When to decide about residency

[voirlesetoiles]

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Hello everyone...

I would appreciate your feedback on a few questions I have regarding residency programs.

With many of the more competitive programs, it seems to me as though the application components and related research/volunteer experience need to start pretty early in medical school. Of course, there's a high probability that I might be wrong. My knowledge about residency is limited... Is it recommended to think about residency choice fairly early in medical school?

When did you decide whether to do general practice/specialize? And at what point in medical school were you sure of your decision to enter a specific program? Did you specifically choose research/volunteer activities that were somehow connected to your desired program after that point?

Thanks in advance for your comments and suggestions!

 

[yaah]

It's important to think about it but it's also important to not decide. You won't really be able to make a decision until you start experiencing clinical medicine for real (in your third year at most institutions).

While in the ideal world it will help you to do research/activities in your chosen specialty, in the real world doing these things will help you no matter what field you go into. Doing research, etc helps you learn, and teaches you things about how medicine works, and shows initiative and that you can follow through on projects. If you work in a surgeon's lab for a summer that experience will be equally valuable if you go into family practice or radiology or surgery.

Lots of med students make a big mistake by deciding on their chosen field before they are ready. They decide they "want" to do anesthesiology, for example, and set themselves up for it, including minimizing exposure and experience in other fields. Then they find they hate it and by that time they are caught off guard and have to scramble a bit to figure out their lives.

Keep your mind open. If you have an area you think you are strongly interested in, try to get exposure to it early to try to confirm these suspicions.

 

[voirlesetoiles]

Thanks for the helpful advice!