medical specialties pros and cons

[kmw]

Hi,

 

I am a second-year med student. I am trying to learn more about all the medical specialties out there, and hopefully narrow down to a few that I might be interested in to further explore them. A friend of mine told me that there is a very good objective, critical evaluation written by Ian Wong on the pros and cons of the different specialities. However, I haven't been able to locate that. Can someone direct me to it, please?

 

Thanks,

kw

[Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

I'm sure Ian does have a great write-up on the various specialties, but I'm sorry, I don't know where that is. However, there are a great few books out there that can help with career-making decisions. There's a good one from the UK, "So You Want to Be a Brain Surgeon" and a few written by US authors. You might want to have a look in Amazon or ask your local medical school librarian.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Ian Wong]

I'm pretty sure that I've not written a post that covers this in detail, although I've commented about various specialties over the years, to the extent that I was exposed to them in med school. Here's a thread with links to websites about the different specialties, their pros and cons, and personality types.

 

http://www.premed101.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18093

 

Ian

[rad86]

hi kmw, I have a good feeling that I know who you are Regarding the pros and cons of specific specialties, you can look into the subforums under "Resources for Med School, Residencies, and Practising Physicians". There may not be a single comprehensive post about ALL the specialties out there, but people have given a lot of good information with respect to the ones they're interested in in the more specific categories, such as "Primary Care Residencies", "Surgery and Surgical Subspecialty Residencies", and "Diagnostics, Imaging, and Therapeutics Residencies". Just scroll down the main page and you'll see some awesome posts such as this one about radiology:

 

http://www.premed101.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13228

 

Have fun browsing!

 

PY

[kmw]

Thanks so much for the information! I'll check it out.

 

Actually, this is the first time I have found out about and used these forums for medical students, and they are great! I'll come back regularly.

 

Good luck with school!