When did you know you wanted to specialize?

[Airbender90]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Hi everyone. I'm currently applying to pediatric and family programs. I honestly loved both and am planning on ranking based on which program fits me best, rather than the specialty itself.

I'm 95% sure I want to do outpatient primary care. However, there's that tiny possibility that I may have a change of heart and want to be a hospitalist or specialize. I did my subI in inpatient pediatrics and liked it more than I expected.

My question is, did anyone go into residency sure they would do primary care...and ended up falling in love with a specialty?
Or did most of you know you wanted to specialize prior to residency?

If there's a good chance I might change my mind and want to sub-specialize some day, I will more likely lean towards pediatrics to leave those options open.

Thank you

 

[mvenus929]

Of the people who specialize in my program, I feel like 50% knew before, and 50% decided in residency. It has also gone the other way... those who thought they were going to specialize and now want to do primary care.

I also know a handful of people who switched from FM to Peds. I don't know the reasons for all of them, but I suspect at least one was because of the amount of information you have to keep up to date on in order to become a good PCP is so overwhelmingly large in FM that its very difficult to be a good pediatrician, Ob, and IM doc all at once. That said, if you plan to practice in a rural setting, FM will suit you better than Peds. It's the opposite for urban settings.

 

[BigRedBeta]

Agree with mvenus - about half knew what they wanted to do when they entered (either specialize or primary care) and half decided in residency where they were headed. I feel like for the people who were undecided about specialization vs primary care, they figured it out earlier than the ones who were set on specializing but were unsure of what field. That was probably mostly due to trying to get exposure to each of those fields in sufficient amounts to make a decision and so their schedule delayed them somewhat. Meanwhile it was easier to say yea or nay to inpatient vs outpatient medicine in a general sense (keeping in mind that most fields have the majority of their clinical time in outpatient clinic, but if you really don't like the hospital, the only way to completely avoid it is by doing gen peds).