Urology or general surgery for someone that hates surgeries?

[Mila_92]

Hey!

I study in Europe (sorry for my bad english) and we have a bit of a different system here. Anyways, I have to do an internship in a surgical subject. I want to choose between general surgery and urology and I really don't like to be in the surgery rooms. (Actually, I hate it). Now I've found a small countryside hospital which has both, urology and general surgery, but with only 3 male doctors in urology. I'm female and I'm wondering if that could be weird for some patients? What are your experiences?
Also, I will probably learn more in general surgery, right? But I fear that my only "job" will be holding the hooks and not learning anything.

Can anyone give me some advice?

Uh yeah, if it matters, I wanna become a general practitioner

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[Osteoth]

Really depends on the case load at the institution you're going to be at. Assuming its a community hospital with bread and butter cases then I'd probably go urology. Most community urologists have pretty straight-forward cases that are short and have good patient outcomes, as well as uncomplex anatomy and physiology. Think lithotripsy, cystogram, ureterogram, prostate removal maybe, stent placement/removal. If you don't like being in the OR these surgeries most often take less than 2 hours and you don't do that many of them per day due to set-up and break-down times. The call schedule would most likely be less strenuous as well considering they take home call vs. in-house for the gs guys.

That being said from what I understand general surgery you learn more overall about medicine and general surgical techniques, but again it depends on the shop. Is there a general surgery service or are you going to be thrown onto colorectal or another subspecialty for however long you're there? Both of these considerations would significantly change the experience you get and the skills you take from the experience. Also again, the cases can be longer and then call schedule more demanding, depending on the specific institution.