Wondering if I chose the right specialty

[futuredoc123456]

Hi everyone. So I just submitted Eras last week and now I’m having cold feet. I was torn between EM and general surgery. I loved my surgery rotation but it was at a community hospital with no residents, so I didn’t get exposed to how my life would be during residency. They didn’t make us read and didn’t pimp at all. I did have a malignant OB rotation where I cried every day because of the insane amount of work/reading/ I experienced and questioned if I was fit to be into medicine. After that I was set on doing EM because I didn’t want that setting to be the type of career I want for my life. And prior to med school I wanted to do EM. I went ahead and applied EM after doing some rotations in it but my heart was still thinking about my time with my community surgery preceptors. Now I’m having cold feet thinking I chose the wrong specialty and I’m not excited for match day and graduation. Is this normal? Did I make the wrong choice applying em?

What I envision in my career is where I have time to be present for my future family and have control of how many hours I work. To have control to scale it up or down depending on the month. Right now I don’t mind working hard but I know later in life once I have a family I would regret being stuck at work for long long hours

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[CyrilFiggis]

People switch specialties during residency. If you truly hate it, make a plan to reapply during residency.

 

[Dantes]

Don't have much advice but I'm in a similar boat. My plan is to get more exposure to the other field I'm interested in during fourth year to get a better idea, and then reassess when I start residency. From what I gather switching isn't easy but lots of people still do it every year.

 

[ACSurgeon]

Hi everyone. So I just submitted Eras last week and now I’m having cold feet. I was torn between EM and general surgery. I loved my surgery rotation but it was at a community hospital with no residents, so I didn’t get exposed to how my life would be during residency. They didn’t make us read and didn’t pimp at all. I did have a malignant OB rotation where I cried every day because of the insane amount of work/reading/ I experienced and questioned if I was fit to be into medicine. After that I was set on doing EM because I didn’t want that setting to be the type of career I want for my life. And prior to med school I wanted to do EM. I went ahead and applied EM after doing some rotations in it but my heart was still thinking about my time with my community surgery preceptors. Now I’m having cold feet thinking I chose the wrong specialty and I’m not excited for match day and graduation. Is this normal? Did I make the wrong choice applying em?

What I envision in my career is where I have time to be present for my future family and have control of how many hours I work. To have control to scale it up or down depending on the month. Right now I don’t mind working hard but I know later in life once I have a family I would regret being stuck at work for long long hours

Nope sounds like you chose right. Move forward with EM and never look back

 

[redalert]

Based on what you want for your career EM is perfect for you. As a surgery attending your work/life balance will most definitely be worse compared to EM. I did my surgery rotation at a semi academic hospital where my two preceptors were frequently on call because of the small size of the group. No specialty is "perfect" and to get through it you not only need to like it enough, you need to be able to tolerate the worst things in that specialty. I too enjoyed my surgery rotation but I absolutely could not tolerate the hours. If you like procedures, there are plenty of them in the ED.

 

[futuredoc123456]

How do surgery residents have time to study? Is there a lot of studying that is involved? And how often do they get time off? Do attendings have somewhat of a control of their schedule?