Specialty Scoreboard

I'm done with almost 75% of my medical school education now.  It's hard to believe, and I hope that somewhere in this chaos I learned something.  I don't know if I'm wiser, but I really do feel older, like George W. after 4 years in the white house, extreme stress brings out your mature look.  I went into medical school with an optimistic vision of me as an OB/GYN, maybe coming to the aid of the lady who went into labor at grocery store, or TJ Maxx.  I'm not so sure OB/GYN is my first choice after three years of school, but here's the current scoreboard of specialties I've already done with arbitrary numbers assigned to each specialty.  

Internal Medicine: 57.43 points

Hospital: Can you say diabetes medicine management? Most interesting things were consulted out to infectious disease, cardiology, nephrology, pulmonolgy, etc. and all that was left for the primary, trampled on internal medicine team was making sure Mr. Jones didn't go hypoglycemic in the middle of the night.  To be fair, this was probably where I learned the most about the kind of medicine you see on the average medical board exam.

BONUS! Internal Medicine Outpatient: negative 1,000,000 points

Seriously one of the most boring times of my entire life.  And the patients were mean, and angry, and yelled at me, and stupid, and ugly.  Learned an awful lot about how NOT to do a physical exam properly.

Nephrology: 77.777777 points

Nephrology gets more points because it was slightly more interesting than internal. When you can focus more on a single subject, you can really start to understand it.  Still there is a lot of poorly managed diabetes around, and the strain dialysis takes on the patient's life is hard to watch.  The thought of having to endure an internal medicine residency to get to the nephrology fellowship is too much to bear. 

Family Medicine: negative 3,234,782 points

I am NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER going to do Family Medicine.  There are a lot of people who feel comfortable tackling a little bit of every specialty.  I am not one of them.  I encountered a few family doctors who were really good at combining everything, but I also saw quite a few bad docs.  I encountered a doctor tell a patient that she should absolutely not get Gardasil - that's not informing the patient, it's forcing your opinion on the patient.  

Pediatrics: 53,234,598,371 points

I loved pediatrics.  It's lighthearted and fun because it has to be for all the kids right before you shoot them with a vaccine!  Most people who don't like peds cite dealing with the parents as the biggest deterrent, but I love that parents bring their kids to the pediatrician - when else will you get patients who so actively seek health care and follow up.  Even the parents that don't take good care of their kids, I would love to be the doctor that is the advocate for those children.  Plus I dearly love to laugh, and 3 year olds are hilarious.  Just note the following conversations:

Me: What do you want for Christmas?

Kid: um... A SHARK!

Me: What do you want for Christmas?

Kid: well... um... PINK!

Me: Are you sure? Just pink?

Kid: I guess... purple?

*Kid who has recently eaten blue popsicle*

Me: Oh my, your tongue looks like a smurf!

Kid: uh...

Me: Do you know what a smurf is?

Kid: nope

 

Psychiatry: 15.005 points

Psychiatry gets a lot of lifestyle points - the hours are truly awesome.  Short days, home calls, and no blood.  However, I really dislike working with the angriest people in society.  After a patient told my fellow med student Steve that he could stab Steve in the neck with a ball point pen if he felt like it, and that he could slap the hell out of me, I wanted OUT of psych.  6 weeks was plenty for my lifetime, maybe I'll do a child psych rotation, but that's it.  

OB/GYN: 799.99 points

I got really lucky with my OB/GYN rotation to get the private practice office with basically the best hours an OB/GYN could hope for with only 4 calls per month, and normal office hours otherwise with no weekends.  I really like my attending, and I don't think childbirth is as gross as others had described.  I also really like the patients, and interacting with them.  However, the estrogen impact is overwhelming at times.  There are only women in the office, and women in the patient rooms, and no doubt more women floating in-utero waiting to be born.  It's a lot like that movie The Women starring all women, that I do not recommend unless you are really in touch with your feminist side. All that estrogen left me with chocolate cravings and spontaneous crying for the first 2 weeks of the rotation.  I also had the inclination that I should start moving more aggressively towards having a baby of my own.  Woman were coming in at my age, well off and happily married for several years, having their second child - people with family first, career second - it's practically unheard of among the female medical student!  Things have eased up a bit now that I'm on week 4, but I'm still a little wary of the specialty when I see signs in the office that say things like "If you have melted chocolate on your hands, you are eating it too slowly!" or "OB doctors help to bring a little more sunshine into this world."  It's okay to cringe, I did.

Surgery: ??? points

Surgery is my next rotation, so we'll see.  My tallest friend asked me, "Will surgery be like baseball?  Fun to play, but really boring to watch?"  I think he's probably right, and I'm in for a boring few months.  Hopefully I'll get to do a few things and find out if I actually like it.  I like watching baseball at the stadium, so maybe surgery will be more exciting live.  

--By Farrah, who wonders if she should be studying right now at this very moment