Subspecialty IM Selectives

[LookingForInfo]

Hey everyone!

 

I'm one of the incoming R1s for Internal Medicine (University of Alberta) and I was wondering if anyone had advice on which selectives were useful in their R1/R2/R3 years. I am looking to get a very well rounded experience with a focus on in-patients. I know "good" selectives/electives may be very school specific, but just a general sense of the type of learning for the subpsecialty would be great!

 

For me, I can rank 3 (choice of 1) for my R1 year from the following:

Infectious Diseases

Endocrinology

Rheumatology

Medical Oncology

Geriatrics

Emergency Medicine

Occupational Medicine

Palliative Care

 

Thanks!

[A-Stark]

I found emerg to be pretty fun and - especially - good for my time management skills. On the downside, it means occasionally having to deal with PV bleeding and back pain. It won't help much at all with in-patient management experience.

 

Of the rest I'd say ID as second choice and the third choice could be any really.

[LookingForInfo]

I found emerg to be pretty fun and - especially - good for my time management skills. On the downside, it means occasionally having to deal with PV bleeding and back pain. It won't help much at all with in-patient management experience.

 

Of the rest I'd say ID as second choice and the third choice could be any really.

 

Thanks for the advice!

 

Just wondering what do you think of Med Onc a selective? I feel like it would be superspecialized unless you were interested in pursuing it as a career, but it is an interesting field!

[A-Stark]

I can't say much about it yet as I've only done one day. I'm doing wards which is pretty light because there really aren't that many patients. Which works for me! It only takes one sick patient to dominate your time though.

 

In general I do think it's definitely on the side of being overspecialized for PGY1, but you'll get lots of generalist, cardio, nephro exposure on other rotations. It's worth knowing about anyway.