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SubscriptionsSites I Read
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| family medicine = happy, friendly, warm, fuzzy
family medicine in japanese = scary... how do you say gout in
japanese again?
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| ... i don't know how to complete this sentence. it's time for the next big decision in my life -- what kind of doctor do i want to be?
i came into med school set on being a pediatrician, and while i still feel like that would be a great fit for me, part of me doesn't want to close the door on all the other specialties i'm interested in. everyday i have a mini debate in my head about why i should or shouldn't do a particular specialty, and every night i go to sleep thinking i've come to a pretty good conclusion; but then the next day the debate starts all over again.
this much i do know --
- i like having kids as patients better than adults. i've got nothing against old people, but i get more gratification from helping kids than i do adults. and yes i do recognize that a lot of pediatrics is dealing with adults (ie parents).
- i like surgeries/procedures. cutting things open, suturing things back together, shoving tubes into random places, drawing blood, intubating -- simply put, it's cool stuff.
- although peds is very much non procedure oriented, some peds subspecialties are more hands-on; not as much as surgery though (and no, there's no way i want to be a pediatric surgeon; 2 years of q2 call -- no thanks).
- i like inpatient better than outpatient. running around clinic all day talking to patients for 10 minutes each and then dictating notes for two hours is not my idea of a good time.
- i want to be able to teach students in the future; not just residents, but young naive med students like myself as well.
so knowing all this in addition to recognizing my competitiveness as an applicant and my desire to return to california, the main three specialties i've been considering as of late are pediatrics, emergency, and surgery. peds obviously has the kid factor covered, while emergency and surgery cover the hands-on bloody excitement factor. i'm not sure what matters to me most at this point, but as of now i think the probability of me going into each of these specialties is about 60% peds, 20% emergency, and 20% surgery.
i guess my main problem right now is that my surgery rotation so far has been awesome. i've seen some amazing operations, from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm (flown in by survival flight on my first day!), to endovascular stent placement, to aortic valve replacement. and even though i'm not able to do much as a med student (suturing, stapling, suctioning, putting in foleys, answering anatomy/pathophysiology questions... actually dr. p let me use the cardioversion paddles on an open heart case the other day  ) it's still exhilirating.
but surgery has also been exhausting, and i haven't been doing anything more strenuous than rounding on patients, standing in the OR, and running to the occasional code (granted i am at work from 12-30 hours at a time). the question is, will surgery still seem exciting when i'm a 5th year (or possibly 6th or 7th year) resident and still getting paid less than my potential starting salary as a fresh-out-of-college EECS major? more importantly will this still be exciting 20 years from now when i'm cursing the fact that i still have to wake up at 5 AM and work >12 hour days? or will i just be tired and bitter? after scrubbing out of an aortic valve replacement with dr. p the other day, i asked him how many of these surgeries he does per year. he replied "over 200, and they're still exciting." hard to tell if i'll be that enthusiastic when i'm in my mid 40's.
ok this has been entirely too long and incoherent. i need to study...
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| i love that having a little 2 year old kid chase me down the hall counts as a physical exam on peds 
btw, this is the greatest pen EVER:
 first, it resembles a frog so much more than any other pen that i've ever owned. second, it has bilateral karate chop action. third, it lights up to alert everyone in the room that they are in the presence of a great pen. to say that it's the greatest thing since sliced bread would be a gross understatement, because that would imply that sliced bread was great in the first place. and that truly would be an insult to the greatness of this pen.
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