Why did you choose surgery over IM?

[InTypical]

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Don't usually post, but contrasting another ancient thread I found on the forums Why did you choose IM over Surgery? , I just wanted to see the other side of the spectrum, and thank you

 

[vhawk]

Three words:

Pajamas
At
Work


It was surgery or Calvin Klein model and frankly I just didnt need the fame and publicity

 

[LucidSplash]

Personally, I didn’t enjoy the endless rounds and discussing the 18th item on the differential list before doing anything to check for #1-3. I’m glad there are people out there who want to do that though. I’m just not one of them.

 

[TypeADissection]

As a MS3 I remember going from two months of surgery, where we worked 12-16 hours a day doing some crazy stuff along with bread and butter while having a blast. It just felt so good to tangibly fix a problem. Then I went to IM...

Best way to summarize my experience:
Surgery is 16 hours of work crammed into a 12 hour day.
IM is 3 hours of work crammed into a 12 hour day.

I have NEVER been more bored in my entire life.

PS - Credit to OP for actually using the search function. That's moxie baby. Get some.

 

[dienekes88]

Because surgery includes operating. Internal medicine does not.

Now there are some in betweeners. Like some surgical sub specialties have more medical components, and some IM specialties (GI, interventional cards) are more procedural... but what it comes down to is the difference between managing surgical disease and medical disease.

Medical disease: hypertension, diabetes
Surgical disease: acute type A aortic dissection

One involves writing a scrip for lisinopril or hydrochlorothiazide. The other involves a bit more than that, though you end up managing their blood pressure too anyway...

 

[littleturtle10]

Don't usually post, but contrasting another ancient thread I found on the forums Why did you choose IM over Surgery? , I just wanted to see the other side of the spectrum, and thank you

I started to write a response, but remembering how miserable I was on medicine rounds gave me so much ptsd I couldnt finish the post.

 

[Meekor]

As a MS3 I remember going from two months of surgery, where we worked 12-16 hours a day doing some crazy stuff along with bread and butter while having a blast. It just felt so good to tangibly fix a problem. Then I went to IM...

Best way to summarize my experience:
Surgery is 16 hours of work crammed into a 12 hour day.
IM is 3 hours of work crammed into a 12 hour day.

I have NEVER been more bored in my entire life.

PS - Credit to OP for actually using the search function. That's moxie baby. Get some.

Probably the best description of a surgery work day and a medicine work day I’ve ever seen

 

[startswithb]

The surgery part.