Time capsule (Specialty choice as of now)

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Just don't get too romanticized. There are a lot of ID consults for Abx recommendations that the primary team can figure out or get through a phone call. Its not all Dengue, Schistosomiasis or Ebola.

I've definitely heard that from some docs. Then again, when you're working with advanced HIV or organ transplant patients, wouldn't you get to see infections by "weird" bugs you wouldn't expect to be infectious?

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Cardiothoracic surgery
1. It is pretty cool
2. Lots of possibilities for research
3. I hear lots of critical thinking/engineering approach is involved
 
If money was no object, I would take Psychiatry.
 
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I would like to do ENT or Urology. I just love working with my hands and these 2 surgical specialties seem to fit the mold.
 
ortho

former college athlete, nuff said
 
Ortho.

1. I want to do surgery
2. I like wood working, so the surgical tools used in ortho seem cool to me.
3. As far as I know, ortho is highly respected both in the medical world and the real world.

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Funny. That actually makes two of us.

My reasons

1) Bones and ligaments and tendons are exciting
2) I feel like I'm a better fit for the ortho culture than other specialties which I've shadowed
3) I just wanna cut
 
Residency Internal med
Specialty Hospice and Pallitivate med.

1. Death is fascinating
2. Love the med culture there
3. Paper work rocks jk
 
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Orthopedics:

1. Surgery is rewarding
2. Good money
3. Conducive to private practice

Cool thread.

Win

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Radiology

I'm a very mathematically minded person. I love partial differential equations and the math that goes into medical imaging. I also like money and regular hours (kidding, somewhat).
 
Neurosurgery!

Because I just think its cool lol :oops:

will probably end up changing my mind, I heard most people do :p

I love neuro! I shadowed for five months and loved every minute.
 
This is fun!

Right now, I'd say a peds subspecialty. Probably heme/onc. Because:

- I like the dynamic of working with families
- I work with pediatric cancer patients now and I absolutely adore them
- Many subspecialties interest me, but I envision myself working with a pediatric population rather than adults.

Who knows though. Started out thinking I would do neurosurgery, then path, then adult heme/onc until I worked with kids in a clinical setting.
 
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Also inb4 my specialty is better than yours.

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Ortho here:

1. Work with my hands
2. Physically heal patients

Possibly trauma for the same reasons
 
Ortho here:

1. Work with my hands
2. Physically heal patients

Possibly trauma for the same reasons

:)

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Family Medicine is what I'm interested in, definitely not going to rule anything out before med school though!

1. Diversity in patients (elderly, peds, OB)
2. Diversity in workplaces (Community ED, Clinic, Inpatient)
3. Ability to make a real difference in a small community
 
Besides having kids, what's the difference between FM and non-specialized IM?

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Anesthesiology

1. Short continuity of care.
2. I like to set people at ease.
3. In case I lose my hair I can wear the scrub cap for most of the day.
 
Peds
1. My bubbly personality would annoy adults.
2. I'm short and therefore will be better able to physically take care of a child :p
3. Variety, ability to have long-term care

Also currently interested in academic medicine.
 
Peds
1. My bubbly personality would annoy adults.
2. I'm short and therefore will be better able to physically take care of a child :p

3. Variety, ability to have long-term care

Also currently interested in academic medicine.

Haha, we share some of the same reasons for wanting to do Peds:oops:
 
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Besides having kids, what's the difference between FM and non-specialized IM?

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No OB in IM but not much more than that. Some are hospital based but others run private practice.
 
Ortho, Urology, Gen Surg.
I would really like to to surgery, but would like to have some kind of life/time to give my family.
 
Family Med!

1. Preventive
2. Long-term relationships
3. Mmmm public health? We really need PCPs? I want to work with underserved communities.
 
1) Some kind of surgery (I make jewelry and I love working with my hands and working with delicate instruments).

2) Neurology (the brain is AMAZING. I'm also an intellectual and I love to ponder about things).

3) Dermatology (ahh, who doesn't love derm. I have an almost obsessive skincare routine, and I love advising other people about how to take care of their skin).

Let's see where I am 4 years from now!
 
Family Med!

1. Preventive
2. Long-term relationships
3. Mmmm public health? We really need PCPs? I want to work with underserved communities.

This.

4. Jack of all trades, master of many.
5. Theoretically I could carve out a decent lifestyle, and there should be good job security.

PM&R is also on my list.
 
Pathology.

1. I like the investigative nature of medicine.
2. I don't like patients that much.
3. It fits with my research interests.
4. (bonus) I always wanted to do something in law enforcement and forensic pathology is a possibility.
 
Probably EM.

In no particular order...

--Variety, both in terms of practice environments and patient presentations. It's nice to not know what's going to happen when you walk into the ED. You also have many different "flavors" of EM to choose from on the continuum of community/academic settings.
--There is a nice mix of critical thinking and some procedures.
--Shift work. This is both a blessing and a curse.
--Opportunity to become comfortable with just about anything (i.e. the whole "jack of all trades, master of emergent care" thing).
--I like to work hard while I'm at work, but have time to spend with family, etc., outside of work.
--No call (usually).
--Will be good training to have for the coming zombie apocalypse. :rolleyes:
 
Ortho or Cardiac Surgery

1. I want to be able to use my hands.
2. There is an immense amount of satisfaction that one gains from immediate or almost immediate results. Seeing someone who couldn't walk or run being able to do again is amazing.
3. I function best when I'm extremely busy, and these two specialties will ensure that I work a lot.
 
Radiology. Amazing technology, amazing work, amazing pay, and have the choice of distancing myself from the unwashed masses i.e. purely diagnostic work.
 
ID for now with academic/ public health bend, but 'I'm interested in way too many other things for it to be concrete.

1) I've loved every micro class I've had
2) as hard as we try, infectious diseases will always be around
3) lots of options to incorporate my global and public health and research interests.
 
Plastics! Medicine + art = love.

Though I wish it made 100k a year so that there wouldn't be so much competition :( Everyone looks at me like I'm crazy when I tell them this.
 
My problem is that I have such a wide variety of interests. I've even kept shadowing after being accepted because I just can't decide. I always wanted to do neurosurgery from the beginning, love my mentors pushing me for that discipline, get along so well with the residents, love working with my hands and neuroscience (one of my majors), and have presented research in the field as a first author at a national conference, but really want a family and life outside of work.

So I'll start off with the ones that no one has mentioned:

IM ---> Toxicology fellowship

1. Such an investigative and hunch driven discipline
2. Awesome area for chem research to develop new tests for trace toxins
3. Much like TheShaker, I've always been interested in forensics/law enforcement, too.

IM ---> Hospital Medicine fellowship

1. Love working in the hospital and seeing variety/very ill pts
2. Shift work, the impetus behind much of my thought at the moment
3. Decent pay

IM/EM Dual Boarded Residency
IM/Derm Dual Boarded Residency

My other interests that have already been mentioned include EM, Derm, IM, Gen Surg, GS -->Trauma Surg fellowship, IM --> Critical Care fellowship, and IM ---> ID fellowship.
 
Thinking either

-Peds --> kids are awesome and amazingly resilient, every doctor i've talked to in peds absolutely loves his/her job, get to be a kid again, and i have the urge to buy and use this: http://shop.pediapals.com/jamal-giraffe-reflex-hammer/

-EM --> volunteered and shadowed in EM, enjoy the lifestyle, pace, etc so far

-Peds/EM --> setting up to shadow here, hopefully i'll be interested in the combination of my two current interests, and a few schools offer a 5 year combined Peds/EM residency

Completely aware of the fact that this is all probably going to change in 1.5 years when I start rotations :laugh:
 
Orthopedics:

I'm an athlete in college in track and field, where there is slow development by athletes in events like long distance, and large improvements and plateaus, like in the jumping events.

I love watching it all unfold, so why not fix someone's broken arm/leg to see great improvement immediately, and help them rehab for 6 months to a year to get the long term development? Combines the best of both :)
 
Neurosurgery

1) I love the brain. Most fascinating thing in the world.
2) I love the OR. Shadowing surgeons have been my funnest shadowing experiences.
3) I like using my hands, such that a surgeon would. (ie - I am an expert in using chopsticks. :p)
 
Andrology

1) I really wanna do something that allows me to practice both medicine AND surgery.
2) I'm really interested in male reproductive health and fertility issues.
3) SURGERY :)

Maternal- Fetal Medicine

1) Very specialize, lots of cool research and technologies.
2) Love the surgery and Medical aspect of it.
3) Fetal Surgery looks complex and interesting.
 
General Surgery!

I love that it is hands on and that you actually get to literally fix the patient. I also like that the field is broad in that I could take my career in several different directions.
 
I'll toss out another one I don't think has been mentioned yet: transplant surgery.

Getting to give patients such an amazing new chance at life would be unreal, but transplant rejections, patient selection, etc could also make this a really difficult place to be. That and the potentially scary length of training for, say, heart transplants.
 
I'm gonna go off topic a little and say I wanna do private practice or community rather than academic. After shadowing doctors in both settings, I feel like in community or private practice, you really get to utilize and get more broad experience, where academic you get to teach, research and get to experience odd pathologies where you don't see every day etc but I feel it's to specialize to some extent because those big power houses have so many varieties of specialty available where if you have an overlap of something it might go to another department, where in community you call majority of the shots. That's just my take on those two different settings.
 
Dream/Unrealistic specialty that probably won't happen:

RadOnc
1. Very academic/research oriented
2. Good Lifestyle
3. Real cool work imo
4. Good pay

More Realistic specialties:

Diagnostic Radiology, Interventional Radiology, Pathology,
 
Psychiatry

1. Involves psychology, which I love
2. Good lifestyle, albeit relatively low pay (<200k *gasp*)
3. Intellectually stimulating, although that can probably be said for most of medicine
4. Fascinating pathology
5. Lots of variety in the way one can practice (psychopharm vs. psychotherapy).
 
This thread is :thumbup:. So interesting to read everyone's reasons for why certain paths attract them.

For me, in no particular order:

Neurology/psychiatry combo program - extensive research experience and interest in this area, critical thinking, good listening skills required

Neurosurgery - fascination with the brain and everything about it, good at working with my hands, I like to see results, potential for rapid expansion in research

Oncological surgery - working with hands, results, variety of research areas, i will have to do shadowing in this area but this field as well as the palliative subspecialty could tie well with my outlook of patient's-interests-first and holistic care
 
This thread is :thumbup:. So interesting to read everyone's reasons for why certain paths attract them.

For me, in no particular order:

Neurology/psychiatry combo program - extensive research experience and interest in this area, critical thinking, good listening skills required

Neurosurgery - fascination with the brain and everything about it, good at working with my hands, I like to see results, potential for rapid expansion in research

Oncological surgery - working with hands, results, variety of research areas, i will have to do shadowing in this area but this field as well as the palliative subspecialty could tie well with my outlook of patient's-interests-first and holistic care
 
I'm not ready to commit to one specialty, but I'd be very surprised if it were something other than Neurology, Psychiatry or Internal Med.
 
I used it Junior year of UG and emailed myself "you better be in med school by now a**hole". Got the email last year. I guess I let myself down. :laugh:

:lol:

Well your in now so that is all that matters.
 
OB/GYN:

1. I want to go into primary care
2. Women's health is hugely important to me
3. I dream of paying high malpractice rates
 
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