So obviously having so many things to do and keep track of as well as studying for the pediatrics shelf and OSCE this past Friday have turned me into a mess of indecisiveness with the inability to do anything at all. Which is exactly the opposite of the reaction one should have with such a full to-do list.
...And I'm one of the lucky ones! I've decided on what I want to do with my life (for now, anyway). The people who still don't know what specialty they want to go into have it much harder around this time because they have to figure out all this stuff and also decide what they're going to be when they grow up. We've now rotated through four out of the six main specialties, and I like to group the people who are still undecided into two groups:
Positive Polly (or Positive Pablo, let's not be sexist) and Negative Nancy (...or Negative Norbert). Positive Polly looooooves every specialty so freaking much and can't posssssibly be expected to make a decision between them. On the other side, Negative Nancy has not found anything yet that she could actually imagine doing for her whoooole entire life.
So those of you who are undecided, where do you fit in? Or is there a middle ground somewhere? (Just kidding, there's no gray area - you HAVE TO CHOOSE ONE.)
I'm so intrigued at you having to pick while you're still a student. In the UK, we can't apply to specialise until we're in our second year after graduating. Picking at medschool wouldn't make much difference - everybody does the same medical degree. You can pick a couple of special modules that have very little bearing on your career. You pick your elective, but that's only 6 weeks, the rest of the 5 years is the same for everyone, so no need to decide.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you have to decide so early?!
We also all have the same med school (except for a few electives), but you have to decide while you're in medical school because after you graduate, you do your residency in a specific field - either medicine, or surgery, or emergency, etc. And we apply during our fourth (and last) year of medical school, so you have to decide which kinds of programs you have to apply for.
ReplyDeleteI guess the way it works for you is that you all start your residency the same, and then specialize from there??