Deciding between Surgery and Medicine

[StefanL]

Hello people,

I hear surgery and medicine is a problem you have to get out of the way early. Ideally, I'd want to be a surgeon, however, the concern for me is the physical side of the career. If I get arthritis later on, for example, then surgery is going to be difficult. Medicine seems like a safer bet at a prolonged career. 

How did you guys decide? 

Thanks!!!!

[#YOLO]

dont do medicine all together if you care about lifestyle. switch out while ur early.

[freewheeler]

Dude you're worrying about potentially getting arthritis decades down the road as preventing you from choosing a potential career?

Are you even in medicine yet?

Reflect on what aspects of a career are important to you: work/life balance, autonomy, amount of bureaucracy, procedural or not, location, patient population, etc.

Get exposure to different fields that pique your interest. Shadowing can help, but I'd say electives and rotations are likely to be more informative.

You should have a decent idea after that. 

[#YOLO]

if you want any work life balance, autonomy, and choice in location, most medical fields wont afford you this. 

[bearded frog]

The day to day of a general surgeon and an interest is quite different, just as it would be different for a family doc, but as you get to other specialties the lines blur. Get to the OR asap and see how you feel. Do you love scrubbing in? Do you love standing in the same spot while having to be careful about remaining sterile at the risk of being yelled at by scrub nurses? Do you like getting in at 6 am to round on your patients before the first case? Do you like not being able to do your work while having a coffee? Do you like having to do multiple fellowships to be able to get a job because you are limited by OR time which is provincially controlled? You get paid a bunch more but you can clearly see where my thought process went and why I chose what I did!

[NLengr]

6 hours ago, bearded frog said:

The day to day of a general surgeon and an interest is quite different, just as it would be different for a family doc, but as you get to other specialties the lines blur. Get to the OR asap and see how you feel. Do you love scrubbing in? Do you love standing in the same spot while having to be careful about remaining sterile at the risk of being yelled at by scrub nurses? Do you like getting in at 6 am to round on your patients before the first case? Do you like not being able to do your work while having a coffee? Do you like having to do multiple fellowships to be able to get a job because you are limited by OR time which is provincially controlled? You get paid a bunch more but you can clearly see where my thought process went and why I chose what I did!

To be fair, once you are a surgical resident beyond the first couple of months the scrub nurses rarely get mad at you about things.  They tend to pick on the med students about things  

 

You also pretty quickly get used to staying sterile and don't need to actively think about it. Kind of like how after a few weeks of driving a manual transmission you don't actively think about shifting gears anymore. 

The hours suck during residency and its busy as a staff but you won't be going in at 6 am everyday as a staff. You only have a couple people to see (if anyone) and you can do it just before the days starts or between cases. I usually will show up at 8:15 on my OR days (we start at 8:30). If I have an inpatient or two I might show up at 7:45 or 8. 

[indefatigable]

.

[Bambi]

You select a field that will be fulfilling to you professionally, one that you look forward to each day. Disability insurance covers you if you are no longer able to perform your responsibilities up to standard. Safer bet? I know surgeons in their late 60s who are going strong. I am a 3rd year resident in surgery. I swim with the sharks, ski where others might not due to the risk factor, I live my life with excitement, enjoy challenges and certainly did not even think of what might be a safer bet, I don't understand this thinking.

[indefatigable]

.

[shogun91]

For me I think the job market is the bigger deciding factor between medicine and surgery (if one wants to stay in Canada). Job prospects in surgical fields are quite bleak and it doesn't seem like they are going to get better for the foreseeable future. When I was rotating in a surgical subspecialty it seemed like the training was endless for the residents. Taking 2-4 years for a masters or phd was normal on top of the 5 years of residency, not to mention doing a fellowship or two afterwards. Doing all of that (approximately a decade) and STILL having to face extreme competition for a shit selection of job sprinklings doesn't seem to make the long hours/years of residency less stressful or worth it. If you want to go the U.S. on the other hand...

[Med0123]

2 hours ago, shogun91 said:

For me I think the job market is the bigger deciding factor between medicine and surgery (if one wants to stay in Canada). Job prospects in surgical fields are quite bleak and it doesn't seem like they are going to get better for the foreseeable future. When I was rotating in a surgical subspecialty it seemed like the training was endless for the residents. Taking 2-4 years for a masters or phd was normal on top of the 5 years of residency, not to mention doing a fellowship or two afterwards. Doing all of that (approximately a decade) and STILL having to face extreme competition for a shit selection of job sprinklings doesn't seem to make the long hours/years of residency less stressful or worth it. If you want to go the U.S. on the other hand...

That is what happens if you are geographically restricted to the GTA/Vancouver/Montreal

[NLengr]

3 hours ago, Med0123 said:

That is what happens if you are geographically restricted to the GTA/Vancouver/Montreal

I agree. If you aren't restricting yourself to DT Toronto than you can get a job at almost all other places with residency and one fellowship for most specialties  (ortho, neurosurg, cardiac Surg not included). Smaller places might not even require a fellowship. 

The job market is tight but if you are flexible on location and practice type you can find work.

 

[NLengr]

10 hours ago, Bambi said:

 I swim with the sharks, ski where others might not due to the risk factor, I live my life with excitement, enjoy challenges and certainly did not even think of what might be a safer bet, I don't understand this thinking.

I've stopped using a chainsaw recently. Partially because I want to avoid a career ending major hand injury, partially because I realized chainsaws are the most dangerous power tool ever invented. 

Seriously, if you got a committe together and tasked them to come up with the most dangerous machine they could think of they'd be hard pressed to top a chainsaw. 

[ploughboy]

On 10/9/2017 at 0:37 AM, NLengr said:

I've stopped using a chainsaw recently. Partially because I want to avoid a career ending major hand injury, partially because I realized chainsaws are the most dangerous power tool ever invented. 

Seriously, if you got a committe together and tasked them to come up with the most dangerous machine they could think of they'd be hard pressed to top a chainsaw. 

 

LOL. 

My first meeting with my hospital's former chief of staff was when my resident sewed up his leg after a chainsaw misadventure. 

I'm (stupidly?) currently going through the whole "Stihl vs Husky" debate now that I have a house and property and things that need chopping up.  

Gonna buy me some kevlar chaps, at least...