Specialties

After I gather all my thoughts, I'll write a more comprehensive post on what specialty I may pursue (after all, it is the most popular question at family gatherings over winter break). But for now, I wanted to write a bit about internal medicine.

Internal medicine was always a strong consideration for me. I love the diversity of cases, the problem solving, the intellectual nature, and the sheer excitement of diagnosis. It's fun. I could make a career of hunting zebras, and internal medicine may be the path to pursue that. I get along well with the medicine personality and mentality. I think I could be good at it. But there are many things I don't like about internal medicine. So many people go into it; it's common. I don't mind doing the same thing as others, but in considering a career in academia, making a niche in internal medicine is much harder than finding one in another specialty. Many people lament the poor reimbursement in internal medicine. While that's not a priority for me, it's something to think about.

Of course, there is a wide array of internal medicine subspecialties. Cardiology has always appealed to me because the heart is so fascinating. While ischemic heart disease and interventional cardiology doesn't draw me, I could easily see myself going into cardiac electrophysiology. Gastroenterology and pulmonology involve bodily fluids so they're out. I don't know enough about nephrology or hepatology. Endocrine and rheumatology are exciting specialties because they're not organ based; they offer a lot of diagnosis, zebras to manage, and problem solving. I really like hematology but I don't like medical oncology (at some point, I'll blog about my LCE heme/onc clinic). Infectious disease always interested me but I'm not sure if I'd pursue the training. I always thought I'd want to work with critical care patients, but I'm not sold on it yet.