Choosing a Specialty

Here are some questions which you might want to consider as you try and decide which specialty you would like to end up in:

1. Amount of patient contact
   1. Low: anesthesia, pathology
   2. High: family medicine, psychiatry
2. Patient outcomes
   1. Get better: pediatrics, infectious disease
   2. Don’t: oncology, surgery (depends on area)
3. Salary
   1. I’d suggest you don’t worry too much about this – ‘enough’ depends on your lifestyle which is under your control.
4. Lifestyle
   1. Call – intensity, frequency (note that a group practice can minimise this)
   2. Oupatient vs hospital service
5. Variety of patients
   1. Geriatrics – all old
   2. General internal medicine – more varied
6. Length of training required
   1. I’d suggest you not worry too much about this – more important that you end up happy
7. Balance of thinking vs doing (ie ‘hands on’)
   1. Thinking: Internal medicine, psychiatry, neurology
   2. Doing – procedural: surgery, urology, anesthesia
8. Where you want to end up practicing
   1. Eg urban vs rural
   2. This can be VERY cyclical – eg GI is good now, but was lousy 5 yrs ago.
   3. General Internal medicine is currently in GREAT demand – you can write your ticket & be in any city right now.
9. Importance of Dr-Pt relationship in outcome
   1. High: Family medicine, internal medicine, psychiatry, oncology
   2. Low: Surgery, anesthesia.