Can you suggest specialties for me to shadow?

[mameds]

I'm a first year med student and I'm not sure which speciality would be a good fit for me. Here are few things about me: 

- I really enjoy building relationships with patients and helping them out as much as I can. I want to have long-term relationships with patients and see them recover/get better.

- I want to be part of the recovery/healing process  and I want to be able to see the results of my work.

- I appreciate listening to patients' stories and their perspective on things.

- I enjoy laying out options to patients and guiding them with decision making

- I enjoy fast paced environments and like to be kept busy most of the time during my work periods.

- I also appreciate time off and would like to maintain work life balance, in case I've family in future.

- although, I don't have much of research background, I really enjoy research and would describe myself as a scholarly person.

- I'm not really interested in family medicine, because I don't like  being a generalist,  and I'd prefer to be an expert in a specific field.

 

Can someone suggest specialties for me to shadow?

 

 

 

[Aetherus]

What’s missing here is if you like surgery vs medicine. You can find specialties in both that will meet your stated requirements. 

[Lactic Folly]

Shadow everything that you can, even if you don't feel like it's a strong consideration, so that your decision making can be grounded in more firsthand experience. To me, fast-paced environment and listening to patients' stories are a little at odds with each other.

[mameds]

1 minute ago, Aetherus said:

What’s missing here is if you like surgery vs medicine. You can find specialties in both that will meet your stated requirements. 

I have been in the OR and I don't mind it, but I'm not sure if I like standing for 4-5 hours during long surgeries.

[mameds]

6 minutes ago, Lactic Folly said:

Shadow everything that you can, even if you don't feel like it's a strong consideration, so that your decision making can be grounded in more firsthand experience. To me, fast-paced environment and listening to patients' stories are a little at odds with each other.

By fast paced, I mean I want to be able to interact with many patients per day.

I like seeing pts for a longer time, but I want to see lots of patients per day.

I have shadowed certain specialties, where docs only sees 1 or 2 patients in the entire morning. That's very slow for me.

[#YOLO]

family medicine .... 40-60 pts a day. ur set

[Monkey D. Luffy]

33 minutes ago, mameds said:

By fast paced, I mean I want to be able to interact with many patients per day.

I like seeing pts for a longer time, but I want to see lots of patients per day.

I have shadowed certain specialties, where docs only sees 1 or 2 patients in the entire morning. That's very slow for me.

I'd say most clinic specialties do see lots of patients per day or allow a niche that lets them see lots of patients per day. I know that this is the case in most IM subspecialties, ophtho, obstetrics, etc.

Honestly even specialties like psych and neuro where they generally spend a lot of time with patients (and thus see fewer in a day) have subspecialty clinics that are really high volume.

I think if that's the environment you want, you can create that for yourself in most specialties.

[Edict]

1 hour ago, mameds said:

I'm a first year med student and I'm not sure which speciality would be a good fit for me. Here are few things about me: 

- I really enjoy building relationships with patients and helping them out as much as I can. I want to have long-term relationships with patients and see them recover/get better.

- I want to be part of the recovery/healing process  and I want to be able to see the results of my work.

- I appreciate listening to patients' stories and their perspective on things.

- I enjoy laying out options to patients and guiding them with decision making

- I enjoy fast paced environments and like to be kept busy most of the time during my work periods.

- I also appreciate time off and would like to maintain work life balance, in case I've family in future.

- although, I don't have much of research background, I really enjoy research and would describe myself as a scholarly person.

- I'm not really interested in family medicine, because I don't like  being a generalist,  and I'd prefer to be an expert in a specific field.

 

Can someone suggest specialties for me to shadow?

 

 

 

I would suggest shadowing internal medicine and its subspecialties, pediatrics, neurology, obs/gyn.

In order to help decide, I would try to see if you like kids or adults, but i definitely see you in internal medicine and subspecialties, pediatrics or family medicine (you can find a niche in family too). 

[Aetherus]

My suggestion to every first year is to shadow the super competitive specialties first (Derm, Optho, Plastics etc) to rule them out off the bat. If you rule these out you have time to figure out what you want to do. On the other hand, if you realize you really like the specialty, you’ve figure it out early and you can take the appropriate steps to be competitive. Both Ophtho and Derm have high volume clinics that you might enjoy. Ophtho you have the added benefit that you built long term relationships with your patients while still being a surgical specialty.

[1D7]

If you only see 1-2 patients per day, that's a choice you make when structuring your career. There's always more to be done in medicine.

Anyway, even though you're essentially describing FM/IM & subspecialties/peds, I would suggest seeing everything first, since people often change minds.

[Snowmen]

You should shadow psych/PM&R/med-oncology/rad-oncology for the relationship aspect.

[Lactic Folly]

3 hours ago, mameds said:

I like seeing pts for a longer time, but I want to see lots of patients per day.

This also seems incompatible with family time.

[Aconitase]

Intensive care!!

[OwnerOfTheTARDIS]

I agree that you might like psych or internal, but I would also look into focused family medicine practices. There are family doctors who “specialize” and set up practices pramarily oriented to pain management, maternity care, geriatrics, paediatrics, OR assist, ER, lumps and bumps, prison medicine, hospitalist work, etc. 

This could combine your desire to have an area of expertise, follow patients long term and learn their stories, see lots of patient per day, and have a good work life balance.