaaahhhhhh!!!! someone who is interested in OB and hasnt done research. I suggest you get cracking on your research before you turn out to be one miserable doctor on OB trying to fend off lawsuits. Dont listen to the academic types. Their job is to get you to go into their field. Go to a community hospital where they are doing way too many deliveries of illegals and people on medicaid. They will tell you the real deal.
 
Hmm... I'm an OB/Gyn resident currently switching OUT into a more lifestyle friendly field. I really debated between OB and the lifestyle friendly field for ages 4th year of med school and chose OB. I don't hate OB, but I have realized that I just can't see myself working at this same level ten years down the road. Once I went through our private rotations and saw how hard the guys in private practice were working, I could no longer keep up the mantra "it's just residency." If you love it, you love it, and that's the way it is. But, don't be too quick to buy the idea of part-time, laborists, etc. Outside of Kaiser-type systems, that doesn't really exist. If you are general OB/Gyn, you need to do OB to build up your practice (you can try to start just Gyn from the get-go, but you will have some lean years in the beginning, from talking to people who have gone this route). Doing OB, the truth is that private patients expect their doctor to deliver them - you build up good word of mouth by being available to your patients - good word of mouth=more referrals=more patients=more business.

If you have a strong IM background, you might be a good candidate down the road for MFM (if you found that interesting - you mention you like L&D). See if you can spend your days off working with one. Also, if you have any weekends off, consider talking with the OB/Gyn program and trying to do a shift on L&D, or on your day off, going back to the OR with the Gyn team. You could probably first assist, and it would give you at least a little taste of what it feels like to be back in the OR. While it would suck to give up your days off like this, it probably is a worthwhile investment if you are considering such a big career change. Good luck.
 
aaaahhhhhh!!!! someone who is interested in OB and hasnt done research. I suggest you get cracking on your research before you turn out to be one miserable doctor on OB trying to fend off lawsuits. Dont listen to the academic types. Their job is to get you to go into their field. Go to a community hospital where they are doing way too many deliveries of illegals and people on medicaid. They will tell you the real deal.

well i know about poor reimbursements due to those who are non insured or on medicaid. however, this affects other specialties also (any primary care specialty and even some surgical specialties). i can't help what i like (i.e. ob/gyn), but i plan to at least learn b4 i actually practice how best to make a living despite these issues. i can't imagine picking something that i don't really like just so i can brag about reimbursements. i know you might think i am niave but i think it can still be done. btw, if i wasn't so interested in ob/gyn i would pick anesthesia since i also liked my 2 elective anesthesia rotations. however, i liked ob/gyn even more.
 
That's depressing to hear, Lilycat. What about academic positions in GYN or laparoscopic fellowships - can you find those and not do as much OB? And there is always an option to do a fellowship in urogyn or rei and have a better lifestyle, right?
 
If you think that you will be happy you should make the move to OBGYN. Unfortunately, you will likely get little or no credit for the residency that you have completed. As for johankriek I am not sure what makes him an expert on the happiness of all OBGYN docs but he frequently makes the blanket statement that all of us are miserable as are all gen. surgeons. As we all know people are happy and unhappy everywhere. I love OBGYN and I am really happy as a PGY1. I go to a great program that has respect for the 80 hour work week and for residents as people. I work hard and always will but it is worth it if you are doing what you love.
 
If you think that you will be happy you should make the move to OBGYN. Unfortunately, you will likely get little or no credit for the residency that you have completed. As for johankriek I am not sure what makes him an expert on the happiness of all OBGYN docs but he frequently makes the blanket statement that all of us are miserable as are all gen. surgeons. As we all know people are happy and unhappy everywhere. I love OBGYN and I am really happy as a PGY1. I go to a great program that has respect for the 80 hour work week and for residents as people. I work hard and always will but it is worth it if you are doing what you love.

What's your program? Would you mind sharing under the thread "residents do you recommend you program?"
 
That's depressing to hear, Lilycat. What about academic positions in GYN or laparoscopic fellowships - can you find those and not do as much OB? And there is always an option to do a fellowship in urogyn or rei and have a better lifestyle, right?

Are you asking me personally what I would do, or the advice I have to give to a med student? They are different answers, depending on the focus of the question.

Personally, the only fellowship that interested me was laparoscopic - obviously, you can use that to try to create more a gyn niche, but gyn only jobs are not widely abundant (I've also seen people try to market themselves as chronic pelvic pain specialists to do more gyn). Like I said, you can certainly try to go that route, but it's not like you'll immediately start with a huge patient base and excellent compensation. What do many of the older OB/Gyns want to do as they progress in their career? Cut the OB out and just do Gyn. Why would they refer their patients to you, rather than keep the gyn cases for themselves? The chronic pelvic pain route actually seems like the way to go, because those patients are often considered "frustrating" or "difficult" in the general OB/Gyn population, and therefore the generalist may be more willing to refer them off to you.

As for fellowships, sure, urogyn, REI, and even MFM to an extent have better lifestyles than general OB/Gyn. But first, you have to ask yourself if you are really interested in any of those 3 fields. Second, my personal feeling is that it is not particularly wise to ONLY match into a field on the assumption that you are going to do a specific fellowship. REI and MFM have poor match rates in recent years, hovering around the 50% mark. If you don't match into fellowship, what then? My opinion is that you better make sure that you are comfortable with the worst case scenario of being a general OBGyn/internist/surgeon/pediatrician if you don't match into a subspecialty. Otherwise, that's a big waste of time and training.

Academic positions - I'm sure it varies a lot from program to program. However, I'm intimately familiar with 3 different programs, and I can tell you that at all three: 1) you still did some labor call, regardless of subspecialty; and 2) the young ones on the totem pole did the most call.

Everywhere you go, you will need to pay your dues. This is true of all fields. (I'm sure the new ER attendings pull more night shifts, and the new Anesthesiology attendings pull more call). In OB/Gyn, paying dues means doing OB. Hopefully, if you've gone into the field, you are comfortable with that!
 
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