Blog Post Focus: Resources I Used for Determining a Medical Specialty
This blog post will discuss some resources that can be utilized for determining a medical specialty. It will start with some of my story and then explore the resources I utilized. The process was different than I expected–medical school started with two pre-clinical years that kept me very busy and without clinical experience in areas I had planned to pursue. Then, my clinical education was interrupted and I found determining a medical specialty for me to pursue much more stressful and anxiogenic than I had anticipated. I eventually found two helpful resources and I wish I had found them sooner–even before applying to medical school!
My Experience – Open to Anything?
I went into medical school with the idea that any specialty could possibly work for me, but I had a few specialties particularly in mind. I had shadowed several physicians of different specialties, I had family members in different specialties in medicine, and I had been treated by physicians of several different medical specialties. So, I was open to pretty much any specialty, but I had expectations of what I would and wouldn’t like – plus, I had seen a lot and could talk with family. So, I felt better prepared than most medical students. I figured that medical school would be setup in a way that I would understand exactly what I wanted and why. I was disappointed.
Pre-Clinical Years Passed Quickly
However, the first two years of medical school passed by very quickly and I suddenly felt that I didn’t feel as strongly as I had coming into medicine. The pre-clinical years kept me farther from the feeling of becoming a physician than I had ever expected. I had been telling myself that during my clinical rotations I could refine my decisions and feel good about choosing a certain specialty. Instead, the strange structure of medical school really snuck up on me.
Clinical Rotations Won’t Give Me Exposure to All The Specialties I Want?
I realized that I would need to obtain letters of recommendation from my desired specialty to realistically match. I also realized that clinical rotations only covered a few medical specialties and that residency applications take place well before the end of the fourth year of medicine.
I had only shadowed a few physicians during my first two medical school years and my third-year rotation schedule only included two of the three medical specialties I really was interested in pursuing. The understanding that I would not really be able to experience rotations in my desired specialties prior to making my schedule for year four made me upset. It made a lot of my classmates upset too.
Classmates demanded to change their schedules around so they could get needed information—few were successful. Scheduling rotations can be time-dependent, and getting letters of recommendation in desired fields is stressful. I knew I would not have as much time to make a decision as I wanted nor would I be making as informed a decision as I desired.
A Rotation Schedule With Major Disruption
It was fortunate that I would experience two of the three specialties I had been most desirous of during my third year, but I could not gain exposure to a third specialty I wanted to experience up close.
Then, medical education got disrupted with COVID and I was taken off when I should have been on the two rotations I wanted most to make my informed decision.
Returning to Rotations With a Clearer Sense
Feeling increasingly distressed, I did soul-searching and looked for any resources that could help me. I found two resources. These resources gave me a better feeling of what I wanted to pursue. So, when we were able to go back to clinical rotations I had a better sense of which specialty to pursue – even though I hadn’t yet experienced it.
Two Resources for Determining a Medical Specialty
A Print Resource
First, The Ultimate Guide to Choosing a Medical Specialty, Fourth Edition by Brian S Freeman
This book is great. It describes each of the major specialties in medicine. It explores why some physicians tend to choose each specialty. It describes the general breakdown of residency training and future practice opportunities for the specialty. It also details the competitiveness of the specialty and reported salary.
Reading this may be able to help the reader gain a better idea of specialties they may be good fits for and that they want to gain experience in. It may also help the reader decide on certain specialties to avoid, which is just as helpful if not more so.
An Online Resource
Second, the AAMC Careers in Medicine tool
This tool is an interactive tool developed by the AAMC. It attempts to help the user understand important traits of the user and how that fits into deciding on a medical specialty. Then, it provides data on the medical specialties and which may be good fits for the user. Additionally, it has resources for optimizing the process to residency match once one has decided on a specialty to pursue.
See this link to the AAMC’s Careers in Medicine page discussing the four-phase career planning process https://careersinmedicine.aamc.org/about-cim/four-phase-career-planning-process.
Final Thoughts
These resources are helpful for exploring each medical specialty. However, they do not substitute direct in-person clinical experience. They should not be used to substitute clinical experience when choosing a specialty, but ideally should be used before entering medical school or early on in medical school so that you can gain shadowing experience and rotation experience in any specialty you think you may want to pursue.
These resources can be a great aid in determining the specialties that may be the best fits for you. Then, get in-person experience in the specialties you want as soon as possible.
Links
The Ultimate Guide to Choosing a Medical Specialty
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