It's been a while since I've written, mainly because I haven't felt like anything noteworthy has happened. I'm currently doing my medicine rotation and enjoying it far more than I thought I would. I'm not sure where I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't like medicine, but I carried that prejudice with me for most of the first half of this year. I have done one inpatient rotation at a local private hospital, as well as an acute care rotation at the VA. I have to say, the VA rotation was pretty cush. 8-330 everyday is a pretty nice schedule. It's going to be hard to get used to getting up early and rounding all day again.
Medicine has been a pretty pleasant surprise. In fairness, however, I was at an outside hospital with residents who let me act somewhat like a sub-intern, so I learned a lot without having to spend all day rounding. I doubt that I will enjoy the endless cogitating and head scratching that constitutes the in-patient medicine at our university hospital.
We are currently in the midst of planning our fourth year schedules which is pretty daunting. All of a sudden I have to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Since before starting med-school, I've always thought I'd be an anesthesiologist and am still about 90% sure that's what I want. There's a nagging 10% though, that is thinking hard about cardiology. We had a really cool grand rounds lecture this morning on the physiology of the heart and it was more interesting than anything I"ve heard in a long time. I'm thinking hard about putting a cardio elective early in my 4th year in order to muddy the waters. Cardiology has a few problems with it, however. It's a longer road than anesthesia by 1-3 years (depending on if I do a fellowship after anesthesia), and I have to outcompete my other fellow Medicine residents to make it in. I'm pretty tired of competing and jumping through hoops. On the up-side, however, it's really fascinating, acute, and heavy on physiology.
I have one more month of medicine before I start my two three week anesthesia electives this spring. I guess after that I should have a better idea of whether I want to spend my professional life doing anesthesia.
1 comment:
I am going to be 62 next month and I still have not deciede what I want to be when I grow up. Maybe being activly involved with your patient would be more fun that watching people sleep. If what you decide to do ends up "going to work" then you may have made the wrong choice. Go where your passion is and you won't be going to work. Good luck.
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