I kinda see it like this. You start exploring the specialty because of some initial interest. That could be the pathology/physiology, the role you would play in care such as performing procedures or managing vents. Even lifestyle and pay can be that thing that sparks initial interest.
Then you rotate through and end up finding people who are similar to you. You think auto-immune lambic encephalitis is cool? Well on your neuro rotation you’ll be in a room full of people ready to tell you way more than you ever thought possible to know about it and you start thinking “I want that to be me!” When you go home after a long day and start studying, do you find it interesting or are you just trying to slog through the shelf?
It goes both ways though. Maybe you realize that you could never be that into neurology coming off crushing stroke call. so then maybe you start thinking “that can’t be me!” I see this a lot in FM residents who really like things like OBGYN. They’ll talk your ear off about it but also acknowledge they could never do it all day every day.
Yea that makes sense. I more so was curious if people are able to find colleagues that they are able to connect with or if it was a certain "type" people that you connected with.
Like with me, if you interacted with me or seen me in real life you would think I am going Ortho, no doubt about it. But I would never do ortho.
However I find that I have enjoyed:
- Oncology because I can resonate with the families and patients and having a solid Onc doc can drastically impact patients. The lack of procedures that are potential have me a little iffy.
- Inpatient IM because of the patient interactions and how my preceptor made everyone on the team know they were important plus the round and go gigs are pretty cushiony. I just dont like the feeling of not being a specialist in a field, I want to be the best at whatever it is I choose to do.
- Crit care due to the high acuity of patients. I am also very good at dealing with the bad. I can compartmentalize and dissociate from that kind of stuff very well.
- Surgery I like having a problem I can most of the time fix immediately. The only issue I am battling with this is the family life. I have a kid and I know I will be absent for some things but from what I have heard is that I will basically miss out on everything even during the attending life. As of right now Im like " I can manage this and be there for what I can and they will understand" on the other hand Im like, is being able to become a surgeon worth them having to understand that daddy is gone because he chose this specialty.
- Neuro I love the brain and some of the pathophys, however the patient population and the disease processes from what Ive seen and read are kind of draining in the sense that there isnt much that can be done to "cure" some of them and you basically just watch long term patients dwindle. I know youre probably thinking "Well you just said you can compartmentalize and blah blah blah", yes I can and I could with neuro as well however the acuity of crit care out weighs that for me.
- IR The doc was super cool and was willing to let me come onto his service and watch a few different procedures. Seemed like a solid gig, however I dont know that I would be okay being in DR if I couldnt match to IR.
I find a lot of content fascinating so its hard to narrow down as of now. So basically I was just curious if the people in the feild were a draw towards a certain feild. Like I should be drawn to ortho because those are some of my people but I am not.