Specialties List II

There are a bunch of ties here.

3. Emergency Medicine. Now this one is a surprise to me. I didn't come in with any draw to EM at all. But I have realized that diagnosis is extremely fun, and some of the best diagnosticians are emergency medicine physicians. There is a good mix of intellectual and procedural medicine; it can be exciting and fast paced. Although patient interaction is limited and you're nobody's "doctor," I'm not sure that would bother me too much. I like how anyone walking into an ED is treated, but there are issues with the finances of EDs. EM doctors do triage and stabilization; they are knowledgeable about much but masters of nothing, and I'm not sure I'd like that. Research possibilities are limited (it's mostly clinical). A lot of people praise the lifestyle; I'm not sure that's a big influence for me. I'm iffy on the patient population.

3. Internal Medicine -> Cardiology. I think cardiology is fascinating, and the sub-subspecialties really appeal to me (interventional, electrophysiology). It's highly competitive, well compensated, but mostly, the heart is just a great organ. The field also appeals to me as it is highly evidence-based.

4. Internal Medicine -> Hematology. This is entirely due to my classroom conception of heme; I really don't have a good idea of what hematologists do. I'm not sure I would want to do oncology, but I might end up doing the paired training anyway.

4. Pathology. I'm pretty unlikely to go this route as I love working with patients directly. However, the intellectual excitement of pathology is still quite tempting. It works well with research and teaching, two things I'm interested in. I'm no good with histology, and I'm iffy on anatomy, but I think I could find my niche somewhere (maybe ID or heme areas).

Specialties that are noticeably missing include pediatric and surgical fields. I think this is reflective of a lack of exposure to those fields; I'll figure more out later. I was originally pretty partial to opthalmology because it is fun, procedural, intellectual, well-compensated, and exportable, but I think it is too limited for me.