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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Decisions, Decisions

I'm wondering what routes your husbands took that ended them up in Med School and what specialties they thought they might want to do before they ultimately deciding what residency they wanted to go into. (some of you are not to residency, but you can tell us what they are considering)

For instance: My husband always wanted to be a doctor. He participated in an organization that took him to the local hospital in high school to learn about medical fields. He got his first job in that same hospital after high school. He went through college earning a BS in Biology and Computer Science (his backup if Med school didn't work out), and got into med school after working for one year as a computer programmer for the state. Upon entering med school he toyed with the idea of becoming a surgeon (heart surgeon was one I remember him talking about) and then we had our son and he decided that was too busy for him. (He really likes his naps and family time). He wanted to do procedures and still be able to be in the surgery room, so he looked into Anesthesia--Pain Management specifically. He is now a PGY-3 in Anesthesia and applying to Interventional Pain programs...and loves it.

Labels: discussion question, specialty stuff

11 Comments:

davita said...: E always wanted to be a doctor with doing some type of construction as his back up. His mother has been a PICU nurse for forever. He shadowed in HS as a community service requirement. He grew up with a few kids whose dad were orthopods. He loved it. Went to college and got a B.S. in Bio Sci and a minor in Ancient History. He did almost 3 years of breast cancer research resulting in a ton pubs and posters. He started med school with the intention of doing ortho but was open to other specialties. He went through each service with gripes and complaints and then he got to his first ortho rotation. Even though he was q3 and "worked" easily a 100 hours a week for those 4 weeks, he loved. I am glad he loves it and does well. It makes the sacrifices at least worth while.; April 1, 2009 at 9:57 PM
Mrs. Dawkter said...: Well our story isn't as interesting because we're still students (and everything is far from certain). But DH was biology-preprofession (pre-med) for undergrad and then in between undergrad an med school he worked full time job to save money, worked as an EMT and shadowed an orthopedic surgeon. DH loves (and loves is an understatement) sports and also likes working with his hands so we we were thinking orthopedic surgery.
DH absolutely loved his surgery rotation, neurosurgery in particular. Nothing has gotten him nearly as excited. We also have looked into his second and third choices: ortho and cardio thoracic surgery but both of those are going to be pretty much the same as far as time committment and competitiveness... and as far as his enjoyment they don't come close. So we are going to apply to neurosurgery and hope for the best! (Its gonna be a long, hard crazy ride!)

(And sorry to hijack this post but I am also curious for those of you in residency did your DH apply to more than one specialty?); April 1, 2009 at 10:00 PM
Trisha said...: I remember those high school career days. I visited the local vet in town for the day, saw him stick his arm all the way up a cow's butt and immediately checked being a vet off my list.

Kyle took the long way around. He graduated college with a journalism degree, then decided he wanted to study guitar for a year (the rock star dream is a hard one to fight! :)), got a job in PR for a few years and decided he couldn't work behind a desk forever. He started taking classes at night and preparing to apply to med school.

He was set on working as a family practice doc in a small town from the very start. He fought his love of surgery the whole time and finally just went for it right before his 4th year of school. And here we are...; April 1, 2009 at 10:03 PM
Melisa said...: Brad has wanted to be a doctor since probably 6th grade. A long time.

He started out rural medicine for the first 2 years. During his MBA year he worked with a surgical dermatologist and got drawn into ENT. He just loved it. He spent his rotation years loving ENT and general surgery. He just wanted to be in an OR.

His first choice was ENT, but we didn't match, so we scrambled into general surgery. He loved it, but when a chance opened for ENT, he jumped at it (after a lot of fasting, praying, debating, etc).; April 1, 2009 at 11:46 PM
Anonymous said...: this is exciting to read about our different travels. Melissa, to answer your question, my hubby was set on Anesthesia. No other specialties applied for. :); April 2, 2009 at 12:25 AM
Tasha said...: Jeff grew up in a small town on a farm (his parents weren't really farmers but they have cows, chickens, pigs, etc.) and always wanted to be a vet (he didn't think he could stomach human medicine). There was a car accident in front of his house and he found that human medicine was more appealing. He thankfully got into med school right after college (BS in Biology) and when entering school thought cardio-thoracic or rural family medicine. I'm not a fan of the rural part of family medicine (but if you live in a city, it's harder to do procedures and he'd like to do those), but he hasn't started rotations quite yet, so we'll wait and see.; April 2, 2009 at 8:16 AM
Amanda said...: As far as I know, B always wanted to be a doctor. I met him in undergrad, and he was studying biology/chemistry as a double major. He started out thinking he'd go into rural family medicine, since he and I are both from rural towns, and he thought that would be a great way to help others. Then, one summer during undergrad, he did an externship awarded to him through his mother's hospital (she's a GI nurse). He rotated through various offices/fields, and found out that he really enjoyed surgery and OB. He also realized that family medicine sort of bored him (seeing the same things over and over again), and he really enjoyed working with patients at the beginning of their lives more than at the end. His new thoughts were confirmed during his rotations in medical school, and since OB/GYN is only a four year program (and it includes the surgery aspect), he decided that's what he wanted to do. He ended up matching to an amazing program, and left it such a competent and caring OB/GYN.; April 2, 2009 at 4:26 PM
botanybabe said...: hubby loves a challenge. he got good grades in college by betting friends that he could beat them...to get a Dr. Pepper. yeah, high stakes! he has always been drawn to peds, his godfather was a general, private practice ped, so he grew up near that. anyhoo, early on he realized that he hated clinic work...hospital was his home :) he loves science and medicine and so school was difficult b/c he would come home every other week wanting to do something else. but in the end, he would ask himself one question.... "can i live without peds, and move on to this other life" (whatever specialty he was currently thinking of). the answer was always NO. so we are now slated to a life of peds work. however, he will probably specialize so he will be in a hospital setting (critical care more than likely). hospitalist is another possibility. also, personality determines a lot of their decisions. hubby LOVES surgery but refuses to be around "those types of people" (and please i don't mean to offend, i know that is a major stereotype). in general, peds and family meds are known for their laid back, friendly-er personalities. so that also helped him decide. i always say, as with most all important decisions in life...you just know. if you don't, it isn't right.; April 3, 2009 at 10:17 AM
Melisa said...: Hey now, no dissin' surgeons! ;o) Let's say for the sake of argument that surgeons are like that, well then, they need some laid-back and friendly personalities to mellow them out and teach them a thing or two. It always cracks me up when people say Brad doesn't have a surgeon personality. I happen to think surgeons are hot. :o)

And, dear botanybabe, I was totally teasing about dissing surgeons. I've heard the stereotype a hundred times before. :o); April 3, 2009 at 11:36 AM
botanybabe said...: oh no i know! believe me...i am actually waiting to get permission to contribute. this has spurred me to want to start a post on specialty stereotypes and dealing with that. as a peds wife...we get TONS of reactions. mostly sympathy/insanity looks from the med world. "you DO know what you will get paid, right?" and jokes, oh the jokes. uh wait, the peds stereotypes are true ;) anyhoo, more on this (much more) for my future post.; April 3, 2009 at 2:43 PM
Melisa said...: haha! I look forward to your post, botanybabe. If you don't already have the invite, my email is linked under admins and I'll get you on. :o); April 3, 2009 at 2:49 PM

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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Decisions, Decisions

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