dry dre said:
Regarding research, having research is not a requirement at least for ortho, and from what I understand not required for ENT either. Certainly having research helps, but I'd rather not have any research experience than to have what cynical reviewers would perceive as blatant ticket-punching research. For that matter, there are all kinds of research projects that you could pursue (e.g. post-op complication mitigation, stats, practices etc) that would be of interest and possible use to more than just one specialty.
Definately pulling a fews days/evenings/weekends/trauma call in ortho should be easily accomplished with a pod in the community (if you don't have a program in your school). ENT? I'd be a dentist before being an ENT, but you should be able to find some ENT doc willing to let you watch him work, so long as you have free time during the 2.3 days per week that s/he works.
Out of curiosity, why are you more interested in ortho and ENT than general, especially if you haven't done the rotations?
I do have a ortho program at my school, but from what I understand, I would have to put in a month. I will certainly do that once I decide for sure what I am interested in (I understand this may be difficult as it's hard to get an idea by jus' spending a wk or two, esp. as community practices may differ significantly than academics [at least in ENT] ).
As far as research is concerned, literally speaking, yes, research is NOT REQUIRED by any residency. It's certainly not like Step1/Step2/CS, etc. However, that being said, I think in today's day and age, where these specialties are becomming more and more competetive, research is almost REQUIRED, so to speak, to compete with other applicants. I understand your comment on half ass research. I do have prior research experience and a couple of abstracts in CT surgery, and immunology basic sci research. While doing my CT research, I had the oppt. to scrub in on CT cases once/wk for a couple months; it was pretty cool. And I enjoyed the procedures, however, given the extensive training and the inadequate compensation (for the amount of time spent training), I am not so sure. I really don't have any experiences in ENT to drive me towards that specialty. But, given the mere fact that I would like to become a specialist, specialties like ENT, ortho, ophtho, uro sound much more lucrative because of the direct residency and somewhat towards the spectrum of a better lifestyle with better compensation. (I understand there are fellowships available for the respected fields). Also, for what it's worth, I really enjoyed the Head and Neck section of my Anatomy course. I'd much rather know everything about one thing, than having a broad knowledge of everything--i.e internist. I would like to be in a situation where I am called in for my expertise, rather than me calling in the expertise after doing the work up, i.e gen surg. Obviously, I am over stating here, and there is a lot of inter-specialty consults, etc, but take this for the big picture, for what it's worth.
So, yea, and then obviously, the whole idea of "curing" vs "treating" in ortho sounds very appealing. I have had outpt medicine clinic (our school has a heavy primare case emphasis) since the 2nd semester of M1. I was one of those people who hated it, because I felt like we wern't doing enough for the patient. Honestly, medicine clinic is primarily ran on pharmacotherapy. Unfortunately, I won't be able to justify my educaiton by prescribing drugs, ordering tests.
No seriously though, I think if you stick a random person in college in a 2 mos rotation, they can learn the protocol and get upto par with anyone else. I think it's just a metter of being in that envt. Given, my passion for surgery for a long time and the turn off seen in medicine with my 2 mos rotaiton (full of consults if not HTN or DM2 related) and almost 1.5 years of outpt clinic, I figured surgery is the only way I can justify the time/money/energy/investment spent, because, in the end, I'd like to be the person who can perform a task that not many other people can do. (I know the IM people would keill me for saying this, but honestly, I think a surgeon, given his medical school and first few years of resid. backgorund, can manage DKA by quickly reading a page in wash manual, but an internist could never operate). And, the desire to "cure" things, work with a relatively younger population, have a decent lifestyle, good compensation, feel like I am doing something worthwhile with my life, and be a specialist, drives me towards those few surgical specialties. I hated the eye and all the physio/path associatiated with it when I went through basic sci, therefore ophtho's out. Still a bit intereted in uro, but obviously haven't done any rotations. Additionally, maybe these specialties will be narrowed down once I take step 1.
Feel free to comment. I tried to add all the disclaimers that I could add given the nature of the people on this forum to pick up one sentence and tear it apart. Thanks
By the way, why do u say this?
dry dre said:
I'd be a dentist before being an ENT
