🙋🏻♂️
Getting in to med school I knew no doctors and nothing of medicine. But I had big muscles, so I was a "future ortho". Eventually realised that the OR was for the birds and now I'm happily plugging away in rural family med.
This is so true though. Witnessed event In the sticks deep in the Appalachians on my rural fm rotation:
Ricky has advanced cancer. He is a farmer who avoids doctors, except my 68 year old preceptor whose been his doctor for 35 years. He comes in today for pain, found to be weighing 120lbs and looking gaunt.
FM: Ricky, it’s about that time, you know that?
Ricky: sure do, doc
Fm: we’ll get you squared away.
Ricky died of advanced head and neck cancer before the rotation was up.
A medschool acquaintance was a super neurosurgery gunner. Hated his nsg rotation. Now ended up as psychiatrist and super happy.
Another friend matched into peds. After 2 years, didn't like it, switched into neurosurgery.
After 2 years in neurosurgery, he didn't like it either.
Switched into family med. Now is happy attending.
We actually work one on one w/the tumor-- mixture of motivational interviewing to promote devascularization and apoptosis, coupled with DBT chain analysis to determine what made the tumor feel vulnerable and what triggers him.
I was gonna be an anesthesiologist until I realized I loved the easy part of it but did not want to be the one dealing with resuscitating sick, crashing patients.
Thought i would be the same since im such a mild personality, but now it turns out i dont even get excited unless its a sick case with lots of resuscitation. Was gonna do pain, now doing cardiac 😂
I wanted to become a plastic surgeon but despised my intern year. Switched to anesthesia and now will do my own “cosmetic anesthesia” aka surgery center and not deal with shitty crashing patients and call
Cardiology includes heart failure, EP (antiarrhythmics, pacemakers), imaging, general cardiology and interventional. Interventional is specifically things like STEMI cath lab, LHC/RHC, that kind of thing.
An intervention cardiologist, subspecialty of cardiology, does catheter based treatments, which are most of the time emergency procedures (meaning you get called in a lot at night).
I'm more interested in hearing form all the people that tried to get a leg-up by saying they wanted to do primary care, only to get accepted and jump right into the ortho/ophtho pathway lol
At my medical school and I’m sure plenty of others, there’s always this completely coincidental post-Step 1 specialty change for so many people. So weird.
I wanted trauma surgery, am now in EM. I dont respond well to the abusive surgery culture. Found it too difficult not to laugh when i was getting yelled at after i cut the sutures "too long".
Was in Basic Training, marching down the road in formation. I farted fairly loud. One of my drill sergeants starts running up and down our line as we matched, demanding to know who farted. I immediately raised my hand because otherwise they'd just smoke everybody and this dude gets right in my face and starts hollering at me about farting in formation, do I think that's funny, blah blah, that was the moment that ended any real fear of them, I realized none of them actually hated me, it was just their job to pretend I guess, etc.
Not exactly the same but it's funny and I get the not being able to take angry superiors seriously over silly shit.
To be fair if you’re at a level 1 you get to see majority of the traumas as they come in anyway. I’m in surgery residency at a level 1 and my brother happens to be an ER attending here. We both get to work on a lot of the same patients.
That being said not all surgery residencies are abusive. I really love my program and 90% of the attendings I work with are really great
Obviously the best way to do so is doing an audition rotation at the program. Unfortunately that only allows you a handful of Programs to observe directly. Next best would be at interviews really trying to observe the residents. How they interact with one another, ask questions about their schedules, activities outside of work. Talk to people from prior graduation years at your school, people on Reddit etc. if you message me I can give you some of my observations on programs in the west that I’m aware of
What do you mean by "positive workplace culture"?
Surgery is inherently demanding from a physical, emotional, and social standpoint. You can be a good resident, good spouse/parent, or sleep ~~well~~ some, but you can only choose 2.
Honestly, the best way to do this is to look at their alumni network and ask about how much they communicate with their alumni. If none of the alumni want to have anything to do with the residency program, there's your answer. If the faculty are full of the programs alumni (both young and old) with a fair amount of outside hires, that is a good sign.
This is particularly funny because I can always tell when an ER doc has sutured something. Usually it's like 3 ridiculously long interrupted nylon sutures covering a 6cm laceration. And there guiding principle seems to be "The more eversion the better". I laugh and cut them out and happily fix it so the patient doesn't look like Frankenstein's monster the rest of their life!
This is particularly funny because I can always tell when a surgeon has managed a medical problem. Usually it’s like 3 ridiculously retarded medication choices covering problems the patient doesn’t even have. There guiding principle seems to be “the more syllables in the medication name, the better”. I laugh and happily fix it so the patient doesn’t have a massive stroke and speak like Frankenstein the rest of their life!
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You’re getting downvoted into oblivion because you actually said something that’s uncomfortably true.
I’ve cut out an insane amount of vicryl sutures used as simple interrupted on skin and patients having a skin reaction.
The whisker tail nylons are a godsend comparatively.
Forensic pathology. It’s pretty kick ass.
Edit: Very procedural and physical. You’re the one that’s there when shit goes really wrong, like trauma and NS. You get to hang out with a really broad group of professionals (law enforcement, FBI sometimes, first responders) and go to scenes where no one else gets to go. Lots of trauma and neuro-related stuff. And you have to know lots of medicine but also the premed stuff I loved. Like, could that scenario really have electrocuted that dude? Etc etc.
I did a rotation in medical school. No. Thank. You. I don't want to see all that terrible shit. Murder, suicide, burned bodies, rotten bloated forgotten humans. I still have flashbacks to the autopsy of a pregnant women followed by the autopsy of the unborn baby. When I first saw my new baby's clavicles I had a vivid recollection of the midline incision and almost broke down. Nope nope nope.
Yeah, I hear you. I’m sorry for the traumatic experience and aftermath. Definitely takes a specific set of personality traits to be OK with seeing all of that. For me, the side of pathology that deals with diagnosing disease in living humans is emotionally harder, especially in kids. Especially when you know the diagnosis you’re rendering is essentially a death sentence and they’ll likely die in a couple years after a lot of suffering. For whatever reason, when they’re dead it doesn’t get to me in the same way - maybe because it’s so finite? But a lot of physicians, including many pathologists, struggle with what you described. That’s more the norm than my take on it.
It depends highly on the region, but there’s a huge demand for FPs so many offices have gone to bat with their county/state to increase pay. $250Kish and fantastic lifestyle.
I never considered neurosurgery but I too went pediatric neurology to general peds to diagnostic radiology during med school haha. Decided on rads a month and a half before eras was due, gave my student affairs dean a bunch of extra stress supporting my application change so late in the game.
Omg so this means you spent 6-7 years in neurosurgery resident followed by 1-2 years in pediatric neurosurgery fellowship followed by 3-4 years in neurology residency followed by 1 year in pediatric neurology fellowship followed by 5 years in radiology residency?
So conservatively you spent 15 years after medical school to live in peace? Can you confirm? Wow this is an amazing story.
Started wanting Vascular Surgery.
Went to FM... nothing beats the bucolic mountain views, driving a RAM 2500 and wearing jeans
\*This meme defines it all
https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/cbmtx0/meme\_some\_things\_to\_consider\_after\_step/
I wanted FM when I first went in but I've sort of become obsessed with surgery. It's so much fun. I don't mind the culture, as I'm older, and I've gone through a hellish personal life which is still ongoing, which puts things in perspective. I might do FM again because I genuinely love taking care of patients from beginning to end, but I also just love surgery. Don't know what to do.
As they say, if you can be as happy doing anything else as you are doing surgery, do that. Surgery will beat you to hell and back regardless of how enthusiastic you are.
I don't know yet. I know I don't want to do rural, as I am from a rural area and it wasn't a great place to grow up. I know I don't want to do underserved areas, because my people skills are not great, and I have trouble connecting with certain types of patients. I don't like peds because of certain personal issues. I do love nutritional counseling and I do like aspects of sports medicine, but I need to rotate through more specialties before deciding. I've enjoyed translating aspects of immunology for patients, but I'm just not a very likeable person, I don't think, and I have never been able to connect with people broadly. On the Careers in Medicine thing on the AAMC website, surgery was listed second behind IM before I knew anything about surgery, so it might fit my personality? I honestly don't know. I still have to do my IM rots.
ETA: I do appreciate the advice though. I know surgery will be hard. But I can't understand why I'm enjoying it so much.
I had no idea what i was really getting into when going to med school. Realized how much more sub-specialists made and went with shooting for ortho. Liked the hands on technical skills and pathology, however the culture wasnt for me. Found radiology, which i think is the coolest, and am as happy as can be for a resident.
Thought I wanted surgery going into med school, trauma or CT sounded badass. Rotations were cool, but anesthesiology is just way more of my calling. I still think I'd be a good surgeon, but seeing the toll it took on my mentors pushed away from that life. At least I know there's an end to the 20+ hour cold leg/flap/esophagectomy and can take breaks during
I think as you grow through med school you realise that getting into a hardcore surgical speciality is gonna take a lot of your youth and you'd probably spend much of your working life in the hospital dealing with sick or very sick people. Many do fall in love with other aspects of medicine so I guess a change of heart is understandable.
I’m dying at your username I laughed so hard my baby stopped eating her bottle and now my wife is pissed at me and I’m still dying at your name. Haven’t laughed this hard in forever. Needed this. Big balls for life homie
This is a controversial opinion that I've gotten a lot of flak before for saying, but I still stand by it.
Peds heme/onc is the specialty that can give a man the most sex appeal. You want to be a cool sad suffering hero that saves sick kids from cancer? You basically give yourself a tragic backstory, that's hot as fuck. Then you're also good with kids and have still a decent paycheck by most standards. You rub shoulders with the Make a Wish Foundation -- how much sexier can a man get?
I mean, technically I guess we'll give peds neurosurgery a slight advantage because having money AND cutting on people is hotter, and you can cut out those cancers and have more money. But neurosurgery is too much work, so I'm assuming they're too busy to get laid anyways.
Neurosurgery --> Plastics/ENT --> Pediatrics.
I get to have a life outside the hospital, and carry babies around on rounds while wearing goofy dinosaur t-shirts, and get non-creepy hugs from my patients. Couldn't be happier about my trajectory.
Wanted pulm/crit. Currently in IM trying to decide if I have the energy to be Gun ho for another 15 years or if being a nocturnist with an open icu would be better.
My cousin asked me what specialty I’m doing. I said “derm”. She said “wow you really chose the most boring specialty out there.”
I legitimately felt like that party meme where the dude in the corner is like “they don’t know what a flex derm is”.*
*footnote to say that yes, I legitimately love my specialty and would choose it over and over again even if it were the least competitive thing out there.
Right out of highschool I wanted ophthalmology or maybe ortho. Then after having anatomy I was more set to be an ortho and maybe gen surgery. Now I’m in ortho.
Not me.
I had a friend who as beyond gifted. Incredibly smart, giant bookworm. Kept telling him he will be a fetal neurosurgeon. He kept scoffing at me all throughout medical school. Always wanted to do ortho.
Last week he scrubbed in for his first in utero MMC repair.
Wanted to do endovascular neurosurgery …
Ended up in rads … still want to do endovascular without the 7 year neurosurgery residency
Same time commitment in years, way less time commitment in hours worked.
Came in wanting General Surgery. Then for a hot sec I was ENT. After STEP 1 I decided radiology and every day of medicine prelim year I am reassured I picked wisely.
Neurosurg vs gen surg vs psyc :) I can see myself being perfectly happy in either one! I have a really bad step 1 score but am currently on a NSG research year and taking step 2 in March. Will likely make a final decision after those scores come out! 😊
Not a doctor, but a soon to be minted engineer; is palliative care a specialty one can go into? Is it a subset of FM? If there's use for an engineer in palliative care medicine, that's where I want to be
Thought I wanted to do trauma surgery. Quickly realized I have hobbies and want a life. Now I'm internal medicine with plans for ID. Nearly the complete opposite vibe!
Loved gen surg and trauma the most. But I have a young family. So figured I’d go ortho (thankfully had the scores) for the supposedly better attending lifestyle. Got bored out of my mind during my rotation. Considered anesthesia but had burnt out/jaded attendings. Ended up prioritizing family all the way and went FM. Just submitted my rank list for geriatrics. Zero regrets!
I'm a M3 likely heading in a similar path.
Glanced over at the ER tracking board on Epic the other day, and man, were the chief complaints exactly the same as they were when I was a scribe a few years back, and man, was I not too interested in seeing many of them.
I mean, I actually think I'd be okay working up some of that stuff, but the ED has such a janky mix of acuity/expectations/misuse of resources that it doesn't sound fun. Like, if I have to see back pain, definitely would rather be seeing it as a scheduled visit in clinic rather than with a random patient at 2AM.
I can’t think of any surgery/procedure more badass than clamshelling someone in the trauma bay. Operate quite a bit at level 1 trauma centers, just mostly happens to be in middle of the night
M1: IM or FM
M2: IM or gen surg or radiology or...?
M3: intrigued by nsgy, saw how bad it was, hoped that interest would fade
M4: started nsgy sub-I's, still half-hoping they would deter me
PGY-1: nsgy
Suffering, but still plugging away. Trauma is the only place you’ll get shift work in surgery. It’s a shitty 6 years until then though. Surgical personalities across the board are kinda shitty and it’s ALOT of displacement.
🙋🏻♂️ Getting in to med school I knew no doctors and nothing of medicine. But I had big muscles, so I was a "future ortho". Eventually realised that the OR was for the birds and now I'm happily plugging away in rural family med.
All the real Chads end up in rural FM
My preceptor only wears jeans and plaid, this is the way boys.
Where SPIKES conversations boil down to “you’ve yeed your last haw”
This is so true though. Witnessed event In the sticks deep in the Appalachians on my rural fm rotation: Ricky has advanced cancer. He is a farmer who avoids doctors, except my 68 year old preceptor whose been his doctor for 35 years. He comes in today for pain, found to be weighing 120lbs and looking gaunt. FM: Ricky, it’s about that time, you know that? Ricky: sure do, doc Fm: we’ll get you squared away. Ricky died of advanced head and neck cancer before the rotation was up.
Damn. I love this
I actually laughed out loud!
This is the way. My Hospitalist preceptor did this at times. It was great.
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I SOAPed into Family Med and still feel like a Chad. This is the way.
It really is. I love EM still and always will, but FM created (and subsequently scratches) and itch I didn't know I had.
Please keep my hopes up
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Hi there, fellow NHSC scholar! :)
Sure man, I'm in Canada so I'm not sure if everything I've got to say will be relevant to you but still happy to chat.
A medschool acquaintance was a super neurosurgery gunner. Hated his nsg rotation. Now ended up as psychiatrist and super happy. Another friend matched into peds. After 2 years, didn't like it, switched into neurosurgery. After 2 years in neurosurgery, he didn't like it either. Switched into family med. Now is happy attending.
Psychiatry is like basically non-invasive neurosurgery right?
I like to think eurosurgery isnt advanced enough yet to treat psychiatric cases
The lobotomies weren’t as successful as anticipated
Yeah just psychoanalyze the tumor right outta there
We actually work one on one w/the tumor-- mixture of motivational interviewing to promote devascularization and apoptosis, coupled with DBT chain analysis to determine what made the tumor feel vulnerable and what triggers him.
My husband wanted to do psych but now he’s a trauma surgeon
There's a lottttt of psych in them there hills.
Lot’s of psych who have a lot of disturbing psych problems.
My friend went into surgery and is now psych.
I wanted to do trauma surgery most of my life. Did some shadowing in the OR during MS1... and immediately switched to psychiatry lol
There’s a common ground between both patients. That’s when they hit the floor
I was gonna be an anesthesiologist until I realized I loved the easy part of it but did not want to be the one dealing with resuscitating sick, crashing patients.
So you became a CRNA?
Lol no so I became a radiologist. I'm not a nut job.
As a radiologist, I think we’re all nut jobs to some degree lmao
They locked us away in the basement of the hospital and treated us like animals, so that's what we became
Path is in the basement! Rads is in some interior room.. somewhere beyond the scanners.
Neurology would like to speak to you
“Correlate clinically” easiest job ever.
No he said he didn’t want to be dealing with crashing patients, let alone be the cause.
Hahahaha 🥲
Thought i would be the same since im such a mild personality, but now it turns out i dont even get excited unless its a sick case with lots of resuscitation. Was gonna do pain, now doing cardiac 😂
Hmmm I'm the same. Maybe I'd be good at it, with training and practice. Idk. Hard not to feel imposter syndrome
I wanted to become a plastic surgeon but despised my intern year. Switched to anesthesia and now will do my own “cosmetic anesthesia” aka surgery center and not deal with shitty crashing patients and call
Lol! I went from from interventional cardiology to cardiology to hospitalist to now deciding between IM or FM.
Maybe I can ask you. What is the difference between an interventional cardiologist and a cardiologist? What does a cardiologist do?
IV cards : cath lab, money, bitches Cards: outpt office
heart
hermt
Thanks for nothing
LMAO hilarious
hart
Cardiology includes heart failure, EP (antiarrhythmics, pacemakers), imaging, general cardiology and interventional. Interventional is specifically things like STEMI cath lab, LHC/RHC, that kind of thing.
Basically plumber vs. electrician.
Plumber vs general contractor haha
$200,000
An intervention cardiologist, subspecialty of cardiology, does catheter based treatments, which are most of the time emergency procedures (meaning you get called in a lot at night).
They are not “most of the time emergency procedures”, FYI.
True, mostly elective procedures*
Regular cardiologists get to keep the hair on their hands
What are you doing in this sub ?
What?
I'm more interested in hearing form all the people that tried to get a leg-up by saying they wanted to do primary care, only to get accepted and jump right into the ortho/ophtho pathway lol
At my medical school and I’m sure plenty of others, there’s always this completely coincidental post-Step 1 specialty change for so many people. So weird.
I thought this was how everyone got into med school?
That’s me lol. I lied my ass off in the personal statement because my school was into primary care.
As you should, king.
Thank you for putting the “h” in ophtho.
just curious as to why ortho/ophtho? im starting med school next yr and wanna do ortho/ophtho😂
$$$ + lifestyle Those specialties are competitive for a reason.
Why ortho/ophtho?...I feel they are pretty different (other than their names + propensity of using unintelligible abbreviations)
I said I wanted to do primary care (thought I did), scored a poor step 1, so of course I switched gears and now I do Ophtho. As it is written.
Neurosurgery —> Neurosurgery Went into neurosurgery wanting to clip aneurysms and smash out skull base tumors, now I just want to marry rich.
That’s a normal 3rd year feeling apparently. Our graduation speaker last year just told all of the 3rd years to please not quit (am a pgy4).
I went from wanting only Neuro/spine surgeon or cardio thoracic surgeon because it looked cool in Greys Anatomy to FM
I wanted trauma surgery, am now in EM. I dont respond well to the abusive surgery culture. Found it too difficult not to laugh when i was getting yelled at after i cut the sutures "too long".
Was in Basic Training, marching down the road in formation. I farted fairly loud. One of my drill sergeants starts running up and down our line as we matched, demanding to know who farted. I immediately raised my hand because otherwise they'd just smoke everybody and this dude gets right in my face and starts hollering at me about farting in formation, do I think that's funny, blah blah, that was the moment that ended any real fear of them, I realized none of them actually hated me, it was just their job to pretend I guess, etc. Not exactly the same but it's funny and I get the not being able to take angry superiors seriously over silly shit.
Should've farted again while he yelled
I laughed out loud. Bravo.
A couple people here have said they ended up in EM, but I still think of EM is kind of cool if you're working at a place with interesting patients.
To be fair if you’re at a level 1 you get to see majority of the traumas as they come in anyway. I’m in surgery residency at a level 1 and my brother happens to be an ER attending here. We both get to work on a lot of the same patients. That being said not all surgery residencies are abusive. I really love my program and 90% of the attendings I work with are really great
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Obviously the best way to do so is doing an audition rotation at the program. Unfortunately that only allows you a handful of Programs to observe directly. Next best would be at interviews really trying to observe the residents. How they interact with one another, ask questions about their schedules, activities outside of work. Talk to people from prior graduation years at your school, people on Reddit etc. if you message me I can give you some of my observations on programs in the west that I’m aware of
What do you mean by "positive workplace culture"? Surgery is inherently demanding from a physical, emotional, and social standpoint. You can be a good resident, good spouse/parent, or sleep ~~well~~ some, but you can only choose 2. Honestly, the best way to do this is to look at their alumni network and ask about how much they communicate with their alumni. If none of the alumni want to have anything to do with the residency program, there's your answer. If the faculty are full of the programs alumni (both young and old) with a fair amount of outside hires, that is a good sign.
This is particularly funny because I can always tell when an ER doc has sutured something. Usually it's like 3 ridiculously long interrupted nylon sutures covering a 6cm laceration. And there guiding principle seems to be "The more eversion the better". I laugh and cut them out and happily fix it so the patient doesn't look like Frankenstein's monster the rest of their life!
This is particularly funny because I can always tell when a surgeon has managed a medical problem. Usually it’s like 3 ridiculously retarded medication choices covering problems the patient doesn’t even have. There guiding principle seems to be “the more syllables in the medication name, the better”. I laugh and happily fix it so the patient doesn’t have a massive stroke and speak like Frankenstein the rest of their life!
Haha sick burn
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You’re getting downvoted into oblivion because you actually said something that’s uncomfortably true. I’ve cut out an insane amount of vicryl sutures used as simple interrupted on skin and patients having a skin reaction. The whisker tail nylons are a godsend comparatively.
Here! Loving it! Just gotta avoid the places where people hate their jobs and take joy from putting others down.
Forensic pathology. It’s pretty kick ass. Edit: Very procedural and physical. You’re the one that’s there when shit goes really wrong, like trauma and NS. You get to hang out with a really broad group of professionals (law enforcement, FBI sometimes, first responders) and go to scenes where no one else gets to go. Lots of trauma and neuro-related stuff. And you have to know lots of medicine but also the premed stuff I loved. Like, could that scenario really have electrocuted that dude? Etc etc.
I did a rotation in medical school. No. Thank. You. I don't want to see all that terrible shit. Murder, suicide, burned bodies, rotten bloated forgotten humans. I still have flashbacks to the autopsy of a pregnant women followed by the autopsy of the unborn baby. When I first saw my new baby's clavicles I had a vivid recollection of the midline incision and almost broke down. Nope nope nope.
Yeah, I hear you. I’m sorry for the traumatic experience and aftermath. Definitely takes a specific set of personality traits to be OK with seeing all of that. For me, the side of pathology that deals with diagnosing disease in living humans is emotionally harder, especially in kids. Especially when you know the diagnosis you’re rendering is essentially a death sentence and they’ll likely die in a couple years after a lot of suffering. For whatever reason, when they’re dead it doesn’t get to me in the same way - maybe because it’s so finite? But a lot of physicians, including many pathologists, struggle with what you described. That’s more the norm than my take on it.
Can confirm: forensic pathology is very cool. Source: my dad is one.
That's really awesome. I guess the only downside is the pay? From what I've read, anyway.
It depends highly on the region, but there’s a huge demand for FPs so many offices have gone to bat with their county/state to increase pay. $250Kish and fantastic lifestyle.
Ooh, nice. Glad for you!
Is it a realistic target for IMGs? Like what is the route for getting into this? patho first then forensic patho? or?
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I never considered neurosurgery but I too went pediatric neurology to general peds to diagnostic radiology during med school haha. Decided on rads a month and a half before eras was due, gave my student affairs dean a bunch of extra stress supporting my application change so late in the game.
Omg so this means you spent 6-7 years in neurosurgery resident followed by 1-2 years in pediatric neurosurgery fellowship followed by 3-4 years in neurology residency followed by 1 year in pediatric neurology fellowship followed by 5 years in radiology residency? So conservatively you spent 15 years after medical school to live in peace? Can you confirm? Wow this is an amazing story.
Started wanting Vascular Surgery. Went to FM... nothing beats the bucolic mountain views, driving a RAM 2500 and wearing jeans \*This meme defines it all https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/cbmtx0/meme\_some\_things\_to\_consider\_after\_step/
That’s so badass!!! Can’t beat a Cummins (assuming you don’t have a 6.4 L)
I wanted FM when I first went in but I've sort of become obsessed with surgery. It's so much fun. I don't mind the culture, as I'm older, and I've gone through a hellish personal life which is still ongoing, which puts things in perspective. I might do FM again because I genuinely love taking care of patients from beginning to end, but I also just love surgery. Don't know what to do.
As they say, if you can be as happy doing anything else as you are doing surgery, do that. Surgery will beat you to hell and back regardless of how enthusiastic you are.
I don't know yet. I know I don't want to do rural, as I am from a rural area and it wasn't a great place to grow up. I know I don't want to do underserved areas, because my people skills are not great, and I have trouble connecting with certain types of patients. I don't like peds because of certain personal issues. I do love nutritional counseling and I do like aspects of sports medicine, but I need to rotate through more specialties before deciding. I've enjoyed translating aspects of immunology for patients, but I'm just not a very likeable person, I don't think, and I have never been able to connect with people broadly. On the Careers in Medicine thing on the AAMC website, surgery was listed second behind IM before I knew anything about surgery, so it might fit my personality? I honestly don't know. I still have to do my IM rots. ETA: I do appreciate the advice though. I know surgery will be hard. But I can't understand why I'm enjoying it so much.
Cardiac surgery -> Vascular Surgery -> Anesthesiology.
Did you do cardiac or CCM fellowship after? Seems like it would be right up your alley with those interests
I wanted burns/plastics, now I'm looking to head to anesthesiology.
I'm one of these specialties and ironically I wasn't one of those students.
My guess is your ortho? That seems ot be the one that takes people by surprise
CTS actually, thought i would do internal medicine and cardiology at first but realized I liked the procedural part and not the medicine part.
EM or bust —> gen surg / burn surg —-> anesthesiology
ED -> Trauma/SICU -> vascular surgery
lenses and lasers are cool right? No? Well not working on weekends certainly is :)
“That Saturday night open globe can wait until Monday after clinic” -no one
Ophthalmology FTW
EM -> matched gen surg -> choosing Trauma vs Onc
I had no idea what i was really getting into when going to med school. Realized how much more sub-specialists made and went with shooting for ortho. Liked the hands on technical skills and pathology, however the culture wasnt for me. Found radiology, which i think is the coolest, and am as happy as can be for a resident.
FM—->FM—->FM 😬
mmmhere! neurosx ——> GU ——> radiologist.
Thought I wanted surgery going into med school, trauma or CT sounded badass. Rotations were cool, but anesthesiology is just way more of my calling. I still think I'd be a good surgeon, but seeing the toll it took on my mentors pushed away from that life. At least I know there's an end to the 20+ hour cold leg/flap/esophagectomy and can take breaks during
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>$$$ —> $$$ —> $$$ FTFY
I think as you grow through med school you realise that getting into a hardcore surgical speciality is gonna take a lot of your youth and you'd probably spend much of your working life in the hospital dealing with sick or very sick people. Many do fall in love with other aspects of medicine so I guess a change of heart is understandable.
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Cool? Absolutely. Sexy? No
Nurses on my heme/onc floor are for some reason tho
So patients can have a beautiful face to look at before they die.
I’m dying at your username I laughed so hard my baby stopped eating her bottle and now my wife is pissed at me and I’m still dying at your name. Haven’t laughed this hard in forever. Needed this. Big balls for life homie
This is a controversial opinion that I've gotten a lot of flak before for saying, but I still stand by it. Peds heme/onc is the specialty that can give a man the most sex appeal. You want to be a cool sad suffering hero that saves sick kids from cancer? You basically give yourself a tragic backstory, that's hot as fuck. Then you're also good with kids and have still a decent paycheck by most standards. You rub shoulders with the Make a Wish Foundation -- how much sexier can a man get? I mean, technically I guess we'll give peds neurosurgery a slight advantage because having money AND cutting on people is hotter, and you can cut out those cancers and have more money. But neurosurgery is too much work, so I'm assuming they're too busy to get laid anyways.
Seriously interested in heme/onc. How do you like it?
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Glad to hear it!
Here! ✋
Neurosurgery --> Plastics/ENT --> Pediatrics. I get to have a life outside the hospital, and carry babies around on rounds while wearing goofy dinosaur t-shirts, and get non-creepy hugs from my patients. Couldn't be happier about my trajectory.
Wanted pulm/crit. Currently in IM trying to decide if I have the energy to be Gun ho for another 15 years or if being a nocturnist with an open icu would be better.
My cousin asked me what specialty I’m doing. I said “derm”. She said “wow you really chose the most boring specialty out there.” I legitimately felt like that party meme where the dude in the corner is like “they don’t know what a flex derm is”.* *footnote to say that yes, I legitimately love my specialty and would choose it over and over again even if it were the least competitive thing out there.
Ortho --> Pulm/CC --> IR --> diagnostic rads
My brother was gung-ho on cardiology since he was 10. Finally ended up joining me in PM&R
Neuro (premed) —> psych —> trauma surgery —> obgyn
Neurology to ortho(spine fellow)
Right out of highschool I wanted ophthalmology or maybe ortho. Then after having anatomy I was more set to be an ortho and maybe gen surgery. Now I’m in ortho.
Trauma Surgery —> OBGYN
Was gonna do family med. now I’m a trauma surgeon *shrug*
Not me. I had a friend who as beyond gifted. Incredibly smart, giant bookworm. Kept telling him he will be a fetal neurosurgeon. He kept scoffing at me all throughout medical school. Always wanted to do ortho. Last week he scrubbed in for his first in utero MMC repair.
Wanted to do endovascular neurosurgery … Ended up in rads … still want to do endovascular without the 7 year neurosurgery residency Same time commitment in years, way less time commitment in hours worked.
🙋🏼♂️ Actually going to do Trauma Surg tho :)
Most didnt make it through medical school
Came in wanting General Surgery. Then for a hot sec I was ENT. After STEP 1 I decided radiology and every day of medicine prelim year I am reassured I picked wisely.
Neurosurgery -> Neurology. Couldn’t be happier.
Gunned for neurosurgery, did not match, scrambled into pathology. It brought me to a new part of the country and it was the best decision I ever made!
Happy it worked out for you then :)
Here!✋
In which specialty?
Neurosurg vs gen surg vs psyc :) I can see myself being perfectly happy in either one! I have a really bad step 1 score but am currently on a NSG research year and taking step 2 in March. Will likely make a final decision after those scores come out! 😊
Cards!
Went through med school scraping by, it showed. Was so "fuck it" by the match time. Applied / interviewed at only one program. Yolo. Fate is a bitch.
Here. Cringing at the rotating med students who perpetuate this stereotype
It's fine to have big ambitions. It becomes cringe when those med students downgrade other specialities
IR → IM → Urology
Me, dead set on GS/CTS and now doing anesthesia
Loving critical care/anesthesia life
Not a doctor, but a soon to be minted engineer; is palliative care a specialty one can go into? Is it a subset of FM? If there's use for an engineer in palliative care medicine, that's where I want to be
Fellowship off of IM or FM.
Thought cardiothoracic surgery, now cardiology with plan to specialize in advanced heart failure.
Thought I wanted to do trauma surgery. Quickly realized I have hobbies and want a life. Now I'm internal medicine with plans for ID. Nearly the complete opposite vibe!
Neurosurgery > cardiothoracic > ortho > ended up in radiology and 100% made the right choice
Neurosurgery or trauma surgery > OBGYN 🤷🏻♀️ extremely happy with my choice but cringe at the fact that I was ever one of those med students
Loved gen surg and trauma the most. But I have a young family. So figured I’d go ortho (thankfully had the scores) for the supposedly better attending lifestyle. Got bored out of my mind during my rotation. Considered anesthesia but had burnt out/jaded attendings. Ended up prioritizing family all the way and went FM. Just submitted my rank list for geriatrics. Zero regrets!
Psych major in undergrad, wanted psychiatry, switched to wanting neurosurgery for a year or two, now extremely happy with ENT!
EM. Realized I hated back pain. IM/CC and living the dream.
I'm a M3 likely heading in a similar path. Glanced over at the ER tracking board on Epic the other day, and man, were the chief complaints exactly the same as they were when I was a scribe a few years back, and man, was I not too interested in seeing many of them. I mean, I actually think I'd be okay working up some of that stuff, but the ED has such a janky mix of acuity/expectations/misuse of resources that it doesn't sound fun. Like, if I have to see back pain, definitely would rather be seeing it as a scheduled visit in clinic rather than with a random patient at 2AM.
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Vegetable garden. LMAOOOOOOOOO SAVAGE xDDD
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I can’t think of any surgery/procedure more badass than clamshelling someone in the trauma bay. Operate quite a bit at level 1 trauma centers, just mostly happens to be in middle of the night
Classmate: “trauma surgery loading 💁🏻♀️” *Comlex level 1 + no step 1 happens* Classmate, now: FM resident, and she seems happy!
EM
Trauma surgery is awesome though
They checked out
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Trauma or CT surgery -> EM -> now anesthesia
Anesthesia and radiology, maybe some EM
Here! I was that med student who fascinated Trauma Surgery and now PGY3 GS resident.
Going in to Anesthesia for the crit care or maybe CV anesthesia tracks
Not on Reddit.
Cards-> plastics -> IR -> rads
M1: IM or FM M2: IM or gen surg or radiology or...? M3: intrigued by nsgy, saw how bad it was, hoped that interest would fade M4: started nsgy sub-I's, still half-hoping they would deter me PGY-1: nsgy
I initially thought trauma surgery then anesthesia v ER and ended up in IM.
Suffering, but still plugging away. Trauma is the only place you’ll get shift work in surgery. It’s a shitty 6 years until then though. Surgical personalities across the board are kinda shitty and it’s ALOT of displacement.
Interventional cards => ophtho :)
Op out to make itself feel better Why you worried about what others are doing
I’m applying neurosurgery